Jimmy Kimmel broke the news (well, mostly the rumory bits) about the Star Wars spin-offs to Ewan McGregor on his show last night.
Roundup: Will Episode VII feature a Lord of the Rings transplant as the big bad?
Actors. An Australian DJ (?!?) is claiming that John Noble will be playing the villain in Episode VII. You probably know Noble as Fringe’s Walter Bishop, or from Lord of the Rings, where he played Denethor, perhaps Middle-Earth’s least stable father figure. Like Walter Bishop, I have my skeptic face on.
Abrams alumni Keri Russell would be down for Star Wars, because once again, who’s going to say they don’t want to be in Star Wars?
And finally, Ewan McGregor doesn’t know anything about the new movies, but it seems like he’s still game. He’ll be talking about his new film, Jack and the Giant Slayer, on Ellen this Friday.
The once and future directors. HuffPo’s Mike Ryan has a great article exploring the Star Wars directors thus far. And at the Star Wars Blog, Bonnie Burton has the relevant quotes from her past interviews with J.J. Abrams.
Solo, solo. Hollywood.com’s Christian Blauvelt talks about casting (and writing) a younger Han Solo with Scoundrels author Timothy Zahn. Since the conversation naturally turns to casting Thrawn, Zahn spoke a bit more about casting his characters back on January’s book tour for Scoundrels.
Video. J.J. Abrams talks about Star Wars, Star Trek and the mystery box in a TED Talk from 2007. (via)
Money matters. George Lucas has filed to cash out his Disney stock – the 37,076,679 shares that were half the purchase price for Lucasfilm. (Note: The move doesn’t mean he has to or even will sell immediately, just that he can.) In any case, it was announced early on that Lucas would donate the company’s purchase price to fund “educational issues.”
Lists. Empire has nine characters who deserve a spin-off. They’re all dudes, naturally, but step over to Alyssa Rosenberg’s blog for five women who should be in Episode VII.
EUbits: Crucible tweaks Han, Maul’s Lockdown gets a release date
Adjustments. The Han on the Crucible cover got a slight tweak. (Why yes, it is a slow week for EU news!) The important thing is, the release date remains the same: July 9.
Street dates. Speaking of upcoming releases, pencil in Joe Schreiber’s Maul: Lockdown for a January 21, 2014 release. Not because we don’t believe it’s coming, but because this far out, dates are subject to change. And on that note, 2014 is now an actual thing on our release schedule. Meanwhile, if you don’t want to wait most of a year to read about Maul, Aaron Goins has a list of 7 tales you can check out right now.
Comics. Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman chat about their forthcoming Legacy: Prisoner of the Floating World at Geek of Oz.
Reviews. Over at Big Shiny Robot, James gets enthusiastic about the happenings in Agent of the Empire: Hard Targets #4 and Dark Times: Fire Carrier #1.
The Clone Wars crew takes on Chris Hardwick and Team Nerdist in bowling
The Nerdist Channel has the latest episode of their All-Star Celebrity Bowling show, and it’s the Wolfpack from Star Wars: The Clone Wars taking on Chris Hardwick and his team from Nerdist. Dave Filoni, Ashley Eckstein, Catherine Taber, and Dee Bradley Baker hope to strike back at host Chris Hardwick. There’s probably more bowling / Star Wars puns to be had here, but I’ll spare you.
Rumor: Spin-off films focus on Han Solo, Boba Fett
Entertainment Weekly’s ‘sources close to the projects’ claim that the two Star Wars standalone films annouced yesterday will feature a young Han Solo and an original-trilogy era Boba Fett.
The Han film will take place sometime between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, while the Fett film will be set in-between the OT films, they claim.
Han is generally believed to be about 10 at the time of Revenge, and there was, if I recall the concept art book correctly, some early talk of him actually showing up on Kashyyyk in the film. UPDATE: Slashfilm dug it up.
UPDATE #2: Meanwhile, Deadline claims that Lucasfilm is still “kicking around” spin-off ideas, and nothing is set in stone yet.
Make-up artist Stuart Freeborn has died
Original trilogy make-up artist Stuart Freeborn has died at age 98, the BBC reports.
Freeborn worked on many celebrated films, including Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Star Wars fans will know him best as the man who created Chewbacca, Jabba the Hutt and Yoda. He famously based Yoda’s face on Albert Einstein – and himself.
StarWars.com writes more about his Star Wars contributions, as well as comment from George Lucas:
“Stuart was already a makeup legend when he started on Star Wars,” said George Lucas. “He brought with him not only decades of experience, but boundless creative energy. His artistry and craftsmanship will live on forever in the characters he created. His Star Wars creatures may be reinterpreted in new forms by new generations, but at their heart, they continue to be what Stuart created for the original films.”
Below the cut, a two-part documentary where Freeborn talks about his work.
Lucasfilm, ILM nabs a few pre-Oscar awards
In the land of not-Star Wars, Lucasfilm picked up a couple awards last weekend:
Red Tails won the NAACP Image award for Outstanding Motion Picture, beating out others such as Flight and Django Unchained. In a video clip from the event, George Lucas shares why he produced the WWII action film about the Tuskegee Airmen.
While the Annie Awards were dominated by wins for Wreck-It Ralph and Dragons: Riders of Berk, a team from Industrial Light and Magic won for Outstanding Achievement, Animated Effects in a Live Action Production: Jerome Platteaux, John Sigurdson, Ryan Hopkins, Raul Essig, and Mark Chataway won for their work on The Avengers. Also in the running, we had The Clone Wars crew with four nominations and LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out with one nomination.
Disney CEO confirms standalone Star Wars films
Disney CEO Bob Iger dropped a couple of bombs on us this afternoon regarding future Star Wars movies.
Lucasfilm is working on ‘a few’ standalone films featuring existing characters – but not part of the overall saga. Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg are working on them – thus confirming the second half of an older rumor.
Iger said that Disney and Lucasfilm hope to make Episodes VII-IX over “a six-year period.” They’re still aiming for a 2015 release, but “a few other films” will be released “in that period of time.” Bryan Young speculates that this likely means we’ll be getting a Star Wars film on a yearly basis, which is in line with sister studio Pixar’s output
UPDATE: StarWars.com adds that Kasdan and Kinberg are working on two films separately, each focusing “on a specific character,” and that they’re both expected to come out after Episode VII.
Iger declined to name any specific characters, so the Yoda film still remains strictly a rumor – but certainly a far more likely one now. I’d also place bets on Boba Fett getting his own movie – but if it keeps him (and his director fanboys) out of further Episodes, that’s a price I will (grudgingly) pay.
Some like it Hoth: Best #StarWars, #EpisodeVII and #SWEU tweets for Jan. 28 – Feb. 3
Someone believes Death Stars are real, the men behind Jar Jar and Gollum meet, we figured out a way to save the Super Bowl and #StarWarsSpinoffs took off. Eat your heart out, Yoda.
Roundup: Wrapping up the Maul/Death Watch story on The Clone Wars
With ‘The Lawless’ airing last Saturday, the story arc of Darth Maul’s ambitions to become a major player in the galaxy have come to an end. Naturally, with many of the big developments that came out of this story, most notably the deaths of Pre Vizsla, Duchess Satine, and Savage Opress, and Maul being spared by Sidious, there’s a lot to talk about with Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Here’s a rundown of some of the buzz on Darth Maul / Death Watch storyline: Continue reading “Roundup: Wrapping up the Maul/Death Watch story on The Clone Wars“