'Star Wars: Episode VIII' Confirms Benicio del Toro and Laura Dern as Cameras Start Rolling

The film will reportedly not be a comedy.

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Though some of us still haven't seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens for the 32nd time at our local cineplex, Disney is wasting little time starting up the hype machine for Episode VIII. Production is now officially underway, at least according to the frustratingly brief 30-second announcement clip above, and some top-shelf fresh cast members have been confirmed for Looper director Rian Johnson's inaugural entry in the George Lucas universe.

Benicio del Toro, Laura Dern, and Kelly Marie Tran were confirmed early Monday morning to be joining the main cast of The Force Awakens for Johnson's 2017 Star Wars entry. In a very regal press release, the official start of production was poetically confirmed as follows:

Rey took her first steps into a larger world in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and will continue her epic journey with Finn, Poe, and Luke Skywalker in the next chapter of the continuing Star Wars saga, Star Wars: Episode VIII, which began principal photography at Pinewood Studios in London on February 15, 2016.

The words above are nice, but nothing in the world can compare to seeing the phrase below in that particular font in this specific context:

"[We're] just starting work on Star Wars VIII, the next film, so I'm back to keeping secrets again," John Boyega, Force Awakens star, told Vogue earlier this month. "It's great. Much darker, but we're very excited." Thankfully, Disney has no immediate plans to ever stop pumping out Star Wars movies.

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