Between 1977 and 2005, 28 years, the world saw just six Star Wars movies. Well, now Disney has their hands on the franchise they are ready to kick things up a notch or two. In fact, according to The Holywood Reporter, they are ready – and fully intending – to release six Star Wars films between 2015 and 2020(ish).
This news probably comes as a shock to the many fans who have been enjoying the discussion of J.J. Abrams’s planned Star Wars Sequel (episodes 7, 8 & 9) – J.J. certainly seems to love the series and has done a really good job of promoting things through the use of social media. However, the news that dropped today stated that following the enormous success of the recent Godzilla movie, filmmaker Gareth Edwards has been lined up to direct at least one of three the Star Wars spinoff films.
In addition to the film being announced, Disney and Lucasfilm have even released a date we can expect the film (December 16, 2016) and listed the writer of the script (Gary Whitta, who wrote Book of Eli) too. As you’d probably expect though, due to the secrecy surrounding Star Wars and its development, no further details have been released.
That said, and we don’t want to get people too excited with false speculation, but the buzz around the internet is discussing heroes/villains such as Boba Fett or Jedi master Yoda as the ones who may end up getting their own movie. There are also rumors of a potential Han Solo origin story or at least something on the Solo clan, and untold adventures of Luke Skywalker. Strangely, no one has mentioned the possibility of a Jar Jar Binks stand alone – surely the most logical option? 😉
“Ever since I saw Star Wars I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life – join the Rebel Alliance! I could not be more excited & honored to go on this mission with Lucasfilm,” said Edwards in a statement release shortly after the news broke (a possible clue?).
Just to confirm: earlier in May, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that there was a plan to make at least three spinoff movies that would be released in between the main installments. This is just one of those movies; whether the three are related, coming from the same director/script writer we do not know. Certainly, if Godzilla is anything to go by, it seems Disney are picking the right people for the job. Lets just hope they let them get on with it… Here’s what Legendary Entertainment’s chairman and CEO Thomas Tull in a statement in response to the Star Wars hire:
“Gareth’s filmmaking talent makes him one of his generation’s most creative and visionary directors. The plan has always been for Gareth to direct a different film before we started on another Godzilla, but who knew it would a Star Wars installment? We have a great plan in store for Godzilla fans and I am looking forward to seeing Gareth’s imprint on the Star Wars universe.”
Yep… that’s right, Godzilla fans. Godzilla 2 (and 3) is in the works too. I guess the clue is that not until around 2017/2018 though, right?
One final bit of good news before you go? Well, OK then… You know how disappointed we all were when we sat down in the cinema to watch the prequel movies and found out that everything possible had been done in CGI? Gone were the puppets, the guys in suits, the soul of Star Wars, right? Well, if the below picture (a still from a video J.J. Abrams recently put out to tempt fans into entering a charity competition where they can win a place in the film) means what we think it means, it looks like Episode VII will use the retro puppeteering of the original trilogy. Hurrah!
Must say – I’m pretty impressed with how the Social Media guys are handling this one…
Jennie Ivins
Richard Marpole
Let’s hope they don’t milk the franchise completely dry. As long as the stories are original and well scripted, and as long as J. J. Abrams doesn’t spin a Star Trekesque ‘None of it ever happened time loop’ and not have too many groan-worthy call backs to the original trilogy, then it should, fingers-crossed, go well.
The sight of a puppet on set stirs little happy emotions in me as well. 🙂
Actually, that is the plan. They’ve decided to abandon the last 30 years’ worth of material and saying it never happened. I’m not too worried though. I can see how it would be annoying to have the universe everyone has grown up with considered uncanon out of the blue, but I think the new cintinuity will be fine.
What I meant was the total overhaul of the universe, as in erasing the events of the original films as well, like he did with Star Trek.