Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
He’s the biggest new actor associated with the sequels so far, but Ryan Gosling is not pursuing a role in Episode VII, the actor’s representatives tell The Huffington Post. They also point out that the actor has recently said he’d like to take a break from acting.
And no, they haven’t heard back from Zac Efron’s people yet.
Of course, at this point a denial doesn’t mean much… And remember, J.J. Abrams denied, too!
The second Celebration Europe – and our first Celebration of the post-Disney era – has officially begun with a press conference reuniting much of the Return of the Jedi cast. Luckily, Dan Brooks of StarWars.com live-blogged it.
Don’t forget, our own @jamesjawa is in Germany, too!
Is it April Fools already? Latino Review’s Kellvin Chavez is reporting that Ryan Gosling and Zac Efron are up for roles in Episode VII – and that Leonardo DiCaprio has already passed.
Chavez doesn’t know what role Efron could be up for, but apparently Gosling auditioned for the role of Luke’s son.
Gosling is among the hottest actors in Hollywood right now, and while I wouldn’t count on him – yes, he’s probably big enough these days to turn down Star Wars if the mood strikes – I also don’t entirely hate the idea. After all, how many people do you hear referencing his time as a Mouseketeer these days, as opposed to his meme? He’d be a pretty big get for any franchise.
Efron, on the other hand, has the opposite problem – he’s hard-wired to his Disney tweener past, namely as one of the stars of the High School Musical ‘franchise.’ Will the world ever be able to take this guy seriously? (On the other hand, he didn’t suck in Hairspray.) He was one of the Disney folks you saw photoshopped into every other Star Wars image a few months past. It was eye-rolling then – but expect to see those images a lot more as this rumor disperses out through the internet. With additional Gosling. Whoo.
I, as always, remain skeptical.
It’s not much, and it’s not particularly surprising, but the Disney Insider has confirmed that new Star Wars attractions are in the works. There will be “teasers for new attractions based on Avatar and Star Wars that we’re working on now for the Disney Parks” revealed at August’s D23 Expo. (via)
The most recent rumors on their plans are vast and varied – hopefully the hints are illuminating!
Rebelforce Radio says they’ve heard that neither of The Clone Wars DVD and Blu-ray sets that were spotted on French Amazon earlier this month will not contain the much-anticipated ‘bonus content.’ The sets, expected out in mid-October, include both S5 and a complete series box set. RFR also says that the complete series set comes with a book, Obi-wan will be featured on the cover of S5, and that we’ll be getting a formal announcement on Friday.
But RFR goes on to say that there won’t be an announcement regarding the bonus content anytime soon. One can hope this means that the stuff will eventually get a much more significant play than as mere special features. But given that near-rabid interest in it from some corners of fandom, the state of the bonus content is sure to come up sometime this weekend at one of Celebration Europe’s Clone Wars panels… I’d be very surprised if hint or two isn’t dropped at some point.
Or maybe I’m just sick of typing ‘bonus content.’
Pic-heavy, because what else does one do with San Diego Comic-Con? Bonus to watching it via Twitter: No lines!
Our own Paula has been highlighted by Her Universe for their Fangirl of the Day initiative!
It’s a good week for comics: Legacy #5 ends the revived title’s first arc with, apparently, some sort of bang. And for those who prefer collections, there are trade paperback editions of Dawn of the Jedi: Prisoner of Bogan and Agent of the Empire: Hard Targets.
It’s also time for non-subscribers to start keeping an eye out for Star Wars Insider #143, guest-edited by Warwick Davis and featuring a short story by John Jackson Miller that ties into our next novel release, August’s Kenobi.
UPDATE: Lucasfilm has denied the report. “There is no truth to the rumor,” a company spokesman told TheForce.Net. “JJ is having a great time working on the script and is looking forward to going into production next year.” Our original post is below.
Badass Digest is reporting that J.J. Abrams may be dropping out of Episode VII. They write:
…Why is it that I keep hearing tons of rumors that JJ Abrams is on the verge of dropping out of Star Wars? This has been something I’ve heard for a while now, and from multiple insiders. I know that he didn’t want to shoot the movie in England and was overruled, but that happened a while ago. This weekend at Comic Con I continued to hear these whispers. No director for Trek 3 has been found yet – might Abrams end up coming back after all, leaving Star Wars to someone else?
Big Shiny Robot is doubtful and so am I… After all, wouldn’t arrangements to film in England have already been in the works when he was signing on? Wouldn’t it have been a topic of discussion before he signed on the dotted line?
This could be nothing more than runaway fanboy paranoia at work, and it would be a big, public hit for Bad Robot, whether last week’s red scripts are Star Wars or not. But I do agree we should wait and see what comes out of Celebration Europe.
As expected, most of the Star Wars news out of SDCC was fairly low key. And, in case you missed them, here are James’ photos from the con: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Interviews. James caught up with J. W. Rinzler, John Jackson Miller, Legacy creative team Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman and the folks at Becker & Mayer.
Expanded Universe. Both Dark Horse and Del Rey had Star Wars panels Friday, and our own James valiantly live-tweeted both of them. There wasn’t much in the way of announcements, but we did get the debut of the cover for Empire and Rebellion: Honor Among Thieves.
People. MTV managed to drag a little something about J.J. Abrams out of Harrison Ford, while Mark Hamill reminisced about Comic-Cons past with The Hollywood Reportor.
Her Universe. Ashley Eckstein and company debuted a new booth and released Mara Jade and Jaina Solo shirts at the con and online… And now they’re pretty much sold out. Sorry.
TV. Phineas and Ferb is doing a kind of Star Wars crossover thing, to which I say… Okay.
Hasbro. We did get a better look at the new Mara Jadse figure, out with the second wave of the Black Series later this year.
Hallmark. The 2014 Christmas ornaments already? Hey, anything that saves us from waiting for the Dreambook is fine by me.
Also… Comic book movies galore, a new Catching Fire trailer and first looks at new Legend of Korra and Veronica Mars.
Soon, the time zone shenanigans get even wackier as James will be off to Germany for Celebration Europe… Where we hope/expect we’ll be getting some kind of sequel news or confirmation. Cross your fingers.