Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker

"The saga will end. The story lives forever."

- Final trailer

Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker, marketed as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, is an upcoming 2019 film directed by J.J. Abrams from a script by Abrams and Chris Terrio. It will be the third and final film in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. The film, produced by Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, is a continuation of 2015's The Force Awakens, which Abrams also directed and co-wrote, and 2017's The Last Jedi. Lucasfilm has referred to The Rise of Skywalker as the final installment of the Skywalker saga.

The film stars Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Anthony Daniels, Naomi Ackie, Domhnall Gleeson, Richard E. Grant, Lupita Nyong'o, Keri Russell, Joonas Suotamo, Kelly Marie Tran, with Ian McDiarmid and Billy Dee Williams. Fisher, who passed away in 2016 prior to the film's production, will appear via unused footage from The Force Awakens. The film was first announced after The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. Colin Trevorrow was initially announced as the director and writer of the film, but he and Lucasfilm parted ways in September 2017, with Lucasfilm citing "creative differences" over the project. On September 12, 2017, Abrams and Terrio were announced as the new director and writers.

Principal photography began in 2018, and filming wrapped in 2019. Footage from The Rise of Skywalker was first made public on April 12, 2019 at Celebration Chicago. The film is scheduled for release on December 20, 2019.

Plot
"Genre-wise, it's different from the other two, which will become clear when the film comes out. It's quite emotional. There's a different drive than the previous two films, but there's a lot of fun. I really missed John [Boyega] during the last one, but we're back together and now Oscar [Isaac] is part of it. To me, it felt like kids going on an adventure."

- Daisy Ridley

Development
"To have no script and to have a release date and have it be essentially a two-year window when you're saying (to yourself), you've got two years from the decision to do it to release, and you have literally nothing.... You don't have the story, you don't have the cast, you don't have the designers, the sets. There was a crew, and there were things that will be worked on for the version that preceded ours, but this was starting over."

- J.J. Abrams, on taking over from Colin Trevorrow

Long before Lucasfilm's acquisition by Disney in 2012, Star Wars creator George Lucas mentioned that he had plans to make nine films. Producer Gary Kurtz mentioned in a 1999 interview that Lucas' plans for Episode IX included the first appearance of the Emperor, a plot point ultimately used in the original trilogy's conclusion. Lucas once estimated to film Episode IX in 2011 back in 1976 and wanted Mark Hamill to make a cameo in the film "like Obi-Wan handing the lightsaber down to the next new hope". According to Hamill, Lucas's outline for the sequel trilogy had Luke Skywalker surviving until Episode IX and training Leia Organa in the Force. Hamill was an advocate for this version of the story.

In August 2015, Colin Trevorrow was announced as director for Episode IX. As J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson had to ensure a smooth transition between Episodes VII and VIII, Johnson and Trevorrow worked closely to ensure continuity between their respective films. With cinematographer John Schwartzman, Trevorrow planned to shoot on 65 mm film, and wanted to capture some footage in actual outer space. By 2016, Lucasfilm had developed a full outline, which Trevorrow then turned into a screenplay. He presented the completed script to Lucasfilm (as well as Lucas and Hamill) in early December of that year.

Various reports claimed that both Abrams and Johnson were involved with the story for The Rise of Skywalker, though they each denied this,  with Abrams saying on his part "We don't write a treatment but there are countless times we came up with something and said 'oh, this would be so great for Episode VIII!' or 'Thats what we could get to in IX!' According to The Force Awakens co-writer Lawrence Kasdan, the Lucasfilm creative team developed a general idea early on as to how they wanted the film to end. This was echoed by Kylo Ren actor Adam Driver: "With Star Wars, I had one piece of information of where it was all going, and that's where it has been in my head for a long time, and things were building towards that." Carrie Fisher's brother, Todd Fisher, told yahoo.com that initial plans for the film had Leia playing a key role, reportedly becoming the "last Jedi" referenced in the title of its predecessor.

Death of Carrie Fisher
"The minute she finished, she grabbed me and said, 'I'd better be at the forefront of IX!' Because Harrison was front and center on VII, and Mark is front and center on VIII. She thought IX would be her movie. And it would have been."

- Kathleen Kennedy, on Carrie Fisher's death

Carrie Fisher died on December 27, 2016. In light of this, Trevorrow met with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy in January 2017 to discuss possible story solutions. Kennedy said that the team had "pretty much started over" and it was reported that Jack Thorne was hired to rewrite the initial script. However, in September 2017, it was announced that Trevorrow had left the project due to creative differences, and that he would be replaced by Abrams. According to Kennedy, it was during the initial scripting phase that she realized Trevorrow wasn't the right person for the job; She attributed this to Trevorrow having not been present at the story conferences for The Force Awakens, during which a basic plan for the trilogy had been laid out. Disney reportedly agreed to pay a fee to Paramount Pictures so that Abrams could make the film, as he had been in breach of contract with the latter by his involvement in The Force Awakens.) Abrams pitched his story to Disney head Bob Iger in December 2017 and had a script ready by February 2018. As he told Rolling Stone, "I had no intention to return. But when the opportunity presented itself to finish a story that we had begun with these new characters, to tell the last chapter of their story, it felt like there was a chance to do it in a way where we could go beyond, and do better than we did in Seven."

Due to the time constraints and pressure of returning to the series, Abrams asked Chris Terrio to co-write the film. Abrams later described the writing process as “this crazy challenge that could have been a wildly uncomfortable contortion of ideas and shoving in of answers and Band-Aids and bridges ... I feel like we've gotten to a place–without jinxing anything–where we might have something incredibly special.” In May 2018, he told The Wall Street Journal: "I had a bunch of ideas from the beginning, back on VII, of where the story would go. I just never in my wildest dreams thought I would have a chance to execute them". The creative team met with Lucas, Johnson and Kasdan before writing the script; According to Abrams, Lucas explained many of his own ideas about the Force and the midi-chlorians. Abrams and Terrio began the writing process by writing ideas on a series of dry erase boards at Bad Robot, and then transferring them to a Microsoft Word document. During the process, they collaborated on ideas with Kennedy, Michelle Rejwan, Rick Carter, Roger Guyett, Kevin Jenkins, Michael Kaplan and Neal Scanlan. Kennedy described the process to Gizmodo: "Nobody was being overly polite. If you didn't think something made sense. If you couldn’t follow it, if you thought, from a fan's point of view, that you're stepping outside the lines and it was a bogus kind of thinking, no one was afraid to say that because we knew how important this was to get right. And we didn't let things go." Terrio was well-versed in the Expanded Universe and recent Star Wars animation, and was influenced by many of those stories in writing the film. He compared the process to writing non-fiction: "When we would make a story decision, we were fully aware that this now will become canon, and so are we sure that this is the right story decision? Are we sure about it character-wise? Are we sure about it thematically? Does it seem like it gels with George’s original intentions from Episode IV? Does it gel with what we learned in the prequels and what we learned in the sequel trilogy?"

They were determined to make a film that would conclude the Skywalker saga and tie together the previous eight chapters. Terrio and Abrams revisited some of the ideas Abrams and Kasdan had had for The Force Awakens, and also used some ideas that were present in Trevorrow's script. Certain aspects of the story changed significantly during pre-production, and the film had frequent dialogue changes from day to day. Producer Kathleen Kennedy claimed that Palpatine's return was planned from the beginning, although Trevorrow believed it was a new idea by Abrams. Regardless, Trevorrow and his frequent writing partner Derek Connolly will receive story credits in the final film. In regards to The Last Jedi's influence on the film, Abrams told Esquire: "As a filmmaker, working on episode IX, amazingly, nothing that he [Rian Johnson] did in Last Jedi got in the way of things that we had talked about wanting to do down the line, ideas that I had about where things might go, so... it wasn't like his story somehow derailed the things I wanted to pursue. In fact, strangely, they might have even helped strengthen them because we got to make some choices that sort of take advantage of the fact that Rian hadn't done the things that we were thinking about doing."

Lucasfilm dispelled rumors that it would digitally recreate Fisher in future films. Fisher's brother Todd said that he and Billie Lourd had granted Lucasfilm rights to use footage of her. Kennedy initially claimed that Ms. Fisher would not appear in the film, though Abrams later confirmed that Ms. Fisher will appear in the film via unused footage from The Force Awakens. Mr. Fisher credited this decision to Abrams, who said "It was like finding this impossible answer to this impossible question". According to Mr. Fisher: "There's a lot of minutes of footage. I don't mean just outtakes. This is unused, new content that could be woven into the storyline. That's what's going to give everybody such a great kick. It's going to look like it was meant to be. Like it was shot yesterday.” (He also claimed that unused footage from The Last Jedi would also be used; Abrams later clarified that no footage from that film was used due to nothing substantial being available. ) Poe Dameron actor Oscar Isaac revealed during an interview with The Daily Beast that, while Fisher's appearance in the film will be brief, the film's story deals with it quite a bit and will appropriately pay homage to Ms. Fisher in a really "beautiful way".

Production
"We went into this movie very much in the mindset that this has to be conclusive. It has to. You have to get some answers. You have to learn some things."

- J.J. Abrams

Principal photography began at Pinewood Studios on August 1, 2018, under the working title of "trlXie" (originally "Black Diamond"). Production also took place in Wadi Rum, Jordan (the same filming location for Jedha in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) for three weeks. Some sequences were filmed with 65mm film and IMAX cameras. Because the film was under a shortened production timeline, the crew had to shoot everything they needed during principal photography, and Maryann Brandon began editing on set.

Abrams felt less creatively constrained in making The Rise of Skywalker than he did with The Force Awakens, citing Rian Johnson's work on The Last Jedi as the inspiration: "Rian helped remind me that that's why we're on these movies–not to just do something that you've seen before." According to Oscar Isaac, the shooting of The Rise of Skywalker allowed for more improvisation than The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi; "It's a testament to J.J. coming back and feeling confident. There's less pressure for it to be right. We just want to make a good movie and have a really good time while doing it." Abrams shot many of the character interactions in long takes, with actors sometimes coming up with their own lines. Daisy Ridley also commented: "There was this thing: JJ would ask us to do the scene without speaking, just to feel the emotional... whatever. He was like, 'You never know what could come up.' We did that a couple of times. Then it became a joke, because we would just wet ourselves laughing."

Prior to shooting, members of the cast were trained in various specialties to prepare for the shoot, such as kickboxing, horseback riding, using a bow-and-arrow and holding a gun. Ridley performed the majority of her character's stunts herself. Filmmaker Kevin Smith visited the set (just as he did for The Force Awakens) and described what he saw: "Biggest set I've ever seen in my life. The dude's not directing a movie, it's like he's directing a small country." The script was under even greater security than those of previous films, with actors not allowed to take copies home; Despite this, a copy was put up for sale on eBay, after Finn actor John Boyega accidentally left it under his bed and it was found by a cleaning person. However, Lucasfilm was warned about it and recovered the script before someone could buy it. By December 11, 2018, Hamill had worked for "about a week" on the film, but had yet to shoot most of his scenes, which he expected to do alongside his work on the TV series Knightfall.

Filming wrapped on February 15, 2019. Reshoots reportedly took place between late September and mid-October at Bad Robot Productions.

Post-production
John Williams had begun work on the musical score as of May 2019, and was scheduled to begin recording in June. Recording reportedly finished sometime that November. He has said that it will most likely be his final Star Wars project.

The film was the first project for a new ILM division in Sydney, Australia. Abrams told Entertainment Weekly that the film had significantly less post-production time than normal, and that it was "literally a practical race to get it finished.” However, he felt more confident about The Rise of Skywalker than he had The Force Awakens. The editing of The Rise of Skywalker was finished on November 24, 2019. Taken as a whole, Abrams described the film as "the most challenging" project he'd ever been involved with.

Release
"The beauty of working with Chris Terrio and producing with Kathleen Kennedy is that I think we have found a way — I hope, it's up for you to decide — to bring this story to a conclusion in a way that feels satisfying, surprising, amusing, shocking, all the ways that a story should make you feel."

- J.J. Abrams

The film was originally scheduled for release on May 24, 2019, but was later pushed back to December 20, giving the May 24 date to the live-action remake of Aladdin. Footage was first publicly screened at Disney's March 8 investor's conference, and briefly at CinemaCon 2019 as part of a montage of upcoming Disney films. The film was featured in a panel at Celebration Chicago, featuring director/co-writer J.J. Abrams and producer Kathleen Kennedy. The teaser trailer debuted at this event, which also revealed the film's title and teaser poster. During the convention, Abrams, Kennedy, and members of the cast were interviewed for Good Morning America. The film was featured in the May issue of Vanity Fair, the November issues of Empire, Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, the December issue of People, and the January 2020 issue of Empire. A panel was held at the 2019 D23 Expo, featuring cast and crew, with the reveal of a new teaser poster and two show casings of footage; The latter of the two was later released online and aired on television.

The cast and crew made a number of television appearances to promote the film, including Good Morning America,   The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,  Live with Kelly and Ryan,  Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The cast and crew participated in a livestream Q&A on December 2, a press conference on December 4. , Brazil's Comic Con Experience on December 7, and the film's Japan premiere on December 11. On December 12, Amazon.com released an exclusive behind-the-scenes video. Tickets went on sale October 21, followed by the release of the final trailer on Monday Night Football and the theatrical poster. Lucasfilm collaborated with Porsche on a new Star Wars spaceship design that was built for the film's premiere, named the Tri-Wing S-91x Pegasus Starfighter. Beginning on December 18, AMC Theaters will hold a 27+ hour marathon of Episodes I through VIII, leading up to Episode IX. Adam Driver, Greg Grunberg and Mark Hamill each held Omaze fundraisers for which winners could attend the film's U.S. premier,  which will be held on December 16. As happened with The Force Awakens, a dying fan was given a screening of the film, with Bob Iger himself confirming it on Twitter.

Merchandising
In November 2018, Lucasfilm debuted the animated shorts Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures as an introduction to the saga for children, beginning a year-long lead-up to the film. In December 2018, Topps began a year-long campaign, dubbed "Star Wars Galactic Moments: Countdown to Episode IX," in which three cards are released each week leading up to the release of the film. Sith trooper merchandise debuted in stores on September 1, 2019, while the film's main merchandise push will begin on October 4, 2019, known as Triple Force Friday. Aside from The Rise of Skywalker, the event debuted merchandise for the TV series The Mandalorian and the video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

Lucasfilm partnered with eight product brands to promote the film: Bose, Dannon, General Electric, General Mills, Porsche, Samsung, McDonald's and United Airlines &mdash;with each ad campaign beginning on November 1. Like with The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, the months leading up to the debut of The Rise of Skywalker will also see the release of tie-in novels, short stories, comics, reference books, and activity books known collectively as Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Star Wars Battlefront II and Star Tours: The Adventures Continue will introduce The Rise of Skywalker-themed content. Roblox will also feature tie-in elements with the film. Funko released an animated short inspired by the film. On December 12, Fortnite released The Rise of Skywalker skins and emotes, and on December 14 will preview a scene from the film in an in-game event. Lucasfilm will host Star Wars Nights at NBA games in December 2019 and January 2020. The 2020 video game LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will include levels from the film.

Home video
As with the whole Star Wars saga, The Rise of Skywalker will be released on Disney+ in 2020 to follow up the late 2019 release of The Mandalorian.

Reception
According to Forbes writer Scott Mendelson, the film is projected to open to higher box office records given that films like Wonder Woman 1984, No Time to Die, and Death on the Nile have been all pushed back to 2020. As of the current moment, The Rise of Skywalker will compete at box office with Jumanji: The Next Level and Cats. A Fandango poll ranked the film as the third most anticipated movie of 2019, behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel. In November 2019, the film was tracking for an opening box office of between $175 and $205 million.