Jon Watts has already taken Tom Holland’s Spider-Man from Queens to the multiverse. Now, the filmmaker may be getting ready to leave Earth altogether.
A new report published September 26 says Watts has emerged as the reported choice to direct the first movie in a new Star Wars trilogy at Lucasfilm. The project is associated with a trilogy being written by Simon Kinberg, although neither Lucasfilm nor Disney has publicly confirmed Watts as the director.
If the report proves correct, it would be a pretty spectacular next chapter for a director whose career began far away from billion-dollar franchises.
Watts grew up in Fountain, Colorado, and attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Before Hollywood came calling, he directed music videos and commercials, including work for artists such as Fatboy Slim, The Rapture and TV on the Radio.
His breakthrough feature was the 2015 indie thriller Cop Car, starring Kevin Bacon. That led to one of the biggest career upgrades imaginable: Marvel hired Watts to direct Spider-Man: Homecoming.
He subsequently directed Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home, completing Tom Holland’s original MCU Spider-Man trilogy. The three films collectively earned about $3.88 billion worldwide.
But Watts didn’t spend his entire post-Spider-Man life swinging from superhero franchise to superhero franchise.
He directed Wolfs, the 2024 Apple action thriller starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, and helped create and direct episodes of Disney+’s Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.
Interestingly, Watts is not directing 2026’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Destin Daniel Cretton took over the franchise, allowing Watts to pursue other projects.
Now comes the galaxy far, far away.
Nothing is official yet—but if Jon Watts really is heading to Star Wars, the kid from Colorado who started with music videos could soon be directing an entire new corner of the galaxy.
