LOS ANGELES: The epic saga of Star Wars, which turned into a worldwide culture, is back. The ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ is now in the making under Lucasfilm’s, The Walt Disney Company. George Lucas (creator of Star Wars) and Lawrence Kasdan will stay on as creative consultants, and the film written by Michael Arndt will be directed by J.J. Abrams.
J.J. Abrams who co-created the wildly addictive series ‘Lost’ and directed ‘Star Trek’, apparently required a little push come on as director.
When the filmmaker was asked last November if he would be interested in directing the next ‘Star Wars’ movie, strangely Abrams shot the idea down. The reason was of course his prior commitments to the ‘Star Trek’ movie, Paramount as well as many other televisions projects.
We hear that Lucasfilm’s boss Kathleen Kennedy stepped in. But, all Kennedy had to say was, “Please do ‘Star Wars'”.
On December 19, 2012 Kennedy, Abrams, and the ‘Episode VII’ writers met in secret, despite the very obvious excitement about the project, Abrams was worried that it was too much. After all the professional responsibilities, he has a family, and a new ‘Star Wars’ film was certainly a major commitment for the talented director.
Kennedy says, “We spent a lot of time talking about how meaningful ‘Star Wars’ is and the depth of the mythology that Lucas had created and how we carry that into the next chapter…Finally, after a day of furious negotiation, the deal closed the afternoon of January 25. Abrams was flipping out when he found out that Michael and Larry were on the movie already.”
‘Star Wars: Episode VII’, is currently slated for a 2015 release. Disney which bought Lucasfilm in October for a reported $4.05 billion announced that, indeed, Abrams will direct ‘Episode VII’.
