‘Last Jedi’ director Rian Johnson to oversee new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy

LOS ANGELES – The galaxy far, far away is expanding further on screen with a new trilogy of “Star Wars” films outside of the ongoing Skywalker saga, Walt Disney Co said Thursday, to be overseen by Rian Johnson, the director of the franchise’s upcoming film “The Last Jedi.”

Johnson, 43, will write and direct the first of a new “Star Wars” trilogy that will bring new characters and worlds not yet explored on screen, Disney said.

”He’s a creative force, and watching him craft ‘The Last Jedi’ from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy,” Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, said in a statement.

Disney said no release dates have been set for the new trilogy. In addition to the new film trilogy, Disney’s CEO Bob Iger said during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday that a “Star Wars” live-action TV series was also being developed for the company’s upcoming streaming service.

Johnson was brought on to write and direct the second film in Disney’s rebooted trilogy of the Skywalker stories, which George Lucas first brought to screen in 1977.