So here’s what we know now. First and foremost, Star Wars spinoff movies are in the works and that is indeed why Kinberg and Kasdan were brought into the fold. Furthermore, these films are not going to center around characters involved in The Saga.

Episode VII is still slated for 2015 and hasn’t been officially pushed back a year or moved up as the AP erroneously reported a few weeks back. Iger also mentioned “concurrent” releases, which may mean that there will be films released between major episodes.

There are some other details in the interview with CNBC that may interest you, but the confirmation above was the big bit of news.

Update: StarWars.com adds that Kinberg and Kasdan will be working on separate movies.

One of the standalone films will be written by Lawrence Kasdan, screenwriter of The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and co-writer ofReturn of the Jedi while the other will be penned by Simon Kinberg, writer of Sherlock Holmes and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The movies will be separate from the upcoming Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, on which Kasdan and Kinberg are also consulting, and are expected to be released sometime after Episode VII. Each standalone film will focus on a specific character, and two spinoff films are currently confirmed.

In a call to investors, Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, revealed while the original focus was on the highly-anticipated sequel trilogy, the idea of spinoff films was bandied about early and the additional films are now becoming a reality. “We are in development of a few standalone films,” he said, “that are not part of the Star Wars saga…there are now creative entities working on developing scripts for what would be those standalone films.”

(via)