Looper director Rian Johnson will write and direct Star Wars: Episode VIII , the second part of the new trilogy. He will also reportedly write the treatment for Episode IX. J.J. Abrams is course currently helming Episode VII.

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Deadline broke the news of Johnson’s involvement in the hugely anticipated big-screen revival of George Lucas’ franchise. In a matter of just weeks, we have now seen Johnson hired for Episode VIII, and Chronicle’s Josh Trank and Godzilla’s Gareth Edwards hired for separate standalone Star Wars films.While Deadline reports that Johnson is in the process of making a deal with Lucasfilm to write and direct both Star Wars Episode VIII and IX, The Wrap claims that the filmmaker is both writing and directing VIII but only penning the treatment for IX.Johnson directed the well-received, low-budget Brick before moving on to The Brothers Bloom and then the great time-travel movie Looper, which starred Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Breaking Bad fans may also recall that Johnson directed three episodes for that series, including “Fly” and “Ozymandias.”So what can we take away from this news? Aside from the fact that we live in a world where new Star Wars movies are happening with Luke, Leia, and Han!? It’s clear that Disney and Lucasfilm are looking to new blood for these films. With the exception of J.J. Abrams, Johnson, Trank, and Edwards all come from pretty low-budget beginnings and all made good-to-great sci-fi films with limited means. These are filmmakers who have proven themselves, and really, fans couldn’t ask for anything more.And Johnson just tweeted the following clip from The Right Stuff. Heh.

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