Star Wars: Episode 8: Everything We Know So Far

2. Director Rian Johnson Has Complete Creative Control

Episode VIII Rian Johnson
Lucasfilm/Vulture

In another break from tradition (after starting the new film right where the last left off, as opposed to jumping ahead like every other episode does), Star Wars: Episode 8 will be solely written and directed by Rian Johnson.

Star Wars veteran Lawrence Kasdan usually has some involvement in the writing process - he's written episodes five through seven - but he does not have an official credit on the forthcoming sequel. What's more, the script is 100 percent original and 100 percent Johnson's, according to Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy:

"When Rian came in and started writing his script, he started from scratch, other than knowing what we had done in Episode VII and projecting out where it was going. He then sat down and put pen to paper, and it’s 100 percent him.”

Johnson has established quite the reputation with his first three feature-films - Brick, The Brothers Bloom and most notably, Looper - and he always scripts the movies he directs, with consistently solid results. Based on his existing filmography, this bodes extremely well for the outcome of Episode 8.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!