Simon Kinberg describes the brain trust that is plotting the next generation of ‘Star Wars’ films

Along with writers Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) and screenwriting legend Lawrence Kasdan, Kinberg spent a week at Skywalker Ranch working on the structure for the next trilogy and standalone spin-offs. “Like a TV writers room, we spent a week with a whiteboard and some pens and were in a conference room all day talking about [movies] VII, VIII, and IX,” he says. “But it’s a whiteboard covered in our notes. We had a sense of what we each wanted to write. It was the most magical time because we were writing Star Wars movies. Then we would go back to the inn at Skywalker and have dinner and drink a little bit and Larry would tell me and Michael stories about the moment in his life where he wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, The Big Chill, Body Heat all in the span of, I think, five years. So we just had this crazy, magical time together.”