Alan Horn started the panel by talking about everything we've seen today from Marvel and Disney Studios, then he went into an introduction about Star Wars.
First he told the crowd Rian Johnson will write and direct Star Wars episode 8 which will come out in May of 2017. That was followed by officially announcing Colin Treverrow (coming off of his work on Jurassic World) will direct Star Wars episode 9 which will come out in 2019. Then Alan started talking about the second Star Wars anthology movie, a Han Solo origin story that will be directed by the same duo who did The Lego Movie, Christopher Miller and Phil Lord. It will be written by Lawrence Kasdan and his son Jon Kasdan.
That announcement was followed by a mini presentation about the first Star Wars anthology movie, Rogue One. They showed a picture of the main cast in costume, as well as a quick video message from the director, Gareth Edwards. Oh, and they finally announced the full cast, and what a cast it is. Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Wen, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen, Riz Ahmed, and Alan Tudyk. Alan Horn then briefly talked about the movie before going into the next portion of this panel.
The final portion of this panel was the one most of the crowd was waiting for. Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Alan started about by saying he and a few others have seen the first cut of the movie and they liked it.
Alan then introduced J.J. Abrams to the stage. J.J. then talked about the movie and the score that John Williams has put together for it. That was followed by J.J. introducing and bringing Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac and Lupita Nyong'o to the stage. John talked about how Drew Struzan did a poster for the movie (which they then showed on screen) and told the entire crowd of around 7500 people we would all get one. J.J. then said there was one person on the poster who was not on stage so he would like for him to come out.
And with that out came Harrison Ford to a standing ovation. Harrison briefly talked about Star Wars and thanked the crowd for being here. Alan then introduced Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger.
Bob then made an announcement which has been rumored for a few weeks. Star Wars land is coming, to both Anaheim and Disney Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida. The land will be 14 acres, and have a cantina as well as stores and restaurants. All cast members in the land will be in full costume for the various races throughout the Star Wars universe. The land will have 2 signature attractions one of which will be one which lets the guests take control of the Millennium Falcon. The land will allow guests to fully immerse themselves into Star Wars. No timeline was given for the opening of this land, but I could see them wanting to get it ready around the time Episode 9 comes out in 2019. And with that the presentation ended.
You can read about the following Marvel panel here.
GOFN's D23 PHOTO ALBUM (images: Dan Berry)