While excitement has been building since late last year for the next installment of the Star Wars franchise, we now have details regarding what will happen AFTER The Force Awakens hits theaters.

We’ve known for a while now that the revived Star Wars franchise wouldn’t stick to the classic “episode” structure, but we now have confirmation and an announcement for the first Star Wars spinoff titled Rogue One. The movie will be directed by Gareth Edwards (Godzilla) and written by Chris Weitz (Cinderella). No plot details have been announced yet, but Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) will be the lead actress. The film will open December 16, 2016.

In addition to the spinoff confirmation, it was revealed that Rian Johnson (Looper) will write and direct Star Wars: Episode VIII. The movie will be released May 26, 2017, which is ironically forty years and a day after the release of Star Wars: A New Hope which came out in 1997.

Check out the full announcement here.

Reaction

There isn’t too much here that wasn’t already in the rumor mill, but this is still pretty exciting. It’s great they got Felicity Jones to sign on to the spinoff. I haven’t seen Theory of Everything yet, but it will definitely bring some good star power to the movie. What is interesting, however, is that title. Rogue One. It sounds a lot like “Slave One,” which was the name of Boba Fett’s starship. Perhaps this movie is about Mandalorians? That’s definitely an idea I could get behind. But there were no plot details released, so it could mean anything.

In addition to that, it seems like they got someone with talent to direct Episode VIII. Looper was a great movie, and I can see how Johnson could turn the Star Wars universe into something interesting. Johnson also directed an episode for Breaking Bad called Ozymandias. For those of you who don’t watch the show: that’s arguably the best episode of the entire series.

What do you think of these announcements?