Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
It seems like Salmon Fishing in the Yemen flew mostly under the radar this year, so there was plenty of surprise when it received 3 Golden Globe nominations – most notably, for our purposes, best actor in a comedy or musical for Ewan McGregor.
McGregor is up again Jack Black (Bernie,) Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook,) Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables,) and Bill Murray (Hyde Park on Hudson.)
The Golden Globes nominations are, per usual, very slight on genre.
The Hollywood Reportor has named Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy as one of their top ten power women in entertainment.
Kennedy is ninth on the list, which is led by Disney’s Anne Sweeney and NBC’s Bonnie Hammer.
The full list of 100 will be released later today.
This month, Steve Sansweet’s Rancho Obi-Wan celebrates it’s one-year anniversary as a nonprofit and the release of Sansweet’s latest book, Star Wars: The Ultimate Action Figure Collection. And to commemorate it, they’re auctioning off a collection of 1,950 Star Wars action figures.
The figures were originally collected and donated by one-time ILM model maker Fon Davis, and date from the original Kenner vintage line through early 2011.
Funds raised from the auction will go to support Rancho Obi-Wan.
TheForce.Net has a report from a reader who claims that at a book signing, Carrie Fisher said she is indeed going to be in Episode VII.
..The interview she did started with the question ‘Are you really going to be in a new star wars movie?’ and Carrie answered quietly ‘Yes….I thought it was already common knowledge.’
…Or was she joking? E’s Leslie Gornstein contacted Fisher’s rep, who had this to say:
“She hasn’t confirmed anything,” a rep told me this morning. “Everything you’ve seen has been tongue-in-cheek.”
Of course, there’s still a pretty good chance that Fisher – along with Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Billy Dee Williams, who was victimized by TMZ today – may indeed show up in the films, as cameos or otherwise. Certainly it’s going to be one of the first questions Lucasfilm, Disney and the actors themselves will continue to be pestered with until they confirm one way or another.
As always, remember, nothing is confirmed until we hear it authorized from Disney or Lucasfilm themselves… Particularly when it’s hearsay!
Carrie Fisher appeared on The Talk yesterday, and chatted a little about Star Wars. “I like to think of it as ‘old Leia,’ like, sway-backed old Leia the horse,” she said. “I like the idea of being Mrs. Solo, and we’ve just fought and fought and I killed him.” (via)
Clone Wars heavy-hitters Dave Filoni and Ashley Eckstein both have blog entries about Disney and Star Wars on the official site today.
Filoni writes about his history with Disney – he worked on Kim Possible, among others – Star WArs Weekends, and
When Revenge of the Sith was over, I found myself in the incredible position of carrying the torch forward. Now I can see the incredibly bright light that is the future of Star Wars. For those of you who are fans of The Clone Wars, do not worry. We have many stories left to tell, and every one of them came directly from George himself. Right down to the last one, where that thing with Ahsoka happens…
As the daughter of a Disney “cast member,” Ashley Eckstein has never made a secret of her Disney love, and she writes at length about the effects of “being immersed in the Disney culture at such a young age.”
I wanted to work for Disney SO badly that I turned in my application on my 16th birthday. After several auditions, I finally got my big break and I was cast as a cheerleader in the Hercules Parade. I got to dance down Hollywood Blvd. Thanks to Disney, I was able to perform in front of thousands of people on the weekends and it made my dream, again, feel tangible.
The internet’s favorite celebrity street-harassers, TMZ, caught up with Carrie Fisher at LAX to ask if she’s come back to Star Wars. An unenthused Fisher (can’t blame her – aren’t airports hellish enough without paparazzi?) answered “Yes. Sure. Wouldn’t you?”
Of course, Fisher has had more time than the rest of us to get used to the idea – George Lucas told her and Mark Hamill about the sequels in August.
George Lucas will be one of the biggest charitable givers ever when he donates his Disney billions, Forbes says. (via)
Disney is paying Lucas $4.05 billion in cash and stock for Lucasfilm and its subsidiaries. He plans to put most of the money towards education.
In other news, Mellody Hobson, who has been romantically linked with Lucas since 2006, has been named chairman of DreamWorks Animation. She’s been on the board of the company, which was co-founded by Steven Spielberg, since 2004.
EOnline caught up with George Lucas to ask what and how he feels about moving on from Lucasfilm and Star Wars.
“It was 40 years of work,” Lucas said when we caught up with him at the Ebony Power 100 Gala at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall. “It has been my life, but I am ready to move on to bigger and better things.”
He also talked about his charity work and said he’s going to keep making “littler personal films,” but “the ones I am working on now will never get into the theaters.”
A spokesperson tells The Hollywood Reporter that George Lucas plans to put most of the money he received from Disney – $4.05 billion dollars – towards “a foundation which will primarily focus on educational issues.”
This could mean a new foundation, but Lucas is already the chairman of Edutopia, a organization that fosters innovation in schools, part of The George Lucas Educational Foundation. He’s used the Foundation to make donations to various philanthropic causes in the past, including a record-breaking $175 million to USC in 2006. In 2010, Lucas was among the first to sign the Giving Pledge, vowing to give away at least half his wealth to charitable causes.