Club Jade

• Red Tails moving forward. We’ve got an update on George Lucas’ Tuskegee Airmen movie, namely that offers have gone out to actors Terence Howard, Andre Royo, Nate Parker, NeYo, David Oyelowo, Barry Pepper and Bryan Cranston.

• People: Artist Cat Staggs getting some local coverage.
• Licensees: Bioware is setting up a new team in Montreal, though only Mass Effect 2 gets namechecked.

Star Wars has been named the #1 toy license for 2008, thanks to sales that exceed $450 million: It was the year’s most popular licensed toy property. The success of The Force Unleashed and the appearance of 14 Star Wars titles on New York Times bestseller list contributed as well. And StarWars.com has seen a 30% jump in site traffic.

Hawthorne Village, which produces those little Christmas villages beloved by grandmas, aunties, and other connoisseurs of twee*, is now a Star Wars licensee. First up is the Mos Eisley Cantina, which Rebelscum has thoughtfully provided a picture of. (Click the picture above to go directly to the full ad.) I’m getting a total kick out of the image of fanboys drooling all over these things, and/or little kids begging Mom to include the Hoth Rebel base next December.

* They have the Thomas Kinkade license: ‘Nuff said. And, less alarmingly, Disney, which leads to Pirates of the Caribbean.

The contract renewal we’ve all been expecting has finally been announced, (45 books: 35 novels!) along with the Fate of the Jedi series which has been burning up all the rumor mills. Aaron Allston, Troy Denning, and SW newcomer Christie Golden will be handling author duties on the post-LOTF series, but perhaps the biggest surprise here is that it will be entirely in hardcover. The first book, Allston’s Outcast, will be out in April.

Also name-dropped is The Making of The Empire Strikes Back coming in 2010, though whether it’s a reprint or reworking of previous material we’ve yet to learn.

There’s no mention of several other projects we’re awaiting official word on, like Cunningham’s Blood Oath or Traviss’ Fett standalone, but further Essential Guides are mentioned.

Rumorville: Perth Now is reporting that the music for a Star Wars TV series filmed in Sydney that “could have 400 half-hour episodes” (umm…) will be recorded in Perth by Malcolm Luker. Okay then! Of course, George Lucas (or a good impersonator) was spotted down under last week. I guess we’ll get the full story (or not) in November.

• But seriously… George is part of Vanity Fair’s New Establishment.

• Good luck with that: British comedian/TV personality Justin Lee Collins is attempting to reunite the Star Wars cast on a show airing this Sunday. (Warning: The Sun.)
• Fans of note: Underwire has a short profile of Slave Leia belly dancer Amira Sa’id. And video of her routines, natch.
• Licensees: The Clone Wars Happy Meals (and the Olympics) helped boost McDonald’s sales. We’re so proud.
• People: Word on the street is that Mark Hamill will reprise the Joker for the Batman: Arkham Asylum game.

The new company and licensee launched their website today – so if you’re dying to get a jump on one of their 500 full-size Stormtrooper helmets (on sale tomorrow) you can beat the competition by registering today. Or you can simply check out upcoming products, like a Darth Vader ‘concept’ helmet (which even I can admit is kind of neat) and an Ashoka lightsaber.

Not an official announcement, and not really a huge surprise either given what we’ve been finding on RandomHouse.com, but Rebelscum is saying that Star Wars Action News is reporting (I can’t find it on their site, and life is too short for podcasts. It’s on their message boards.) that someone at Del Rey confirmed that they did renew their contract with Lucasfilm.

We’ll no doubt get additional details when the official announcement is made… Hopefully soon.

The official site has some details on the Penguin and DK kids books that will tie into The Clone Wars movie and TV series. The books all have a release date of July 26 in the U.S. and August 7 in the U.K. One publisher announcement down… Hopefully we’ll get the others soon!

Publisher’s Weekly looks into the busy world of The Clone Wars tie-ins. The pertinent bits:

Grosset & Dunlap will be the primary licensee for children’s formats including junior novelizations, 8x8s, readers, movie photo books and activity books, starting with movie tie-ins this summer—the on-sale date for all books and merchandise is July 26—followed by TV-based titles in the fall. Other juvenile licensees include DK for sticker books, Visual Guides and DK Readers and Dalmatian for coloring and activity books. For older readers, Random House’s Del Rey imprint will publish one movie and four TV novelizations, and Dark Horse will release monthly comics and digest-size graphic novels. An “Art Of” title is expected as well.

Meanwhile, classic Star Wars publishing will continue; Scholastic will introduce a new series next year.

Paul over at TFN speculates that the Traviss and Miller mystery books may be the first wave of novelizations.

We’ve never had much interest in the doings of the young kids books, but Paul over at TFN (via Once Upon a Galaxy) has an interesting find: The Clone Wars books for ‘young readers’ and ‘readers’ and published by Penguin’s Grosset & Dunlap imprint. I don’t think this would really effect the adult novels – clearly there are a variety of different contracts at work here. (Including the one with Dorling Kindersley, which is also an imprint of Penguin.) Still, an interesting development.

As for the books themselves, you can check out the lineup on their Star Wars sell sheet (Warning: PDF.) It lists six books with a July 26th release date, and even less plot details than TV Guide.