Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Anti-trust lawyers must be wringing their hands with glee at this one: MTV Geek is saying that after acquiring Lucasfilm (pending approval) Disney will be turning to Hasbro. Or rather, that they’re having “discussions.”
Buying Hasbro would give Disney the rights to Transformers, G.I. Joe, Dungeons and Dragons, and My Little Pony, among others. And by folding in the toys, they’d be getting a bigger share of the Star Wars pie as well.
Our first rumor this week comes from Collider, which claims that X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn is in talks to direct Episode VII. Their ‘source’ says it’s the reason he dropped out of the First Class sequel, which will now be helmed by original X-Men director Bryan Singer. (via)
Vaughn has significant writing credits as well. In addition to First Class, he wrote screenplays for Stardust and Kick-Ass, which he also directed.
Today in Episode 7 reports, we have the Los Angeles Times’ Steven Zeitchik and John Horn saying that “several different screenwriters paid visits to Lucasfilm’s Northern California compound to pitch George Lucas and his co-chair Kathleen Kennedy their ideas for the new live-action installment.” Their source went on to say “they were well-known screenwriters with experience creating big-budget Hollywood films,” and the stories were not adapted from existing Star Wars books. (via)
Their source is anonymous, but this does dovetail neatly with something Kennedy said in the video released Tuesday: “We’re sitting down with a couple of writers and we’re starting to discuss ideas; We’re starting to talk about what those stories might be.” I feel comfortable putting this one in the ‘fairly plausible’ column.
Well, this one will give some hope to the continuity-obsessed EU fans. Amid quite a bit of speculation, Nerdvana’s Dustin Diehl has a ‘Lucasfilm connection’ that claims Episode 7 will start “further out” than 50 years after the last film installment. They also told Diehl that a “a writer and director have already been selected.”
Diehl has quite a bit more faith than I that Disney and Lucasfilm will take the existing Expanded Universe – “equal parts respect and disinterest,” while I see only the second. Still, speculation is speculation, particularly at this point!
Get used to these rumor reports, folks! It’s only just begun. Today, we have Marketsaw. Their source has a lot to say about a lot of things, including the new movies, the old movies and live-action TV show, but here’s the bit about the sequel trilogy:
There are two trilogies planned, all following an original overview by Lucas, which was always planned as a multi generational saga. Movies 10 – 12 are from my understanding about the offspring of the Skywalkers, set many years later with the surviving cast playing much older versions of themselves and featuring a female protagonist named Skywalker. This is something that I understand is being discussed as the latest trilogy may end up being an amalgamation of the two using themes and ideas from both, but still keeping the general story, also allowing for continuity of cast.
As always, I recommend taking any unverified reports of this nature with a grain of salt! But I can say – have said – that I would love it if the new movies featured a female Skywalker front and center. Still, being a realist and having been an avid spectator through the worst of the prequel rumormongering, I can’t give these reports that much credence.
An AICN reader has a theory: That Disney has been making moves towards Lost’s Damon Lindelof and Pixar’s Brad Bird as the writer and director of Episode 7. This all hinges on the mystery film 1952 as the new Blue Harvest. (Hat tip to our old pal Fatboy Roberts.)
Bird has directed The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Lindelof is best known as the co-creator of Lost. He also produced 2009’s Star Trek and worked on the script for the sequel. He has writing credits for Prometheus and Cowboys & Aliens.
Bird is also listed on IMDB as director on 1906, a film in pre-production about the San Francisco earthquakes, but IMDB has never been 100% trustworthy on ‘early’ news of films.
What does 1952 mean to Star Wars? It’s the year Liam Neeson was born. In film history, it’s the year that High Noon and The Greatest Show on Earth and the first full color 3D movie were released. George Lucas was 8 that year – do any of these films ring a bell for Star Wars scholars?
UPDATE: First Showing has a source which claims that 1952 has nothing to do with Star Wars. (H/T to Justin Alicea.)
Stop compiling those exhaustive lists of your favorite Star Wars books: A Lucasfilm source tells EOnline’s Leslie Gornstein that Episode 7 will be “an original story.” Gornstein goes on to say that “Episode 7 will literally be nothing you’ve ever seen or read before from the Star Wars universe.” Not surprised. Not surprised in the least…
Take this one with a GIANT grain of salt: According to this Kickstarter, Matthew Stover is “replacing Karen Traviss as the author of the 501st novels for Star Wars.”
I’m assuming this means the Imperial Commando series, which has remained unfinished since Traviss bowed out of the franchise in 2009 after the release of 501st. LFL and Del Rey folks have talked about handing over the series to another author before, but the last attempt, with Aaron Allston, ended up turning into Mercy Kill instead. However, at Celebration VI, Del Rey’s Shelly Shapiro did say “Big maybe with positive thoughts. Can’t say anything yet but I think you’ll be happy.”
Keep in mind that this is far, far from a confirmed source… And, quite honestly, I’m hoping it’s false. Stover is far better than picking up Traviss’ scraps, no matter how beloved the series may be in some circles. (Hattip to Andrew Liptak.)
Disney and More theorizes that Disneyland Paris may be getting far more than a Star Tours upgrade: There may be an entire section of Discoveryland devoted to Star Wars. It won’t be like the image above – a previously published concept by Tim Delaney that imagines a reskinned Space Mountain – but may involve a Jedi Academy like the U.S. parks have and a Mos Eisley Cantina-inspired restaurant. (via)
In less questionable news, StarWars.com had two items this week regarding Disney World – new Star Wars art at Downtown Disney and a look at the merchandise for Star Wars Weekends.
It’s been a while since we’ve had a silly rumor about the Star Wars live-action series to giggle over, but thankfully there’s Ain’t It Cool News to get things going. Today: Time travel! No, really:
Daniel tells us that one of the series’ first episodes will involve a group of bandits acquiring the capability of time travel, and using it to travel back in time to stop Darth Vader from ever existing.
Sounds like someone’s been watching a bit too much Terminator! Thanks, AICN. Glad to know you’re there when we need a laugh. (via)
P.S.: It’s Expanded Universe. Not Extended. Expanded.