J.J. Abrams Talks About Rian Johnson's Script For STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII

It's finally happening. Star Wars: The Force Awakens premieres in Hollywood tonight and Joey and I will be seeing it at a press screening tomorrow, so we'll have plenty of thoughts for you in the coming days, including a spoiler-free review at midnight on Tuesday (12:01am Wednesday) and then a spoiler-filled discussion piece after the movie officially opens. I know writer/director J.J. Abrams will be thrilled to see the film open so he won't have to contain all of its secrets any longer, and he'll be back as an executive producer on the next two movies in the saga trilogy.

The next film, Star Wars: Episode VIII, is being written and directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper), and though Kennedy spoke very briefly about that in the recent press conference, I haven't heard Abrams talk too much about the sequel since he's been so busy with his own movie. But /Film spoke with him about developing the new trilogy, starting with writing the screenplay for The Force Awakens:

We don’t write a treatment but there are countless times we came up with something and said “oh, this would be so great for Episode VIII!” or “Thats what we could get to in IX!” It was just that kind of forward moving story. But we knew this had to neither be a backwards moving nostalgic trip only nor a beginning of a movie without a satisfying conclusion, and that was part of the balancing act — embracing what we have inherited and using that where and whenever possible to tell a story that hasn’t been seen yet. We also knew that certain things were inevitable in our minds but that didn’t mean it would be inevitable for whoever came in next.

When Rian who I admire enormously and adore, came on board, we met and talked with him about all the things we were working on and playing with, and he as a spectacular writer and director has taken those things and has written an AMAZING script that I think will be an incredible next chapter, some of which incorporating things we were thinking of and other things are things we could never of dreamed of.

I'll have a piece for you later today on why the future of the Star Wars franchise is very exciting, but for now, let me just say that I don't think this is your typical Hollywood B.S. from Abrams. I don't doubt Johnson truly has written an amazing script and I'm thrilled to see how the trilogy continues after The Force Awakens. As soon as everyone rabidly consumes Abrams' movie, Star Wars fans are going to be thinking about nothing but Episode VIII until 2017.