Jon Watts is reportedly in place to direct the first film in Lucasfilm and Disney's new Star Wars trilogy. That makes him the latest filmmaker to be tied to a new era for the franchise after the Skywalker Saga, with the assignment carrying more weight because the trilogy has no set plot details yet.
Simon Kinberg and Skeleton Crew
Daniel Richtman reported that Simon Kinberg will write the movie. Watts also served as an executive producer and showrunner on Skeleton Crew in late 2024 and early 2025, and he directed the first episode and the last episode. That gives Lucasfilm a director who has already worked inside the Star Wars universe, not just outside it.
Watts' resume also reaches far beyond Star Wars. His Spider-Man trilogy grossed more than $3.9 billion, and Spider-Man: No Way Home became the highest-grossing solo superhero movie in history in 2021. Spider-Man: Brand New Day later surpassed No Way Home's $1.9 billion box office gross total in 2026, which is the kind of franchise track record studios usually want when they hand over a new tentpole.
Lucasfilm's Trilogy Timeline
The new trilogy first surfaced in 2024, when Kinberg was initially reported to be involved while Kathleen Kennedy was the president of Lucasfilm. That earlier reporting now looks like the setup to a larger handoff: a writer already inside the project and a director with proven box-office scale. For Lucasfilm and Disney, that combination points to a strategy built around familiarity and commercial reach rather than an untested pairing.
The complication is still the same one that has shadowed every new Star Wars film since Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker last reached theaters in 2019: the studio has no revealed plot details for the next trilogy, and the franchise's film pipeline is already mapped out through Star Wars: Starfighter in May 2027. With The Mandalorian & Grogu due in May 2026 and Shawn Levy directing Star Wars: Starfighter with Ryan Gosling, Watts' assignment reads less like a start date than a signal that Lucasfilm is lining up the next long-form Star Wars run behind the scenes.
After The Mandalorian & Grogu
What happens next is the real story: if Lucasfilm moves from reporting to development, Watts will be the filmmaker defining the opening shape of the next trilogy, not just another name attached to it. Until then, the report sets the expectation that the studio is building its post-Skywalker Saga plan around a director who has already delivered on scale.
