J.J. Abrams Image by David Shankbone

Filmmaker J.J. Abrams will write and direct the ninth installment of the ongoing “Star Wars” saga, Walt Disney Co said Tuesday, a week after the film lost its writer-director due to creative differences with the studio.

Abrams will helm “Star Wars: Episode IX” after he launched the current iteration of “Star Wars” films with 2015’s box office hit “The Force Awakens.” “Episode IX” is scheduled to be released in May 2019.

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“With The Force Awakens, J.J. delivered everything we could have possibly hoped for, and I am so excited that he is coming back to close out this trilogy,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said in a statement.

“Episode IX” writer-director Colin Trevorrow parted ways with the studio last week citing differing creative visions, Disney and Lucasfilm said in a statement.

It was the second “Star Wars” project to lose a director this year. Disney in June said that film makers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had left the upcoming Han Solo “Star Wars” spin-off movie due to creative differences. They were replaced by Hollywood veteran Ron Howard, the Oscar-winning director of “A Beautiful Mind.”

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