Club Jade

Well, maybe not quite… But the film has finished casting and is now in production!

• 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.

I know I’m not along in facepalming every time the man talks about Indy IV – and I swear, I was mildly entertained by Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – but he’s doing it again. Luckily, Coming Soon also asks him about Star Wars 3-D (don’t hold your breath,) Red Tails (in casting,) Samuel L. Jackson (we’ve heard it) and directing, to which:

I’m getting rid of all my development. Everything that I’ve ever developed is going to be finished in about a year, a year and a half or two, and then I’m going to go do my own films.

Oh, George. Perhaps Clark will finally get an answer on those Howard the Duck sequels.

In less winceworthy news, how about his student film? Racecars! Vroom vroom! Yeah!

Never met a dead horse he couldn’t beat: Harrison Ford tells the Los Angeles Times that George Lucas is considering a fifth Indiana Jones film. Of course he is.

But for those who might wonder about those fleeting non-franchise projects, Red Tails does now have a director, Anthony Hemingway.

• That parrot is definitely deceased: Johnny Depp is reportedly getting $56 million for a fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean film. Fifty. Six. (Or is it four?) Million.

• The no-brainer: Christopher Nolan to make third Batman film, start production in February. Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman will return. Nothing sarcastic here, move along.
• Okay, so it’s a prequel. Or something: Guillermo del Toro is directing The Hobbit, if you haven’t heard. But he also wants to do a Frankenstein movie. Hopefully he doesn’t pick up any of Peter Jackson’s King Kong mojo while he’s down in New Zealand.

Yesterday, George Lucas spoke up for educational broadband at a Congressional hearing in his guise as chairman of the George Lucas Educational Foundation:

“Telecommunications provides the new learning platform of this century and is replacing the textbook as the medium through which a modern education is provided,” he said. “The world’s knowledge is now available online, far beyond what books and materials can provide in schools and libraries themselves.”

• Red Tails: Rick McCallum tells the AP that they hope to start shooting George’s Tuskegee Airmen flick by early 2009. Lucas is not directing it, but since he’s only been talking about producing I can’t say that’s a surprise.

• Industrial design: The San Francisco Chronicle looks into the urban legend that Port of Oakland container cranes inspired the design of ESB’s AT-AT walkers.
• ILM: The New York Daily News has reported that ILM may be heading to Broadway on effects duty for a musical starring Whoopi Goldberg. Wait, what?

Variety reports that George Lucas has hired John Ridley to write Red Tails. The film is about WWII’s Tuskegee Airmen and has often been mentioned as a future project by Lucas.

Rick McCallum is also on board as co-producer with Charles Floyd Johnson.

Rick McCallum loves to talk when he does anything with Empire Magazine.

A summary of what he said:
- The TV show will be set between Episodes III and IV, will be “much darker,” and “character based.” But we still have to wait about 18 months before that starts cranking.
- George’s movie Red Tails about World War II fighter pilots is in the script-writing phase.
- George has finally approved the IndyIV script. Maybe we’ll be able to do it before Harrison Ford is in a wheelchair!

See the full article here.