We had fairly strong suspicions last week when JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot production company tweeted a photo of the director with everyone’s favourite astromech droid, but now it’s official  – R2D2 will be back in Star Wars Episode VII.

The news, announced on starwars.com confirmed the droid’s appearance in the sequel. Following a whole year of rumours and the occasional announcement regarding behind the camera talent, the confirmation of R2 is the first official confirmation of, well anything that will actually be appearing onscreen.

The announcement was accompanied by the news that the droid will be built and operated by two fans, Lee Towersey and Oliver Steeples. The duo, who were featured in the photo alongside producer and Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy are members of the R2D2 Builders Club.

The pair, who build fully functioning astromech droids, were spotted by Kennedy at the Star Wars Celebration Europe this summer and have subsequently been hired to work on the film, due out in 2015.

This of course means there’s hope for all us fans. So all of us still bitter over the fact we missed out on the recent open auditions purely on the basis that we’re too old, can’t act and utterly wrong for the part, can take solace in the fact that there may still be a role for us behind the scenes. For our part we can do a semi-convincing lightsabre noise. Where do we sign up?

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