All eyes are on Rogue One over at the Executive offices at LucasFilm. According to Kathleen Kennedy, the studio is waiting to see how fans respond to Rogue One, which outside of the absence of the traditional opening crawl, is due to be a very different film. In speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Kennedy said that discussions for the future of the brand are still on-going, and what direction it takes after the conclusion of Episode IX, is still up in the air.
She said:
"That’s a conversation going on right now, too. I have to honestly tell you, could we [do nothing but stand-alones]? Sure. But I don’t know. We are looking at all of that."
She continued:
"There are [possible movies] that we have been talking a lot about. But we are planning to sit down in January, since we will have had The Force Awakens released, now Rogue One, and we’ve finished shooting Episode VIII. We have enough information where we can step back a little bit and say, What are we doing? What do we feel is exciting? And what are some of the things we want to explore?"
There are many different avenues that Star Wars could explore should the studio decide to go into full stand-alone mode for the franchise. What that would pretty much mean, is that Star Wars could more or less copy the Marvel/DC formula by releasing a number of separate films that all tie loosely together in some form or another. It's a proven method that people have responded well to, though there's vast potential for it to suffer from the fatigue of doing the exact same thing another major brand is doing.
Personally, my money is on a remake of the original and prequel trilogies at some point. It seems to me that the logical thing to do is wait for the likes of Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover get older and closer to the age that their respective characters are during the events of the original trilogy. And then in that time, gradually fill the roles of the other major characters via their own spin-off films before coming together for the full-blown remake.
If it made money for Marvel, it'll do it for LucasFilm. Book it.
Source: [Entertainment Weekly]
