The eighth chapter in the Star Wars saga will hit movie theaters on May 26, 2017, Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger announced today at a shareholder meeting. Star Wars: Episode VIII will be written and directed by Rian Johnson, the director of Looper and Brick.
Star Wars: Episode VIII will hit theaters 40 years and one day after the first Star Wars film debuted in 1977. And it will follow the series' seventh episode, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, just 17 months after that film hits theaters this December.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and Ram Bergman, producer of Looper, Don Jon, Brick and The Brothers Bloom, are on board to produce.
Disney also announced today that the first stand-alone Star Wars film, Rogue One, hits theaters Dec. 16, 2016.