After Colin Trevorrow's surprise departure from Star Wars: Episode IX, fans' rapidly locked onto the hope that Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson would helm the film. The director's latest comments, however, firmly state that he won't be directing the sequel.

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"It was never really in the plans for me to direct Episode IX, so I don't know what's going to happen with it." the director said at a press event for The Last Jedi. "Whoever does it, I'm going to be really excited to be an audience member again and sit down and see what the next filmmaker has to show us and where this story ends up going."

A recent report detailed why Trevorrow, as well as former Han Solo directors Lord and Miller, no longer work for Disney and Lucasfilm.

“There’s one gatekeeper when it comes to Star Wars and it’s Kathleen Kennedy,” says a veteran movie producer, who has worked with the studio chief. “If you rub Kathleen Kennedy the wrong way — in any way — you’re out. You’re done. A lot of these young, new directors want to come in and say, ‘I want to do this. I want to do that.’ A lot of these guys — Lord and Miller, Colin Trevorrow — got very rich, very fast and believed a lot of their own hype. And they don’t want to play by the rules. They want to do shit differently. And Kathleen Kennedy isn’t going to fuck around with that.”

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Scheduled to hit theaters on May 24, 2019, Star Wars: Episode IX is a production of Lucasfilm and likely starring Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac.