Lucasfilm hired Brenda Chapman – who was the writer and original director for Brave at Pixar- in August. Reports were that she was consulting on a ‘mystery project’ for Lucasfilm Animation…. But in the wake of the Disney sale and sequel trilogy announcements? Bleeding Cool notes some of her recent tweets – including a link to a Time story on Episode VII. Could she be involved with the new films somehow? ” We will just have to wait and see what happens,” she tweeted to one such inquiry.
Of course, it’s worth noting that all of Chapman’s credits are in animation – she directed Dreamwork’s The Prince of Egypt – and Episode VII already has a writer. But ‘consultant’ does cover a lot of ground, and the timing is pretty curious…
And yes, this is pure, unbridled speculation – even Bleeding Cool admits she might really be working on that fairy musical we’ve barely heard about, or something else entirely. Still, an interesting prospect.
wow.. looking back on the fairy musical post’s comments, i mentioned wanting to have star wars princesses develop as a marketing niche to rival against disney princesses. how’d that work out for me?
Chapman’s future should be interesting either way: She left Pixar on not too friendly terms and is now back within the Disney company. And I find it somewhat hard to believe that Disney will not dismantle Lucasfilm Animation. Leaving Lucasfilm, ILM, Skywalker Sound, LucasArts and the like intact makes some sort of sense, but having a second animation studio? That’s just redundant, unless LFL Animation gets to do the TV stuff that Pixar and Disney Animation aren’t interested in. And with TCW ending some time soon – let it be the 6th or 7th season -, there doesn’t seem to be a reason not to dismantle LFL Animation.