When will the next Star Wars standalone film come out?

Since Solo has finally hit the theaters, the wait for Star Wars Episode IX has begun. But after that, Lucasfilm still has a whole galaxy to mine for stories, and a few of them have already been announced.

There are two new Star Wars trilogies in very early stages of development. One is being written by Rian Johnson (who wrote and directed The Last Jedi) and one by David Benioff and Dan Weiss, the writers/occasional directors for Game of Thrones. We think these trilogies will go completely on their own paths, introducing new characters to the saga. .

In terms of standalone films, probably the longest-rumored one is about Obi Wan Kenobi. There was some buzz about searching for a director last summer, but nothing was made official. Then this week, Lucasfilm did announce the next standalone film, but it will not be centered on Obi Wan Kenobi.

Instead, James Mangold, who helmed 2017’s Logan, has been hired to direct a film centered on the mysterious bounty hunter Boba Fett. Fett is a fan favorite character, who has existed mainly to cause trouble. As a bounty hunter, he was the one who captured Han Solo and froze him in Carbonite in Empire Strikes Back.

Though Boba worked Jabba the Hutt, he really is a mercenary, loyal to whoever pays him. This could make for quite the adventure story.

At this point, not much about the movie (outside Mangold’s role) is confirmed. Simon Kinberg was rumored to be working on a Boba Fett script in the summer of 2017. There has been no confirmation of the projects being connected, but it would make some sense. Kinberg is one of the constants around the X-Men franchise, and he and Mangold worked together on Logan.

Any specifics about the film are being kept under wraps until a later date, so what the movie actually contains is unknown. Howeve,r I believe it is more likely to be an adventure film than an origin story. That is because we already got Boba Fett’s origi, in the prequels. Now you may have blocked those films from your memories, but what was put into them remains (to my knowledge at least) official cannon. Mangold could rewrite it, but I hope there are pieces to Boba Fett’s story that haven’t been seen before.

At this point, no release date (or approximate release date) has been announced, so we have to go by track record. Rogue One, the first Star Wars solo film, was announced in May 2014, and released in December 2016. But it had to go through pretty extensive reshoots that summer.  Solo was developing a bit longer. It was originally announced in July 2015 and came out in 2018.

Based on that, you should expect the Boba Fett movie to hit theaters sometime in 2020. If we assume that this is the same script Kinberg was working on last summer, they should have plenty of time to get it right.

Next: Why Solo is the best Chewbacca movie

Of course, there’s always the possibility that things go south. Lucasfilm hasn’t had a spotless record since Disney took over. In that case I could easily see them pushing the release back to December-ish. But the shouldn’t push it too far, especially with the sheer number of Star Wars films waiting in line.