With Carrie Fisher's "Star Wars" Leia part of this year's "Episode VIII" and 2019 film "Episode IX," Disney is in the process of deciding what to do with the role after Fisher's late December passing.
Meetings between the director of "Star Wars: Episode IX" and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy are understood to be on the cards for the week of January 10, and provide an opportunity to start exploring options following the untimely death of Carrie Fisher on December 27, 2016.
Fisher reprised her iconic role as Princess Leia for 2015's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," by which time the character answered to General Leia Organa, a key decision-maker for the film's heroic resistance force.
She was also part of the ensemble cast for 2017's upcoming "Star Wars: Episode VIII," for which principal photography had finished in June 2016, and had been included in plans for 2019's "Episode IX," expected to start filming in the first few months of 2018.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, "the team has time to explore solutions" and "time to grieve"; "People are still deeply mourning Carrie's death," it was told by an insider source.
With THR told that Fisher's Leia would have been involved in a "key scene" in the 2019 outing, it remains to be seen how Lucasfilm will proceed.
One option may involve the limited use of CGI effects, by means of which Fisher had an uncredited cameo in the franchise's 2016 spin-off and prequel "Rogue One."
