As Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill has been the face of the STAR WARS franchise for over forty years, but if he has his way, the upcoming STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER will be serving as his franchise curtain call. Despite Luke's fate in STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, we've known for some time that Mark Hamill would be returning in THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, likely as a Force ghost, and the actor told AP Entertainment on the red-carpet for CHILD'S PLAY that he hopes the movie will be his last STAR WARS film.
"I sure hope so," said Hamill with a laugh. When asked why, Hamill explained that he "had closure in the last one. The fact that I’m involved in any capacity is only because of that peculiar aspect of the Star Wars mythology where if you’re a Jedi, you get to come back and make a curtain call as a Force ghost." Here's the brief discussion which you can check out for yourself:
As Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has previously explained that THE RISE OF SKYWALKER will serving as the culmination of the entire Skywalker saga, it's only natural that we'll be saying goodbye to Luke Skywalker. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Mark Hamill reprises the role in some fashion down the road, perhaps in some animated project, but he's certainly earned the right to hang up his lightsaber.
Although STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER will bring the nine-film saga to a conclusion, this obviously doesn't mean that the franchise will come to an end. Kathleen Kennedy has been meeting with STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI writer/director Rian Johnson and Game of Thrones show-runners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff to plan out the next decade of the series. "We knew we were going to close this up, we knew that even before we started The Force Awakens. We are looking at the next saga. We are not just looking at another trilogy, we're really looking at the next 10 years or more," Kennedy said. "This [movie] is the culmination of the Skywalker Saga; it’s by no means the culmination of Star Wars. I’m sitting down now with Dan Weiss and David Benioff…and Rian Johnson. We’re all sitting down to talk about, where do we go next? We’ve all had conversations about what the possibilities might be, but now we’re locking it down."
STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER will hit theaters on December 20, 2019.