Star wars IX

The ninth Star Wars film to be composed by John Williams. Williams has stated this will be his final Star Wars film.

Producers had a bigger role planned for Leia, prior to the death of Carrie Fisher. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy remarked, "[Carrie] grabbed me and said, 'I'd better be at the forefront of IX!' Because Harrison was front and center on VII, and Mark is front and center on VIII. She thought IX would be her movie. And it would have been." After her passing, family members Todd Fisher and Billie Lourd granted Disney and Lucasfilm permission to use Carrie's likeness in the form of unused footage, however at Star Wars Celebration 2017 Kennedy stated that she would sadly not appear at all in the film.

First movie of the series to be shot on 65mm film.

Billy Dee Williams has heavily expressed interest in reprising his role as Lando Calrissian. Rian Johnson considered using him in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), but decided that it wouldn't fit well in the story.

Colin Trevorrow was announced as the director in August 2015 with Derek Connolly and Jack Thorne writing the script, but Trevorrow stepped down before production began. J.J. Abrams was announced as the new director in December 2017, with Abrams and Chris Terrio writing the script.

This is the second Star Wars film to have its director replaced. The first was Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), which replaced Phil Lord and Christopher Miller with Ron Howard.

J.J. Abrams is the second director to direct multiple Star Wars films. The first being series creator George Lucas.

The initial working title of this film was "Star Wars: Black Diamond". However, on June 2018, the working title was changed to "trIXie".

Simon Kinberg wrote the earliest story outline for the film, which was scrapped after the stories for the previous two films were heavily altered from their early versions.

Will be released on December 20, 2019. Episodes VII and VIII were both released in December 2015 and 2017, respectively. The original release date of Episode IX of May 24, 2019 was delayed after director Colin Trevorrow was replaced by J.J. Abrams in September 2017, facing a similar fate to the other Sequel Trilogy Films with their releases (being pushed from May to December). This was likely done for consistency purposes.

Will be released the same year as the other anticipated epic finale films with Marvel's Untitled Avengers Movie (2019)

It was rumoured that Disney was considering using the same CGI techniques used in Rogue One to have Carrie Fisher in this movie, but they have since denied it.

Will be released 20 years after Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

The sequel trilogy will become the first trilogy in the Star Wars saga where all three films will be released in the same decade.

Is the 2nd Star Wars Film to release the same year as a film in Disney/Pixar's Toy Story Franchise, of which has featured a good amount of Star Wars Spoofs. The first had been Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999).

Is the only film in the Sequel Trilogy to not release the same year as a film in Illumination's Despicable Me franchise. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) released the same year as the spinoff film Minions (2015), and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) released the same year as Despicable Me 3 (2017).