The filming of Star Wars: Episode IX is scheduled to begin next week, Disney said Friday, surprisingly stating the posthumous appearance of this episode of Carrie Fisher and the presence of star Mark Hamill, aka Luke Skywalker.
The last installment of the saga must be released in theaters in December 2019.
The story resumes after the likely disappearance of Luke Skywalker in the last episode. Princess Leia, played by Carrie Fisher, was still alive at the end of Star Wars – The Last Jedi (2017) but the actress died in December 2016.
“We loved Carrie Fisher desperately,” JJ Abrams wrote in a statement, returning to the controls for Episode IX after making the seventh Star Wars album – The Force Awakens in 2015.
“Finding a satisfactory conclusion to the Skywalker saga without it escaped us. We would never start casting again or use a computer-created virtual character, “he added.
Disney said the appearance of Carrie Fisher would be allowed by the use of previous unpublished footage going back to shooting the seventh episode, with the approval of her daughter, Billie Heavy.
It will not be the first time Carrie Fisher will appear in a Star Wars movie while being away from the shoot.
Rogue One , the spin-off of 2016, was in theaters for two weeks when the death of the actress was announced. A rejuvenated version of Carry Fisher’s Princess Leia appears in this film, thanks to a controversial computer technology.
Known heads will be back for the final episode of the saga, like Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyongo, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran and Joonas Suotamo.
Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant join the cast while composer John Williams, author of the music for each episode of the saga, will still be there.