Carrie Fisher would have led 9th Star Wars movie, says Lucasfilm chief

Late actress Carrie Fisher was supposed to be the leading force of the ninth film in theStar Warssaga, plans derailed by her sudden death last year,Lucasfilm Ltd president Kathleen Kennedy said in an interview published on Wednesday.

Kennedy told Vanity Fair that Fisher, who died in Decemberat age 60 after suffering a heart attack, had finished filmingthe forthcoming eighth film The Last Jediand was hoping hercharacter, General Leia Organa, would be the central figure ofEpisode IX.

"The minute she finished, she grabbed me and said, "I'dbetter be at the forefront of IX' because Harrison [Ford]was front and centre on VII, and Mark [Hamill]is front and centreon VIII. She thought IX would be her movie. And it would havebeen," Kennedy said.

Fisher rose to fame as Princess Leia in the original StarWarsfranchise from 1977 to 1983, alongside Ford's roguish HanSolo and Hamill's Jedi fighter Luke Skywalker.

Ford bowed out of the series as his character was killed offin 2015's The Force Awakens,that rebooted the Star Wars franchise witha new trilogy of films from Walt Disney Co.

While details of The Last Jedi,due out on Dec. 15, have been kept secret, Fisher's role in the film wasnot affected by her death, other than making it "more poignant:the film farewell of both the actress and the character," the article stated.

The yet-to-be-titled ninth film, due out in May 2019, hasbeen reworked by Kennedy, director Colin Trevorrow and the Lucasfilm team.

It isdue to start filmingnext year. Lucasfilm said earlier this year that it would not digitally recreate Fisher's likeness in future films.

Vanity Fair's feature celebrating the franchise's 40thanniversary, revealed details about new characters in The Last Jedi playedby Laura Dern, Benicio Del Toro and newcomer KellyMarie Tran. It also provided tidbits from the set, such as areported competition between Hamill and Fisher to see who couldreach a million Twitter followers first.