Some of the best news yet regarding our favourite long-time-ago-far-far-away galaxy just got announced. Acclaimed writer/director Rian Johnson has been called up to helm Episodes VIII and IX of the keenly anticipated Star Wars sequel trilogy.
He’ll take over from another writer/director, J.J. Abrams, who’s in charge of Episode VII, and while he’s a less familiar name in sci fiwe’re calling it now: he’s gonna smash it out of the park. Why? Well, he’s proved he can do high concept with Looper, one of the darkest and most interesting time travel movies we’ve seen; and his more recent turns as director of the highlight Breaking Bad episodes “Fly” and “Ozymandias” show just how good he is at creating visually arresting set-pieces and gripping action sequences.
This news comes just after the announcement Domhnall Gleeson – aka your boy Bill Weasley – has been cast in Episode VII. There’s little concrete info yet on who he’ll play, although most online speculation’s been focused on the prospect of him playing Luke Skywalker’s son. Except if you ask my Pedestrian colleague Alasdair Duncan, who sent me this supremely nerdy email:
“Looking at the dude, he HAS to be playing some kind of Obi-Wan descendant… It’s totally conceivable that Ewan M might have swapped mitichlorians with some nice lady after episode 3 wrapped up and sired an Obi-Wan Snow-like bastard.”
You heard it here first.
Image via Kevin Winter for Getty Images Entertainment
