UPDATED NEWS
Despite an update last week from Todd Fisher, the brother of late actress Carrie Fisher, it seems Princess Leia will not be appearing in Star Wars: Episode IX. Speaking with Good Morning America today, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy denied the report, saying that Todd Fisher “was probably confused.”
“We finished everything in VIII and Carrie is absolutely phenomenal in the movie,” she told the outlet, “and we’re so happy we were able to complete filming in the summer. Unfortunately, Carrie passed away [at a] time when we were well underway with Episode IX in our thoughts. We had not written a script yet. But we’ve regrouped. We started over again in January. Sadly, Carrie will not be in IX.”
Kennedy’s comments are consistent with a statement from Disney and Lucasfilm released earlier this year.
“We don’t normally respond to fan or press speculation,” it read, “but there is a rumor circulating that we would like to address. We want to assure our fans that Lucasfilm has no plans to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher’s performance as Princess or General Leia Organa.”
Todd Fisher had told The New York Daily News last week that he and Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, had just given permission to use existing footage in Episode IX.
“She’s as much a part of it as anything,” Fisher said during the TCM Film Festival in Los Angeles, “and I think her presence now is even more powerful than it was, like Obi Wan — when the saber cuts him down he becomes more powerful. I feel like that’s what’s happened with Carrie. I think the legacy should continue.”
(via comingsoon.net) When Carrie Fisher passed away late last year, there was a lot of speculation about whether or not she’d appear in some way in Star Wars: Episode IX. Her role in the upcoming Star Wars: The Last Jedi had been completed before her death, but the next film had not yet begun shooting. Her brother Todd Fisher told The New York Daily News that he and Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd have given Disney and Lucasfilm permission to use recent footage of Carrie Fisher in Star Wars: Episode IX.
However, nothing was said about not using footage of Fisher in the film. Todd Fisher told the publication at the opening night gala of the TCM Film Festival in Los Angeles, “Both of us were like, ‘Yes, how do you take her out of it?’ And the answer is you don’t.”
“She’s as much a part of it as anything and I think her presence now is even more powerful than it was, like Obi Wan — when the saber cuts him down he becomes more powerful. I feel like that’s what’s happened with Carrie. I think the legacy should continue.”
Fisher wasn’t sure how much we’d see of his late sister in Star Wars: Episode IX. “I’m not the only part in that equation,” he said, “but I think the people deserve to have her. She’s owned by them.”
