With the final trailer expected during Monday Night Football on October 9, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now in its final stages of production… and we mean really final. Writer/director Rian Johnson (Looper, Brick) has posted to his Instagram that the eighth chapter in the Star Wars Saga has officially wrapped post-production!
So does that mean that all their work is done three full months before the film premieres? Hardly. With a big film like this doing a huge worldwide launch, Lucasfilm now has the arduous task of dubbing the film for dozens of countries, as well as getting the promotional juggernaut rolling for cast and crew. It’s also possible John Williams may still have final music tweaks, ILM may still be rendering effects, and other minor corrections.
However, one big question still remains: What does this mean for Episode IX, which only just signed J.J. Abrams to direct and co-write with Chris Terrio a few weeks ago? When Abrams was completing The Force Awakens, Johnson had the luxury of asking him to change a few things like having R2-D2 on Ahch-To island instead of BB-8. Before Colin Trevorrow was fired from directing Episode IX, he asked Johnson to make some changes to Last Jedi, but now much-if-not-all his story work may have been scrapped. That means Abrams (who still acted as a hands-off producer on The Last Jedi) will be forced to work within the guidelines of whatever trajectory Johnson has now locked in for the characters in the final chapter.
In Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of The Force Awakens join the galactic legends in an epic adventure that unlocks age-old mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past.
The film stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is written and directed by Rian Johnson and produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Ram Bergman. J.J. Abrams, Tom Karnowski and Jason McGatlin are the executive producers.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens in U.S. theaters on December 15, 2017.
