Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has said that the studio has no plans to make a sequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. John Knoll, Lucasfilm chief creative officer and former visual effects supervisor, and director Gareth Edwards have also confirmed that there will be no sequel. Knoll had come up with the idea for the anthology film.
Edwards even went on to jokingly comment that if there was a sequel, “it will be directed by George Lucas,” implying that Rogue One is explicitly intended as a prequel to the 1977 original Star Wars that launched the entire franchise.
Rogue One is set in the Star Wars universe some time after the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) and shortly before the events of the original Star Wars :Episode IV – A New Hope (1977).
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Sam Barsanti of AV Club hailed the news, “This is a wise choice for Lucasfilm, since its current plan of switching off between numbered Star Wars sequels (like The Force Awakens) and standalone side stories (like Rogue One) is already weirdly confusing for people who don’t obsessively keep up with this stuff.”
Since Rogue One was announced, fans have speculated that the story would end poorly for the team led by Felicity Jones’ character, the daughter of a scientist working on the creation of the Empire’s Death Star. Rumours about the film having a tragic ending were strengthened after this confirmation.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is scheduled to release on 16 December.