Lucasfilm putting the Star Wars movies 'on hiatus' after this year

After The Force Awakens, the Force is going to rest again and recuperate.

Star Wars movies are going on hiatus while the Lucasfilm team focuses on Disney+ streaming shows and examines ways to keep creating new films that cover unexplored territory.

There won’t be a new Star Wars film next year. And probably not the year after that either.

“We’re going to take a hiatus for a couple of years,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy tells EW. “And we’re taking the time to really look at where this is going from the standpoint of a saga.”

She said the creative brain trust will take that time to map out a wider narrative strategy. “We’re not just looking at what the next three movies might be, or talking about this in terms of a trilogy. We’re looking at: What is the next decade of storytelling?”

Not all projects are being canceled. A new series of movies fromThe Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson are still part of the plan, as are new films from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

In fact, she revealed they are working in tandem. “As they finish Game of Thrones, they’re going to segue into Star Wars,” Kennedy said. “They’re working very closely with Rian.”

This December’s Episode IX — now known as The Rise of Skywalker — will mark a conclusion to the Skywalker saga, she said, and with books, comics, TV shows, and movies mining every moment of that era for stories, it may be time to venture into distant timelines.

It’ll still be a galaxy far, far away, but the new tales may be set an even longer time ago.

“Yes, absolutely. I think that that’s absolutely on the horizon,” she said. “We’re looking at whether we can move massively in one direction of the other. It’s still Star Wars, and holding on to the DNA of what George created is still very important to us.”

“I think this is a huge opportunity to step into the galaxy in a little bit different part of the timeline,” Kennedy added.

In addition to J.J. Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker, the Disney+ series The Mandalorian from Iron Man filmmaker Jon Favreau, and a new galactic spy series focused on Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor from Rogue One, Kennedy also said she is on the hunt for new talent and storytellers.

“We have a series of filmmakers that we’re bringing into the fold, that we can start to look at as directing talent, and we’re trying to bring women into the mix as well,” she said. “We’re making it very inclusive with the group of people that we’re pulling together.”

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