BREAKING NEWS!
Rian Johnson, director of amazing movies such as BRICK and LOOPER is going to write/direct STAR WARS EPISODE 8 and 9!
I know, right?
As a fan of Rian Johnson's films, this is some mind-blowing news. BRICK redefined and reinvigorated the noir film for me in a time when procedural cop shows had all but degraded what made investigative stories interesting. LOOPER was the first time-travel film I've seen since Back to the Future 2 that didn't make me hate time-travel (and was a bad-ass movie). Now, he's going to be taking the reigns of one of the most monumental sci-fi properties of all time. The Force is going to get pretty goddamn trippy, friends.
If you have never seen a Rian Johnson movie, I highly recommend hitting up Netflix or Redbox or Amazon and downloading a copy ASAP. BRICK and LOOPER, in particular are fantastic movies that embrace wholly the genres they represent, and twist them appropriately to make them stand out from others of their ilk. With that in mind, one can hardly begin to speculate how Johnson may twist the Star Wars universe on it's head. Not to mention, with the exception of some phenomenal television work, Johnson traditionally works solely on properties and characters he's created. This endeavor will be an interesting mix of his television directing experiences and working on his own movies as he will be working with characters he didn't create, in a setting that is previously established by other movies, but he WILL be both writing and directing these two films.
I find myself dumbfounded even trying to guess what might come with these movies, but I have no doubt following JJ Abrams' episode 7 that these will be unique sci-fi experiences and for the first time in a long long time, I am looking forward to Star Wars sequels.
Keep on writing,