All the Star Wars News from D23

By Genevieve Burgess | Star Wars | August 15, 2015 |

By Genevieve Burgess | Star Wars | August 15, 2015 |

Right now the D23 Expo is happening in Anaheim, California. And I am covering all of it for you from my glamorous studio apartment in Washington, DC. There’s been a bunch of tidbits leaking out about all your favorite Marvel properties (i.e, the ones owned by Disney) and the reinvigorated Star Wars universe. Let’s talk about that second one for now.

- We’ve got some updates on the Rogue One standalone film. The header photo is of the cast, featuring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, and Riz Ahmed. They’ve started principal photography, and Alan Tudyk’s role is described as a “performance capture” character. This film takes place before the events of A New Hope and is the first of the Star Wars Stories series.

- Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow will be directing Star Wars: Episode IX set to come out in 2019.

- Disney will be adding Star Wars themed areas to their theme parks in both Anaheim and Orlando. The Orlando version will be in the Hollywood Studios area of Disney World. There will be a ride where guests fly the Millennium Falcon on a secret mission, and a battle themed attraction that will be the two main rides for the areas. There’s some concept art over at over at io9 that they note looks a lot like Naboo.

- There’s a new poster for The Force Awakens featuring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Harrison Ford. The art is from Drew Struzan who did has done posters for the original trilogy as well as the prequels. Here it is: