Roundup: Entertainment Weekly gives Star Wars the cover

Media. The cover of this week’s new issue of Entertainment Weekly is – surprise! – devoted to Star Wars. This means that anyone who hasn’t already heard about Episode VII will see it at the grocery story and pester us about it! Hooray!

Screenwriting. Curious about Michael Arndt? Scott Myers at Go into the Story has devoted a series of posts to his comments on screenwriting. (via)

Directors. We already figured this from his comments last week, but J.J. Abrams has out and out denied that he’s up for Episode VII. Please save all your lens flare jokes for Star Trek into Darkness.

Your moment of bwah. With the new (last?!?) Twilight movie encroaching, of course someone asked Robert Pattinson if he’d like to be in Star Wars. His answer? “Oh, absolutely. In a heartbeat.” Love or hate him, consider yourself warned. (via)

Roundup: J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau excited for Episode VII – Quentin Tarantino, not so much

Directors. Hollywood Life talks to Star Trek’s J.J. Abrams and Iron Man’s Jon Favreau about Episode VII. “I am looking forward more then anyone to the next iterations of Star Wars, but I believe I will be going as a paying moviegoer,” Abrams said.

“I am just giddy, first and foremost as a fan, to see what happens with it. I think there is a lot of question marks of how they are going to do it, and who they are going to do it with, and what the story is going to be about; but to say that I am not excited about it is definitely an understatement. We’ll see,” Favreau said. (Lest we forget, Favreau voiced a character on The Clone Wars back in 2010.)

On the other side of the spectrum, Quentin Tarantino said the other day that he couldn’t care less about Star Wars and isn’t interested in the job. But then, did anyone actually expect he would be?

History. Huffpo’s Mike Ryan takes a look at the Making of books and interviews to document Harrison Ford’s history with Han Solo, and all the comments he’s made about the character over the years.

Release date. ComicBook.com’s Scott Johnson and his sources theorize that Disney could make Episode VII the first Star Wars movie not come out in May, since Avengers 2 is currently slated for May 1, 2015. I am beyond skeptical.

Hasbro and Disney. MSN Money takes a detailed look at the rumor that Disney is in talks to buy the toymaker, while CNBC analyst David Faber said that Hasbro is denying it.

On a lark… Entertainment Weekly takes inspiration from other franchises.

J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek 2 is now Star Trek Into Darkness

The sequel to J. J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek now has an officially announced title: Star Trek Into Darkness. Shouldn’t there be a colon or something there?

The title popped up as a rumor before the weekend, but now Paramount has confirmed it. First Showing is willing to give the lack of a punctuation mark the benefit of the doubt, while Hollywood.com examines the trend of “dark” movie titles recently.

Star Trek Into Darkness is scheduled to come out on May 17, 2013, adding Benedict Cumberbatch to the cast as a villain. Still no word if Lens Flare gets a higher billing than the Sherlock star.

Drive-by movie news: Wolverine, Star Trek, Kyle Newman and more

Wolverine rules the box office. Naked Hugh Jackman and friends brought in a whooping $160M worldwide this weekend. Also interesting? 47% of the U.S. audience was female. (Hey, look: It had issues, but it was better than X3. Plus, naked Jackman.) Looks like there may be a sequel in the offing after all.

Next week’s shiny. Wolvie faces his first real competition with the release of the new Star Trek on Friday. Anticipation is high, and the reviews are almost ridiculously positive – 100% on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment. And if you must know, Geoff Boucher has the skinny on the film’s homage to ESB.

And on that note… Stephen King’s Dark Tower series may be next for J.J. Abrams.

Let’s not forget Fanboys. With the DVD out in a few weeks, Lightsabre talks to director Kyle Newman.

Only because I am obliged to post it. Pretty much nothing going on with Indy 5.

Your final comic book tidbit. The first picture from Iron Man 2.

I see your Trek and make it relevant

A very interesting Q&A with JJ Abrams about the upcoming Star Trek movie.

He’s still trying to find a way to explain how he’s going to keep the original fans happy while keeping casual moviegoers entertained.

At least he appreciates that he’s never going to make the nitpickers happy.  There’s just a whole level of Trekdom that no one will ever win over unless The Great Bird rises again.  (And probably not even then.)

Keep boldly going, JJ! (via)

Cows as a security hazard and JJ Abrams on Star Wars

Bonnie scored yet another cool interview.  This time, she talks to JJ Abrams; he of Lost and Fringe and of another small series you might have heard about.  (Star Trek, people!  Not Felicity.)

So apparently JJ found out that you can’t take cows across the border from Canada.  It had to have an American stand-in.  And he loves creating interactive websites that expand his shows.

And as a long-time Star Wars fan, he had a really cool idea for StarWars.com:  how about an online Galactic Senate where fans could debate issues?  Star Wars fans love to debate things!