Simon Kinberg is heading into a galaxy far, far away, having signed an expansive deal to both write and produce a new Star Wars feature trilogy for Lucasfilm.
Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy will also produce the trilogy. The new story is not intended as a continuation of the Skywalker Saga, state sources, referring to the overall arc of Star Wars Episodes 1 through 9. This trilogy would bring in new characters and a wholly new story, though some characters from previous features may well pop up.
This marks Kinberg’s return to the space opera franchise after co-creating the animated series Star Wars: Rebels with Dave Filoni and Carrie Beck. The Emmy-nominated series’ four-season run ended in 2018. He also worked as a consultant on 2015’s The Force Awakens.
Simon Kinberg is one of the most high-profile writer-producers currently working: as well as helping Paramount to develop their upcoming Star Trek franchise entries, he is also about to go into production on Edgar Wright’s remake of the Stephen King tale The Running Man, also for Paramount.
The next Star Wars project to make it to screens will be the television series Skeleton Crew, which will debut on Disney+ on December 3rd.