Photo: Lucasfilm

As part of an extensive piece involving the future of Star Wars, Disney and Lucasfilm honchos have explained to Wired that there’s essentially going to be so much SW after this year, you won’t live to see the end of it. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, along with the movie’s J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Gareth Edwards, and others, contributed to the story, which unspooled today and includes a solid mix of trivia, anecdotes, and teasers. Read on for some of the highlights:

How Kasdan and Abrams figured out the beast that is Force Awakens:

“The feeling we wanted [for Force Awakens] was from the first trilogy,” Kasdan told Wired, noting the only must-have returning pieces were Han, Chewie, Luke, and Leia. “It’s fun, it’s delightful, it moves like a son of a bitch, and you don’t question too much. … On the first day, I said, look: Delight, that’s the word. In every scene, that should be the criterion we’re using. Does it delight?” He and Abrams walked around “recording into an iPhone and breaking the story” to outline the plot. “We walked for miles, through Santa Monica and Manhattan and eventually Paris and London.”

Yes, Abrams is feeling pressured:

“I do feel like there’s a little bit more of a burden on Larry and me to come up with a story that could at least be the beginning of what transpires over three films,” he told Wired.

How Rogue One was green-lit:

Lucasfilm’s CCO John Knoll approached Kennedy in 2012, not long after she took over: “I just have this very simple idea … about the rebel spies in the opening crawl of A New Hope who steal the plans for the Death Star,” he said. (He was referencing this line from the movie’s opening credits: “Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star.”) Sold.

There’s going to be a lot more where that came from:

If it wasn’t made clear above, Star Wars is moving to capitalize on its massive universe much the same way such long-running properties as Star Trek have — but even more so. Think the same sprawling history as an entity or universe like Marvel’s. “They are making more. A lot more. The company intends to put out a new Star Wars movie every year for as long as people will buy tickets,” Wired’s Adam Rogers writes. “Let me put it another way: If everything works out for Disney, and if you are (like me) old enough to have been conscious for the first Star Wars film, you will probably not live to see the last one. It’s the forever franchise.”

Rogue One might not be what you think it is:

The plus side about all that new material is that, with some of these projects, they’re on the expanding end. “We’re essentially making a period piece,” Hart told Wired of Rogue One. “The benefit of making additional episodes that move forward on the timeline is that we are making new space for ourselves.”

Kind of unrelated, but it looks like that new Indiana Jones is definitely happening:

When asked about new movies, Kennedy explained she had a lot on her plate, but: “She takes a breath. ‘And then I’ll be working with them on Indiana Jones.’”

You can read the whole story, which also includes mention of a highly speculative Star Trek: Zero Dark Thirty, explains how films are making use of the TV-writing model, and much more on the idea of the forever franchise, here.