Rumor: Captain America: Civil War trailer to debut on The Force Awakens. So Collider claims, anyway, but it does make a lot of sense for Disney. Still, The Force Awakens trailer wasn’t attached to a film, who says this one has to be?
Spielberg expects Ford for Indiana Jones 5
While promoting his new film Bridge of Spies with Tom Hanks, director Steven Spielberg mentioned his hope to work with Harrison Ford on a fifth Indiana Jones film. In a chat with Yahoo Movies, Spielberg mentions his collaborations with Harrison Ford and Tom Hanks:
“We’ve gotta figure this out because now, Tom is tied with Harrison Ford: Harrison and I did four movies, Tom and I have done four movies… Now I’ll probably do an Indy 5 with Harrison, [so] it’ll be five for Harrison, four for Tom. … I’ve got to make another one with Tom, that’ll be five for Tom, five for Harrison. And I think I’m going to leapfrog that way for the rest of my career. With Daniel Day-Lewis in everything else!”
At this point, however, there’s not a lot of progress yet on Indiana Jones 5. According to Cinema Blend, there’s still not past the scripting stage.
George Lucas to be honored by Kennedy Center, Disney
George Lucas is among those who will receive Kennedy Center Honors this year, it was announced today. Other honorees include Cicely Tyson, Rita Moreno, Carole King and the Eagles. They’ll be celebrated at the Center’s annual gala on December 6 in a ceremony that will air on CBS December 29th.
Before that, however, Disney will name Lucas a Disney Legend at D23 in August.
Ewan McGregor on The Force Awakens, the broadsaber, and (maybe) returning as Obi-Wan
“I’m excited about it as much as anyone else. I saw the trailer and it looks like he absolutely nailed it and it feels right,” Ewan McGregor said on The Force Awakens at the 69th Edinburgh International Film Festival this weekend.
He’s not sure about Kylo Ren’s lightsaber crossguard, though: “If you fight with a lightsaber properly you don’t need one.”
As for Obi-Wan Kenobi:
Would McGregor return to the role, if asked? “I’ll say it publicly, here, now. I’d be happy to do the story between Episode 3, that I finished in, and Episode 4 that Alec Guinness started in. I think that would be good. Disney should definitely do that.” McGregor’s tone suggested he was half-quipping.
We’ve known that McGregor would be down to return since the very day we learned there’d be new movies, but it’s nice to know that his interest hasn’t waned, at least.
McGregor was at the festival for the U.K. premiere of Last Days in the Desert, where he plays a duel role as Jesus and Satan. At least one upcoming role keeps him in the Disney family – he’s playing Lumiere in the live-action Beauty and the Beast that’s slated for 2017.
Christopher Lee passes away at age 93
Veteran actor Christopher Lee, who counted Star Wars’ Count Dooku among his hundreds of film roles, died Sunday in London.
In the ’50s and ’60s, he was best known for his work in the Hammer Horror films, where he famously played Count Dracula, often alongside another actor who eventually showed up in Star Wars, Peter Cushing. In the ’70s, he upped his profile with pivotal roles in The Wicker Man and The Man with the Golden Gun.
(My personal introduction to Lee was 1982’s The Last Unicorn, where he voiced the villain, King Haggard.)
In the early 2000s, he gained a whole new audience in two of the decades biggest franchises, playing Dooku in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, and the wizard Saruman in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaptions. He also appeared in several Tim Burton films.
Films aside, Lee led a intriguing life: He served as an intelligence officer during and just after World War II, where his duties involved hunting down Nazi war criminals. (In an infamous bit from the Lord of the Rings extras, he tells Peter Jackson how it sounds when a man is stabbed in the back.)
He also released several heavy metal concept albums, the last in 2013.
Below the cut, a handful of tweets. Continue reading “Christopher Lee passes away at age 93”
Josh Trank on his Star Wars exit
In the L.A. Times, director Josh Trank addresses why he dropped out of the second Star Wars Anthology film.
“I want to do something original after [Fantastic Four] because I’ve been living under public scrutiny, as you’ve seen, for the last four years of my life,” he said. “And it’s not healthy for me right now in my life. I want to do something that’s below the radar.”
“I have a great relationship with everyone at Lucasfilm and with Kari Hart,” he continued. “And they all understood it because this whole experience for me has been very psychologically hard.”
Simon Kinberg, also present at the interview, called the rumors that followed Trank’s departure “particularly cruel.”
Wired’s oral history of Industrial Light & Magic
Vanity Fair isn’t the only magazine borrowing some Star Wars mojo this month. Wired today has ‘the definitive oral history of ILM,’ with George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg, Dennis Muren and more. (Including J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson.)
Kathleen Kennedy says a new Indiana Jones movie will happen… One day
Kathleen Kennedy says a new Indiana Jones movie is in the cards… One day. “When it will happen, I’m not quite sure,” she told Vanity Fair. “We haven’t started working on a script yet, but we are talking about it.”
Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy died today
So, as you probably already know, Leonard Nimoy died today. There’s not really much I have to add to what’s already been said, thousands of times over.
The first movie I can remember going to in the theater is The Search for Spock. Star Wars may have been the bigger phenomenon in the early ’80s, but Star Trek was on TV, regularly. For a kid born in the late ’70s to geek parents, with no older siblings to pass on the Star Wars bug, Trek was simply more present. I was never precisely fannish about it, but I liked it, I’ve watched most of the movies, and I know I’ve seen nearly every episode of TOS and TNG at some point or another.
I saw a lot of references to Nimoy today as the “soul” of Trek, and, yeah: That sounds about right.
Some other tributes under the cut.
Felicity Jones, Lupita N’yongo on Star Wars (barely) at the Oscars
So it’s pretty much a sure thing that Felicity Jones is going to be one of the stars of the upcoming spin-off at this point, and we can agree if this counts as a ‘confirmation – but she told MTV’s Josh Horowitz that she “can’t talk about it.” (Lupita N’yongo says she’s sure it will “change her life even more.”)
Naturally that’s about all we’re going to get for anything upcoming, but Star Wars had a couple moments in the opening act. Bib Iger’s wife even wore one of the Rodarte Star Wars dresses on the red carpet.