Carrie Fisher to return in Star Wars Episode 9?

The late star’s family has given Lucasfilm permission to use recent footage of the actress to bring Leia into the 2019 film.

Leia’s journey will not end with December’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, says Carrie Fisher’s brother.

Todd Fisher told the New York Daily News that he and Carrie Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, have given Disney and Lucasfilm permission to use recent footage of the actress in 2019’s Star Wars: Episode IX. She had already completed work on The Last Jedi.

“Both of us were like, ‘Yes, how do you take her out of it?’ And the answer is, you don’t,” said Todd Fisher Thursday at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Fisher told the Daily News he was unsure of how big a role his late sister would play in Episode IX, which remains shrouded in mystery and is being directed by Colin Trevorrow.

“I’m not the only part in that equation, but I think the people deserve to have her,” said Fisher. “She’s owned by them.”

Last month, Disney CEO Bob Iger said The Last Jedi was not being changed in light of Carrie Fisher’s death. Sources previously told The Hollywood Reporter that Leia was originally to play a bigger part in Episode IX than in The Last Jedi, which is directed by Rian Johnson.

After rumors online suggested CGI would be used to include Leia in future films, Disney and Lucasfilm released a statement in January saying it had no plans to digitally re-create Carrie Fisher as Leia, as had been done in last year’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which included a re-creation of how Fisher appeared in 1977’s Star Wars.

Next week at Star Wars Celebration in Orlando, Fla., Mark Hamill is hosting a tribute to Carrie Fisher, and the first trailer for The Last Jedi is set to debut. Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds, who died one day after her, were both honored with a public memorial in March.

Credit: The Hollywood Reporter