When it was learned that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story would be set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, most fans already assumed that they'd be seeing some familiar characters in this galaxy far, far away. One of the big surprises, though, was the reveal that Forest Whitaker's mysterious character is none other than Saw Gerrera, who was first seen in the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon series. Today we have word from LucasFilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who reveals that fans haven't seen the last of Saw Gerrera.

It was recently confirmed that Forest Whitaker will return to provide the voice for Saw Gerrera in the next episode of Star Wars Rebels, which debuts Saturday, January 7 on Disney XD. Since the timeline for Star Wars Rebels is quite behind the events of Rogue One, it makes sense that Saw Gerrera would return in this series, since it is believed that he was blown up when the holy planet of Jedha exploded in Rogue One. Empire caught up with LucasFilm president and producer Kathleen Kennedy, who teased that they originally had bigger plans for Saw Gerrera, who will likely return in future projects, perhaps even his own spin-off movie.

"With Saw Gerrera, we just became very intrigued with him as a character [from The Clone Wars] and how he fits inside this story. To be honest, we originally thought we were going to develop Saw into something much larger, but we couldn't accommodate it. So he is not in the movie as much as we would like to have him in the movie, which creates the opportunity to explore his character even further in our future development."

While Kathleen Kennedy hasn't confirmed when Saw Gerrera may return in the Star Wars universe, it's possible that we could see him in the next Star Wars spin-off, centering on Han Solo. That movie, which stars Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo and Donald Glover as Lando Clarissian, is set in roughly the same time frame as Rogue One, between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Though Han Solo is reportedly set 10 years before A New Hope, the Rogue One prologue that introduces Saw is set 16 years before that movie, so it seems logical that Whitaker is capable of playing the younger version of the character. The next Star Wars movie centers on Han Solo before he was first introduced in A New Hope. While we'll have to wait and see where he'll surface next, Forest Whitaker is excited to see what will happen next with the character.

"I'm curious about what else they're about to do. Because they seem to really like the character, which is great!"

We reported earlier this year that Disney is planning on releasing a new Star Wars movie every year, indefinitely, so there will likely be no shortage of movies for Saw Gerrera to return in. Its also interesting to note that Saw Gerrera is a character that was created by George Lucas. Kathleen Kennedy has also teased that, after this new trilogy concludes with Star Wars 9, the rest of the Star Wars movies will be stand alone projects from then on out. That was never confirmed, nor have plans to bring back Saw Gerrera in a future movie, but hopefully we'll have confirmation quite soon.