The next wave of Star Wars movies is still scheduled to begin in December 2022. While The Rise of Skywalker closed out Disney's sequel trilogy and capped off one era of the franchise's history, the galaxy far, far away isn't going away anytime soon. Currently, Lucasfilm is preparing to launch the High Republic publishing initiative and they have multiple TV shows in the works for Disney+ (including The Mandalorian season 2). This content will help keep fans occupied as the movies go on a self-imposed hiatus for the next couple of years.
At one point, it looked like the first Star Wars movie from David Benioff & D.B. Weiss was going to take the aforementioned December 2022 slot, but they parted ways with Lucasfilm due to creative differences. In the meantime, the studio has multiple projects in development, including a Star Wars movie from Kevin Feige and a new trilogy from Rian Johnson (which is still officially on the table). There's been no word on which film will be first out of the gate when Star Wars returns to the big screen, but Disney is still planning on kicking off the new slate in 2022.
Disney's latest release schedule (which was updated February 3, 2020) features the three untitled Star Wars movies that secured December 2022, 2024, and 2026 dates last year. Obviously, there aren't any plot details about these projects, but this illustrates as recently as a few weeks ago, the Mouse House is banking on Star Wars being one of their main pre-Christmas draws (along with the Avatar sequels) this decade.
December 2022 seems like a long ways off, but it's fairly soon in movie terms. With that release date locked in, the mystery Star Wars movie will have to begin production at some point in 2021, meaning Lucasfilm is likely working on getting the various pieces in place before any official announcements. They reportedly have a director lined up for the 2022 movie (not Johnson), and it'll be interesting to see who that is. Lucasfilm's developed an infamous reputation for cycling through filmmakers over the past handful of years, so it's imperative they found someone who's on the same page as the studio so this next Star Wars era gets started without a hitch. It's possible information will be unveiled during Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim this August as Lucasfilm hypes up Star Wars' future.
Of course, it'll also be fascinating to see to see what this next slate of Star Wars movies actually is. The only thing fans know for sure is that it won't have any overlap with the High Republic books, giving creatives maximum freedom on their work. There isn't even a guarantee these upcoming three films will be part of the same trilogy. Kathleen Kennedy's spoken in the past about the possibility of moving away from the trilogy model, making storytelling decisions based solely on what the narrative dictates. Perhaps this trio of Star Wars movies could all be standalone vehicles with the potential for followups depending on how they perform. Hopefully, the picture becomes a bit more clear soon and viewers know what to expect from Star Wars.
Source: Disney