JJ Abrams teases Star Wars: Episode IX

Star Wars Celebration Chicago begins today and fans around the world will be anxiously awaiting Friday's panel with director JJ Abrams (The Force Awakens), Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and cast members from Episode IX. A title and teaser trailer are expected to be announced.

Abrams recently sat down with Fast Company to discuss Apple TV+, building Bad Robot and the seemingly impossible task of completing the Skywalker saga, that began with the original Star Wars in 1977, after Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) vacated the director's chair citing creative differences:

“Our movie was not just following what we had started [with The Force Awakens], it was following what we had started and then had been advanced by someone else [with Star Wars: The Last Jedi]. So there was that, and, finally, it was resolving nine movies. While there are some threads of larger ideas and some big picture things that had been conceived decades ago and a lot of ideas that Lawrence Kasdan and I had when we were doing Episode VII, the lack of absolute inevitability, the lack of a complete structure for this thing, given the way it was being run, was an enormous challenge.

“However, to answer your question—truly, finally—now that I’m back, the difference is I feel like we might’ve done it. Like, I actually feel like this crazy challenge that could have been a wildly uncomfortable contortion of ideas, and a kind of shoving-in of answers and Band-Aids and bridges and things that would have felt messy. Strangely, we were sort of relentless and almost unbearably disciplined about the story and forcing ourselves to question and answer some fundamental things that at the beginning, I absolutely had no clue how we would begin to address.

“I feel like we’ve gotten to a place—without jinxing anything or sounding more confident than I deserve to be—I feel like we’re in a place where we might have something incredibly special. So I feel relief being home, and I feel gratitude that I got to do it. And more than anything, I’m excited about what I think we might have.”

Friday will be a day long remembered by fans. What announcements are you hoping for during the 5-day event? Let me know in the comments below.