Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy said today that Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the original trilogy and 2015’s The Force Awakens, will not appear in the ninth Star Wars movie. “Sadly, Carrie will not be in Nine,” the producer said in an interview with ABC News. “But we will see a lot of Carrie in Eight.”
That’s a 180 from what the late actress’ brother told the New York Daily News last week. He said he and Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd gave Disney permission to use recent footage of her for the next sequel, which is due. “Both of us were like, ‘Yes, how do you take her out of it?’ And the answer is you don’t,” Todd Fisher said April 8. Kennedy said today, “He was probably confused.”
Shortly after the actress’ death in December, Lucasfilm confirmed that it had “no plans to digitally re-create Carrie Fisher’s performance as Princess or General Leia Organa” in Episode IX.
Kennedy said today, “We finished everything [with Leia) in Eight, and Carrie is absolutely phenomenal in the movie. And we’re so happy that we were able to complete shooting in the summer. Unfortunately, Carrie passed away. So, by the time we were well underway with Episode Nine, in our thoughts we had not written the script yet. But we’ve regrouped. We started over again in January, so, sadly, Carrie will not be in Nine.”
Directed by Jurassic World helmer Colin Trevorrow, Star Wars: Episode IX is due in 2019.
Kennedy’s comments come the same day that Lucasfilm as Disney staged Day 2 of their Star Wars Celebration in Orlando, where Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and other talked about the next installment in the 40-year-old franchise, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which opens December 15.
Watch a portion of Kennedy’s interview above.
