Star Wars Episode VIII Director Revealed

The new Star Wars trilogy is indeed going full speed ahead.

And surprise, surprise. The director for Episode VIII will not be J. J. Abrams. Instead, it will be Looper's writer-director Rian Johnson who will not only direct, but also write.

I'm a huge fan of Looper. It was one of my top 5 favourite movies of 2012. Johnson has two other movies which I will have to check out now, The Brothers Bloom and Brick. Especially the latter because that's the first time he's worked with Joseph Gordon-Levitt; and seeing how Looper turned out, I really want to see that first collaboration.

I have to admit that I expected J. J. Abrams to direct at least another Episode, but I have no qualms about not having the same director for a trilogy. Look at The Dark Knight Trilogy, that last one was a slight let down because speculations had it that Christopher Nolan was burnt out with the project and was already eager to start Interstellar.

So changing director is okay as long as the result is a good one. In this case, a great one because Star Wars movies have to be great from here on out.

Johnson now joins the group of seemingly elite young directors into the Disney / Lucasfilm fold that so far consists of Abrams, Gareth Edwards and Josh Trank. Exciting times.

Watch this video clip from Philip Kaufman's 1983 movie The Right Stuff, tweeted by Johnson himself as his response to after the news broke.