Lucas, Ford back on the Forbes Celebrity 100

George Lucas is on the Forbes Celebrity 100 again, this year clocking in at #24 – a hefty jump up from his 2008 spot of #46. The list’s only other Star Wars figure is, naturally, Harrison Ford, at #17.

Other geeks and geek icons making the rank include Steven Spielberg (#7,) Will Smith (#11,) Stephenie Meyer (#26,) Stephen King (#68,) Daniel Radcliffe (#70) and Tina Fey (#86.)

In less listy news, George will be honored by The Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago next weekend.

Eye Candy: Searching LIFE for Star Wars

LIFE: Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill @ ANH 10th anniversary party

A couple months ago, the LIFE photo archive went up in Google, fully searchable. Plenty has been done with them since then, but it didn’t occur to me to look for Star Wars until today. There isn’t a ton there – the bulk of images that come up are from The Phantom Menace premiere – but there are a few things of interest, like Time covers, some vintage toy pics and this shot of Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill at a party celebrating the tenth anniversary of A New Hope. You get about the same amount of shots searching for just George Lucas, and even more for Harrison Ford, but clearly Sir Alec wins. (Wait! Was it really a party for ANH? Now I doubt.) But perhaps most amusingly: Jar-Jar and Madeline Albright? Or Peter Cushing in Hamlet?

Off the fannish track, two of the more interesting uses I’ve seen around the web have been Jezebel’s The Way We Were features and Typophile’s book cover meme.

Drive-by movie news: Too much Twilight, Harrison Ford, Batman, WB’s Potter desperation

Not so shiny. Catherine Hardwicke is out of Twilight sequel. (Robert Pattinson’s envy must be at least twice the size of glitter budget.)

Of course, the real interest for many of us is the book’s numerous creepy undertones. And finally, for funny Twilight news, aka the actual reason to bother reporting any of it, check out the puppet version.

Drive-by movie news: Twilight, Watchmen, Indy 5

Cedric didn't die, he just went homeOH SHIT IT’S A TWILIGHT ENTRY, GET IN THE CAR. The reviews are not good (43%!) for the preteen squee event of the year, but since when has that ever made a difference at the box office? At the very least, we can hold out hope that the movie is better than the book. Just remember, ladies: stalking is not romantic, even if the guy is hot (well, ‘hot’) and comes with a lifetime supply of built-in body glitter.

Drive-by movie news: George Lucas and Johnny Depp vacation on the island of endless sequels

Never met a dead horse he couldn’t beat: Harrison Ford tells the Los Angeles Times that George Lucas is considering a fifth Indiana Jones film. Of course he is.

But for those who might wonder about those fleeting non-franchise projects, Red Tails does now have a director, Anthony Hemingway.

  • That parrot is definitely deceased: Johnny Depp is reportedly getting $56 million for a fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean film. Fifty. Six. (Or is it four?) Million.
  • The no-brainer: Christopher Nolan to make third Batman film, start production in February. Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman will return. Nothing sarcastic here, move along.
  • Okay, so it’s a prequel. Or something: Guillermo del Toro is directing The Hobbit, if you haven’t heard. But he also wants to do a Frankenstein movie. Hopefully he doesn’t pick up any of Peter Jackson’s King Kong mojo while he’s down in New Zealand.

In the news: George, Harrison, Jeremy

There are scans of a Total Film interview with George Lucas over at MillenniumFalcon.com. They hit all the standards, including Indy IV, The Clone Wars and the live action series. At one point, George says “People live in the Empire, but you don’t see Stormtroopers.” A departure indeed… There’s also an interesting bit about the EU, George’s “three pillars of Star Wars.” Nothing terribly surprising, but we’re still at the point where any crumb is thrilling.