Eight years after The Rise of Skywalker closed the book on Rey’s first arc, Lucasfilm is reportedly cracking open the Skywalker Saga again — and the director in the chair is a familiar name from Marvel’s web-slinging corner of the galaxy.
Deadline confirmed that Jon Watts, the filmmaker behind the MCU Spider-Man trilogy and co-creator of Disney+’s Skeleton Crew, has been tapped to direct the opening chapter of a new Skywalker Saga trilogy. Simon Kinberg, whose credits stretch from X-Men features to Prime’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith and early development on Star Wars Rebels, is writing the scripts. Industry chatter still has Daisy Ridley circling a return as Rey, which would stitch this new trilogy directly onto the sequel era rather than treating it as a soft reboot.
That continuity pitch is the interesting part. Since 2019, Star Wars has thrived on side stories — Andor, The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and the upcoming theatrical Starfighter (May 2027) — while the main saga sat idle. A Watts-directed trilogy would put the franchise’s central mythology back on the big screen, with a director known for large-scale spectacle that still leaves room for character. Whether Disney greenlights the full trilogy remains the open question; reports say the project has not yet received a formal go-ahead from the parent company.
For fans, the timing feels deliberate. Watts already proved he can navigate a crowded IP with tonal balance on Skeleton Crew, and Kinberg’s long runway on these scripts (work reportedly dating back to 2018) suggests Lucasfilm wants a story that has lived with the writers, not a rushed anniversary play. If Ridley does return, expect the marketing machine to lean hard on “the next chapter of Rey” rather than another origin tale.
Nothing is locked until Disney says so out loud. But the pieces on the board — a proven franchise director, a veteran writer, and the Skywalker nameplate — make this the loudest Star Wars theatrical rumor of the year. Keep an eye on Lucasfilm’s next public update; when Watts is free to talk, the vibe check will tell us whether Episode X is finally real.