Jon Watts is officially returning to the galaxy far, far away.
The director behind Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy (Homecoming, Far From Home, No Way Home) and co-creator of Star Wars TV show Skeleton Crew has been chose by Lucasfilm to continue the Skywalker Saga beyond Episode IX.
Star Wars‘ New Skywalker Trilogy Taps Spider-Man Vet Jon Watts To Direct
Per Deadline, Lucasfilm hopes to kick off a fresh trilogy, the first installment of which will be written by veteran X-Men producer and Star Wars Rebels co-creator Simon Kinberg, whose prospective involvement with the film side of the franchise goes back over a decade. News of him writing and producing a new trio of projects (i.e. Episodes X through XII) broke in 2024.
“He segued into this space beautifully. We’re really excited about where that’s headed,” outgoing Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy told Deadline last year. “This is the next iteration, the new saga that moves us into the future.”
Kinberg teased his approach to ScreenRant in August 2025, explaining the goal is to strike “a balance between big, epic science fiction storytelling with really intimate, dramatic character work.”
“My favorite of the Star Wars movies is Empire Strikes Back, and it’s because the balance between the epic and the intimate is so strong in that they’re such personal stories,” he continued. “The stakes are really personal, and yet, obviously, there’s all kinds of great science fiction. I think Andor did an extraordinary job of that, as well. It was such an emotional, intense, personal show that also had, obviously, massive stakes to it, and politics, and all of that.”
Watts adheres to the same philosophy.
As his longtime screenwriting partner and Skeleton Crew co-creator Christopher Ford told SYFY Wire in 2022, “No matter the incredible premise, just try to do right from the characters’ perspectives. Kids lost in the Star Wars galaxy; what would they actually do? What would you do? Figure it out from there, one step at a time.”
Of course, fans have to wonder what direction in which the next era will go. Will it, for example, follow up with Rey Skywalker (Daisy Ridley) or opt for another protagonist entirely? There are zero details at this time, with Deadline reporting that the studio hasn’t even handed down a green-light yet.
The next Star Wars title slated for a big screen rollout is Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling’s Star Wars: Starfighter, written by Your Friends & Neighbors creator Jonathan Tropper.
Wholly unrelated to the Skywalker mythology, the movie—which also stars Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Amy Adams, Simon Bird, Daniel Ings and newcomer Flynn Gray—arrives in theaters everywhere May 28, 2027.
