8 Replies to “Video: Lucas on the Star Wars live-action series”
I think this is purely a strategic move on Lucas’ part. He has an enormous success on his hands with Clone Wars, and there is no reason to not let this show play out before tackling a live-action show.
It’s a smart move as it prevents Star Wars from over staying its welcome on TV, unlike Star Trek which at various times had 2-3 shows on the air at once. It may be Star Wars, but too much in this case can be a bad thing.
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Good point Yancy (good last name :-).
What I got from this is that we wont be seeing anything for a long time.
Also, I wonder what he means by “a movie of the week”.
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50 million dollars an episode seems reasonable…
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Movie of the week to launch the series? Like a two or three part episode, sort of what The Clone Wars movie was. (Or should have been.) Remember the BSG miniseries?
…I don’t think 50M for a regular hour-long episode is anywhere near reasonable. HBO reportably spent $30M on the pilot for Boardwalk Empire and I’m pretty sure that is CRAZY (and they had to pay Martin Scorsese.) And that’s a pilot for HBO, there’s no way they’re going to spend that on your average episode. Rome was budgeted at $100-110M for twelve episodes (per Wikipedia,) and that ended up canceled because it cost so much money. So even at the highest level of TV that’s a huge, huge chunk for one episode. (Though probably right on track for a lavish mini-series, if they wanted to go that route instead.)
And yeah, VFX are probably cheaper than building giant sets like Boardwalk and Rome have/had, but ILM-caliber animation isn’t exactly chimp change.
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I can think of some ideas for lavish miniseries they could produce! :D
As for the live-action show, I’m all for Lucas taking his time. I’m looking forward to the show, but I want it to be done right. With the success of Clone Wars, there’s no need to rush on the live-action show just to get the Star Wars name back in the mainstream.
Although, the cost aspect makes me wonder if they should just forget the live-action idea and stick to animated shows. :shrug:
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If he’d just agree to some product placement, this thing would be in production by now. What difference does it make if Uncle Owen drinks a Pepsi instead of blue milk?
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With 50 episodes already written, I would hope the Clone Wars crew might get in there and offer some advice as to what has worked and what hasn’t. Then we don’t have to work our way through some weaker episodes at the start of the series – would be great to get superb writing to start off the series as opposed to waiting a season or two to iron out the kinks…in other words – keep working on that storyline until the show is in production, they will never be able to put enough thought into the story…Now that George has had the story told “the way he wants it” in the prequels, make this one for the fans, much like the Clone Wars is doing now…
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@ Dunc: that was sarcasm, even with my vague English/US money translations that seems A LOT!
Lol@Stooge, your suggestion is great! Kuat Drive Yards great rival. The Audi Space Agency. ;)
I think this is purely a strategic move on Lucas’ part. He has an enormous success on his hands with Clone Wars, and there is no reason to not let this show play out before tackling a live-action show.
It’s a smart move as it prevents Star Wars from over staying its welcome on TV, unlike Star Trek which at various times had 2-3 shows on the air at once. It may be Star Wars, but too much in this case can be a bad thing.
Good point Yancy (good last name :-).
What I got from this is that we wont be seeing anything for a long time.
Also, I wonder what he means by “a movie of the week”.
50 million dollars an episode seems reasonable…
Movie of the week to launch the series? Like a two or three part episode, sort of what The Clone Wars movie was. (Or should have been.) Remember the BSG miniseries?
…I don’t think 50M for a regular hour-long episode is anywhere near reasonable. HBO reportably spent $30M on the pilot for Boardwalk Empire and I’m pretty sure that is CRAZY (and they had to pay Martin Scorsese.) And that’s a pilot for HBO, there’s no way they’re going to spend that on your average episode. Rome was budgeted at $100-110M for twelve episodes (per Wikipedia,) and that ended up canceled because it cost so much money. So even at the highest level of TV that’s a huge, huge chunk for one episode. (Though probably right on track for a lavish mini-series, if they wanted to go that route instead.)
And yeah, VFX are probably cheaper than building giant sets like Boardwalk and Rome have/had, but ILM-caliber animation isn’t exactly chimp change.
I can think of some ideas for lavish miniseries they could produce! :D
As for the live-action show, I’m all for Lucas taking his time. I’m looking forward to the show, but I want it to be done right. With the success of Clone Wars, there’s no need to rush on the live-action show just to get the Star Wars name back in the mainstream.
Although, the cost aspect makes me wonder if they should just forget the live-action idea and stick to animated shows. :shrug:
If he’d just agree to some product placement, this thing would be in production by now. What difference does it make if Uncle Owen drinks a Pepsi instead of blue milk?
With 50 episodes already written, I would hope the Clone Wars crew might get in there and offer some advice as to what has worked and what hasn’t. Then we don’t have to work our way through some weaker episodes at the start of the series – would be great to get superb writing to start off the series as opposed to waiting a season or two to iron out the kinks…in other words – keep working on that storyline until the show is in production, they will never be able to put enough thought into the story…Now that George has had the story told “the way he wants it” in the prequels, make this one for the fans, much like the Clone Wars is doing now…
@ Dunc: that was sarcasm, even with my vague English/US money translations that seems A LOT!
Lol@Stooge, your suggestion is great! Kuat Drive Yards great rival. The Audi Space Agency. ;)