His legacy contains some of the most iconic compositions ever heard in cinemas, but now John Williams, the legendary composer best known for his work on the Star Wars series, is set to retire from the franchise.
Having first composed music for the Star Wars films back in 1977, John Williams has remained a constant figure throughout the franchise’s 41-year career, composing music for the eight main films in the series, in addition to the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story.
However, despite being slated to compose the music for the forthcoming Star Wars: Episode IX, Williams has announced it will be the last film in the series he will work on before handing over the reins to Michael Giacchino, who composed the music for 2016’s Rogue One.
“We know J.J. Abrams is preparing one now for next year that I will hopefully do for him, and I look forward to it,” Williams said in an interview with Californian radio station KUSC. “It will round out a series of nine and be quite enough for me.”
Of course, it seems as though John Williams probably won’t miss the impact his music has on the films, with the composer having revealed back in 2016 he’s never actually watched a Star Wars film.
“I let it go. I have not looked at the Star Wars films and that’s absolutely true,” Williams admitted to The Mirror. “When I’m finished with a film, I’ve been living with it, we’ve been dubbing it, recording to it, and so on. You walk out of the studio and, ‘Ah, it’s finished.'”
“Now I don’t have an impulse to go to the theatere and look at it. Maybe some people find that weird, or listen to recordings of my music very, very rarely.”
While this will be the last that the Star Wars franchise sees of John Williams, he currently has no plans to retire completely, with the 86-year-old keen to add more to his body of work, which consists of score from the likes of Jaws, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, and Indiana Jones.
Check out John Williams’ legendary main theme from Star Wars:
