ClevverMovies talked to Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy at CinemaCon (where she was named Pioneer of the Year) and got a few tidbits about Episode VII (J.J. Abrams is only signed for one) and spin-offs.
Lucasfilm is “determining what those spin-offs are going to be right now.” and she expects they’ll get some great talent” to helm them.
Big Shiny Robot, for the record, takes her evasiveness on IMAX and 3D as an indirect ‘yes.’
I remember in 2005, McCallum was really angry with IMAX for showing some test converted footage of Revenge of the Sith to possibly clients. That angered McCallum and Lucas and ended their relationship. At Celebration III, he really vented about it at the first McCallum Spectacular.
Hopefully those boneheads are gone now. But I assume there is a chance Kennedy had something to do with helping getting Spielberg’s films in IMAX, like Indy and Jurassic Park.
To me that makes it seem really likely such a relationship will continue, unless they found the results to be unsatisfying.
If I just had my Saturday morning Star Wars cartoons back, I’d say my leisure time for the next few years looks perfect.
I would really like to know what their production schedule looks like. Shouldn’t their art department be in full preproduction mode right now? Shouldn’t they book studio space and start the casting process? Sure, we probably don’t even hear one tenth of what’s actually going on, but the “We’re working on the script” line is getting a bit old for my taste. Couldn’t Ms. Kennedy throw in the occasional “We’re looking at concept artists” remark or something along the lines of “We’re talking about locations”? :-)
Yes, I’m impatient but then again I never expected to wait for another Star Wars movie in my life. ;-)