Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Although George Lucas registered for the ability to cash out his Disney stock last week, a Lucasfilm rep told The Bearded Trio he has no plans to do so:
“George Lucas currently has no plans to sell his Disney stock,” Lynne Hale, a spokeswoman for Lucasfilm, said in an e- mail. “This was a required filing in conjunction with the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney.”
Lucas plans to donate the proceeds of the sale to charity.
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.
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.
Del Rey had a Facebook chat with Timothy Zahn for Scoundrels today, and it was… Very busy. I admit I skimmed most of the actual questions, but I can verify that all of Zahn’s answers are free of spoilers for Scoundrels.
There was a lot of old ground covered, but we did get a surprisingly detailed look at what Zahn has pitched to Del Rey. He begins:
If there are to be more books, and if LFL/Del Rey/Disney decide to let me write some of them, I have a trilogy project to pitch where the third book would also be the third book of the Hand of Judgment series (Allegiance and Choices of One). Again, I don’t know if that will happen.
And later….
A Fel or Chiss novel would be fun. As a matter of fact, the trilogy I mentioned above (which I’ll pitch if I’m invited to do another book) would have one book heavily involving Thrawn and the Chiss. (The middle book, btw, would feature Mara being sent to stop an assassination…against Vader. Imagine the fun they would *both* have with *that* assignment.) The proposed series title is The Maestro Trilogy, if anyone wants to star nagging Del Rey. (No, seriously, *don’t* nag. Just ask politely…)
When asked about his favorite era:
At the moment I like writing in the Ep 4/5 gap, partly because the characters are so much fun in that era and partly because the territory hasn’t been as well explored. However, I understand there are several books now scheduled in that time, so it may start getting crowded.
As to other eras, the Old Republic era has a lot of good writers who are working there, and I’m not sure whether Del Rey is planning to go beyond Legacy of the Force right now. If the Ep 3/4 gap is ever opened up (LFL so far has kept that off-limits) there are a bunch of stories I could tell there.
And naturally he was asked quite a bit about the sequel trilogy and how it relates to his books:
Actually, I think Disney will do right by LFL. Their record with Pixar and Marvel indicates they know how to step back and let the people who know what they’re doing just do it. With Kathleen Kennedy now helming LFL, and with all the wonderfully talented people already in place there, I’m expecting good things to come. Of course, if Disney decided they wanted a couple of TV shows, and just *happened* to think of Mara Jade or the Hand of Judgment, I would certanly not stand in their way.
As to whether any of my characters might show up in the sequels: Again, no idea what’s being planned, but I would naturally love to see something I’ve done up there on the Big Screen.
Overall, I find myself hoping (yet again) that Del Rey finds a different way to do these chats. Sure, a couple good things came out of this one, but it was a bit of a mess…
The recent recap of last year’s biggest events reminded me of something that has been largely overlooked: George Lucas is retiring. Granted, he’s tried to retire before – a couple of times, if memory serves – with limited success. And the news was understandably overshadowed by the double-whammy of the Sequel Trilogy and the sale to Disney. But still. The Flannelled One is stepping down, off to work on experimental films or build a working X-wing or become a lumberjack or whatever retired billionaires do. Yes, there were the starwars.com videos, where he talked a bit about his future plans, but in general, this story has been ignored. Heck, I saw more chatter about Rick McCallum’s retirement. Rick McCallum is a wonderful guy, but there’s only one George Lucas. He deserves a little more attention.
Continue reading “Nine ways George Lucas changed movies forever”
ABC entertainment president Paul Lee tells Entertainment Weekly that the network isn’t going to be ignoring the live-action series.
“We’d love to do something with Lucasfilm, we’re not sure what yet,” Lee exclusively told EW. “We haven’t even sat down with them. We’re going to look at [the live-action series], we’re going to look at all of them, and see what’s right. We weren’t able to discuss this with them until [the acquisition] closed and it just closed. It’s definitely going to be part of the conversation.”
Some of the financial concerns that Lucasfilm faced producing the series on their own are moot under the Disney deal, the article points out. Lee compares it to the Joss Whedon’s S.H.I.E.L.D. show that ABC is also working on.
They also have what might be the most detailed summary we have yet to see… From ‘sources,’ mind:
Sources say the live-action series centers on the story of rival families struggling over the control of the seedy underside of the Star Wars universe and the people who live within the subterranean level and air shafts of the metropolis planet Coruscant (the Empire’s urban-sprawl-covered home planet). A bounty hunter may be the main character.
And apparently some of the concept and character designs are being used in 1313…
They also, I think, are the first to reveal that Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica) may be involved…
Yes, I’ve folded two weeks into this one, because between Christmas and the New Year it seems that most of Twitter had better things to do – and you don’t even want to know how many posts I saw where people admitting to watching Star Wars sans pants. Instead, we celebrated 100 episodes of The Clone Wars, offered wedding planning services, considered Ewok poop and more.
Continue reading “99 Problems: Best #StarWars, #EpisodeVII and #SWEU tweets for Dec 24-Jan. 6”
Here’s the fifth – and final – video in the series
Tonight, we say goodbye to 2012. Here’s a look back at a few of the happenings in fandom this year – I’m sure you can guess at a few
Continue reading “A look back: The 5 biggest Star Wars news, events, and kerfuffles of 2012″
And the deal is done. Lucasfilm Ltd. is officially a part of Walt Disney Co., the company reported Friday. For his part, George Lucas has acquired $2.21 billion in cash and 37.1 million shares of Disney, which based on today’s closing price totals to about $4.06 billion – a bit above the previously reported price of $4.05B. Lucas has said he plans to give most of the money to charity.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Lucasfilm to the Disney family,” said CEO Bob Iger. “Star Wars is one of the greatest family entertainment franchises of all time and this transaction combines that world-class content with Disney’s unique and unparalleled creativity across multiple platforms, businesses and markets, which we believe will generate growth as well as significant long-term value.”
In addition to Lucasfilm and Star Wars, Disney also acquired subsidiaries LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, as well as an endless parade of blaster-toting Disney Princess jokes.