Posted on by Dunc

J.J. Abrams is still not confirmed for Episode VII

AbramsUPDATE: NOW he is! But please remember the lesson of this post for next time!

No, J. J. Abrams still hasn’t been confirmed as the Episode VII director. No matter how many sites are reporting it, we still haven’t heard from any of the people who do have the power to confirm the rumor: Not Lucasfilm, not Disney, and not Abrams’ people. No one has gone on the record yet.

And with good reason. Over at Fandom Apocalypse, Austin lays out the case for why we shouldn’t count Abrams in just yet:

Why hasn’t Disney or Lucasfilm made any official announcement yet, while the rest of the entertainment world is acting like this is a done deal? Because until Abrams puts his signature on that contract, there is no guarantee. The man could be sitting in a conference room with every big wig from Lucasfilm and Disney, plotting out the entire production process, but until he puts his John Hancock on that paper, there won’t be an official confirmation.

Might it have been deliberately leaked that negotiations were in progress? Sure. But the fact remains: It’s not confirmed.

No one is saying this isn’t true, or won’t turn out to be true in time: We’re just saying that it’s not confirmed. It’s not for sure. The big players will only chime in when all the deal is done. If it’s done. But that’s not something we can count on… Yet.

24 Replies to “J.J. Abrams is still not confirmed for Episode VII”

  1. If it is true (and it’s looking more and more likely to me as no one comes up to deny it) I’ll look forward to the story of why he turned it down and how Lucasfilm changed his mind.

  4. And even if Abrams has told Orci that he’s doing it, he can still change his mind if he hasn’t signed on the dotted line.

  6. That one is linked in the previous post as well.

    ‘Thursday’ in that post means yesterday – it said that last night and they haven’t changed it.

  7. @Dalsk: I am pretty sure that the Times was thinking of this (past) Thursday. Which would suggest that they know as little as everyone else…

  8. If the rumors are correct, and Abrams is helming Star Wars Episode VII, then I am officially relieved. Abrams is an upper case F Filmmaker. He gets that films are first and foremost about characters, something Lucas understood in the 70s and 80s and kind of forgot after the CG revolution. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot was what I wanted the prequels to be, big and exciting and shiny but also completely character-centric. The fun wasn’t in the pretty ships and explosions but the characters in those pretty ships flying through those pretty explosions, and bickering and clashing and developing all the while. A Star Wars cast I can care about is something that’s been missing since Return of The Jedi, and I know without a doubt that Abrams could bring that back. Here’s hoping, with all my fingers crossed!

  13. Exactly. It would be run by interns or Marshall himself.

    Either way, this is all fun. I love this part of the Star Wars anticipatory experience.

  14. Orci, later in the comments says:

    “@riffsyphon1024 @naddycat I think that’s wise. I actually have no inside info on the subject. It was on ABC News, so it has to be true;)”

  15. I’d be perfectly happy if it was Abrams (I mean if I was queen of the universe, there’d be some women and folks of color on the short list, but since that was never an actual possibility, I’m happy they picked a white guy who knows how to make a good movie).

    And while I find it very likely that it will be confirmed, “confirmed” doesn’t mean “the blog-o-sphere heard it from some friends of Abrams’s, so it’s probably going to happen.”

  18. “I’d be perfectly happy if it was Abrams (I mean if I was queen of the universe, there’d be some women and folks of color on the short list, but since that was never an actual possibility, I’m happy they picked a white guy who knows how to make a good movie).”

    Just pick the best guy/girl/animal/inanimate object. That’s literally all I care about. Just don’t screw this up folks.

  19. I know I’m very much in the minority, but I really hope that this all ends up being completely false. Abrams is a technically competent director, but I’m yet to see him avail himself well of large-scale action. And–and this is more important I think–his films all ultimately feel antiseptic and emotionless to me. They are calculated and over-thought to a fault. There is no affection or care in the feel of the films. And that is unacceptable to me when it comes to Star Wars, because even at the lowest points of any of the films, you can still feel, just from watching, that a great many someones involved in the making of the films loved and believed in what they were doing.

  20. Yeah, I really hope Shyamalan never gets the helm on Star Wars. That would not be a good film.

  22. Disney confirmed it – JJ is director.

    I’m actually very excited about it. He gets flack for stuff (that I don’t understand…) and the biggest thing that I am excited about is his treatment of characters.
    I’ve never watched any Star Trek before his reboot, but now I want to go back and watch the originals because I care about the characters.
    I’ve only seen a few episodes of Lost via roommates (nursing school here) and I could already tell that it was the characters that were the most important part. Fringe is exactly the same (and I adore Fringe but the development of characters is solid and thorough).

    The treatment of characters in the Empire Strikes Back is what made me fall in love with it and that’s what I hope JJ brings to the table. Because that is honestly what I think is his best talent. Creating characters that we love and growing them in the process.

    1. It must be some kind of karma thing that I harped on this and then slept through the actual announcement, huh?

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