Disney to acquire Lucasfilm for $4.05B [And new Star Wars movie in 2015]

[audit1]

I think an Indiana Jones - Scrooge McDuck crossover would be awesome.

[Taomist]

@DSeid

Will any original cast members do reprises? And if so as small cameos or as significant figures?

I seem to recall that before Lucas said he planned on six all along, he had said (at the time of the original three) on a trilogy of trilogies, one prequel and one sequel. At the time I had pictured it being set thirty or so years in the future and using original cast members having aged into playing themselves older. Well?

This is what I remember, too. Could not tell you where I got that from, as this was looooong before the internet, so…it had to have been actual news, somewhere, for so many people to ‘remember’ this thing that somehow is being denied.

And oddly enough, it’s 30 years later…

[RTFirefly]

"Well, I heard my friends really got in a mess,
so I’m gonna have to leave Yoda, I guess,
but I know I’ll be coming back someday,
I’ll be playing this part 'til I’m old and gray

The long-term contract that I had to sign
said I’ll be making these movies 'til the end of time
with my Yoda,
yo-yo-yo-yo-Yoda…"

-Al Yankovic, “Yoda”

[RTFirefly]

@Taomist

This is what I remember, too. Could not tell you where I got that from, as this was looooong before the internet, so…it had to have been actual news, somewhere, for so many people to ‘remember’ this thing that somehow is being denied.

IIRC (no guarantees!), Lucas said something to that effect just after the release of Empire, with its “Episode 5” or whatever it was, in the intro. There obviously needed to be a response to “WTF is that all about?” and my recollection is that that was part of it.

Al Yankovic clearly seems to have had that concept in mind when he wrote “Yoda.”

[DSeid]

A bit of Google-fu leads to a wiki article that references what we are recalling and how it has morphed around since:

Initial vision: 9 or 12 films (1976-1981)
Mark Hamill has stated that Lucas told him in 1976, during filming in the desert of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, that four Star Wars trilogies were planned. Lucas suggested Hamill could have a cameo role in Episode IX, which might be filmed in 2001.[15][16] A Time magazine story in March 1978, quoting Lucas, also contained the assertion there would be 10 further Star Wars films after Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.[17] A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back producer Gary Kurtz was also aware of proposed story elements for Episodes VII to IX before 1980.[2][11]
In 1980, at the time of the release of The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas was saying there were seven further Star Wars films he wanted to make. He said he had “twelve-page outlines” for those films.[18] In an interview with Steranko in Prevue magazine published in late 1980, Lucas described how the expansive scope of Star Wars had started with an overlong screenplay: “So, I took the screenplay and divided it into three stories, and rewrote the first one. As I was writing, I came up with some ideas for a film about robots, with no humans in it. When I got to working on the Wookiee, I thought of a film just about Wookiees, nothing else. So, for a time, I had a couple of odd movies with just those characters. Then, I had the other two films, which were essentially split into three parts each, two trilogies. When the smoke cleared, I said, ‘This is really great. I’ll do another trilogy that takes place after this.’ I had three trilogies of nine films, and then another couple of odd films. Essentially, there were twelve films.” He then added that he had “eliminated the odd movies, because they really don’t have anything to do with the Star Wars saga. … I’m just going to keep it pure. It’s a nine-part saga that has a beginning, a middle and an end. It progresses over a period of about fifty or sixty years with about twenty years between trilogies, each trilogy taking about six or seven years.”[6] In this interview, Lucas also stated that he had “titles and ten-page story outlines for each of” the nine episodes.[6] In an interview with Gary Kurtz in the same magazine, Kurtz said, “[w]hether or not all nine or twelve films actually get made depends on how George feels as time goes along. The series may happen the way he originally planned or may completely change. As the films are made, each of the stories develops. As each is finished, I think the direction of the saga may change a bit.”[19]
In an interview with Starlog magazine published in September 1981, Lucas confirmed that he had the nine film series plotted, cautioning “but it’s a long way from the plot to the script. I’ve just gone through that with Return of the Jedi, and what seems like a great idea when it’s described in three sentences doesn’t hold together when you try to make five or six scenes out of it. So plots change a lot when they start getting into script form.”[20] …

… In May 1987, during a Star Wars 10th Anniversary convention, Lucas confirmed that he would eventually continue the saga, starting with Episodes I to III. Episodes VII to IX were still confirmed as part of “nine [films] floating around there somewhere”.[4][22] As late as 1994, Lucas wrote in the foreword of the special edition of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye by Alan Dean Foster, “As the saga of the Skywalkers and Jedi Knights unfolded, I began to see it as a tale that could take at least nine films to tell - three trilogies.”[23] …

… At a 1997 Special Edition press conference Lucas remarked, “[E]veryone said, ‘Well, are you going to do sequels to the first three?’ But that was an afterthought; I don’t have scripts on those stories. The only notion on that was, **wouldn’t it be fun to get all the actors to come back when they’re 60 or 70 years old and make three more **about them as old people. That’s how far that has gone, but the first six will definitely get finished.”[13] In a 1997 issue of Star Wars Insider, Lucas said, “The whole story has six episodes… If I ever went beyond that, it would be something that was made up. I really don’t have any notion other than, ‘Gee, it would be interesting to do Luke Skywalker later on.’ It wouldn’t be part of the main story, but a sequel to this thing.”[24] In an online Q&A hosted by Leonard Maltin and published in December 1997, Lucas was asked “Will we ever get to see Episodes 7, 8 and 9?”, to which he answered, “Right at this moment, the answer is no. Once the prequel trilogy is complete I plan to put Star Wars on the shelf and walk away from it for good. There are many other kinds of films I would like to make.”[25]
This was confirmed in an interview Lucas gave to Vanity Fair, published in its February 1999 issue. “When you see it in six parts, you’ll understand,” he said. “It really ends at part six.” He added, “I never had a story for the sequels, for the later ones.”[26][27][28] (In 2008, after all six films had been released, Lucas clarified that it was the resolution of the Anakin Skywalker / Luke Skywalker storyline that represented the saga’s end: “The movies were the story of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker, and when Luke saves the galaxy and redeems his father, that’s where that story ends.”[29]) Asked about the possibility of someone else making Star Wars films, Lucas said, “Probably not, it’s my thing.”[26][27][28]

(Bolding mine.)

[Taomist]

Thanks! I was afraid to google around, 'cause what little I did brought up so many different things I couldn’t figure out what might have been real, what might have been wishful thinking, and what might have been just trolling, lol.

[BrainGlutton]

@Simplicio

Plus, we might finally see that Howard the Duck sequel we’ve all been crying out for.

Howard and Donald cannot inhabit the same universe.

[Sitnam]

No one can fuck up Star Wars more than George Lucas has, Disney has been known to makes some good films…from time to time.

[AK84]

@Smapti

When was Star Wars ever not a kid’s film?

Eh, the prequels were not despite Georges insistence. Unless you mean films with infanticide, domestic violence, triple amputation, guy burning alive, anesthesia less surgery and death by child birth are for kids?

[Ethilrist]

@AK84

Eh, the prequels were not despite Georges insistence. Unless you mean films with infanticide, domestic violence, triple amputation, guy burning alive, anesthesia less surgery and death by child birth are for kids?

Try reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales sometimes.

[terentii]

@Taomist

This is what I remember, too. Could not tell you where I got that from, as this was looooong before the internet, so…it had to have been actual news, somewhere, for so many people to ‘remember’ this thing that somehow is being denied.

And oddly enough, it’s 30 years later…

I remember reading about it in Time magazine in the early '80s. Siskel and Ebert talked about it as well, including Mark Hamill’s being signed to appear as Luke Skywalker around 2000 or 2001 (this was, I think, right after Jedi came out).

[AK84]

BTW, have they said it’s an episode VII, or just a seventh film? Because, if it’s the latter, then please let it be a Knights of the Old Republic or Force Unleashed adaptation.

[shy_guy]

@Dewey_Finn

Yes, but Disney also produced the John Carter movie, which was a massive failure.

That’s what I was referring to, actually. It flopped, sure, but a lot of that movie is exactly what a new Star Wars should be, since it was a pretty faithful adaptation of the exact type of material that Star Wars descends from. I’d also assume that the Star Wars name basically inoculates a movie against failure.

[thirdname]

@BrainGlutton

Howard and Donald cannot inhabit the same universe.

This is true, according to the Poultry Exclusion Principle.

[Grrr]

@Johnny_Q

The Rise of Darth Binky.

I SO want this to be my sig line.

[Taomist]

@Shakes

I SO want this to be my sig line.

Figure out how to get a title, and be Darth Binky

[Justin_Bailey]

@AK84

BTW, have they said it’s an episode VII, or just a seventh film? Because, if it’s the latter, then please let it be a Knights of the Old Republic or Force Unleashed adaptation.

Star Wars Episode 7 is included in the press release with that name.

[ISiddiqui]

Hmmm… isn’t Christopher Nolan pretty free these days? Just sayin’.

And these can either be pretty bad or halfway decent. I’m not expecting great, however - the original trilogy kind of ends on the perfect note, anything directly afterwards wouldn’t nearly be as satisfying (IMO, of course).

[squeegee]

Good god, has anyone really cared about Star Wars since 1999?

Well, maybe that’s just me, but my illusions were dashed that year, and I wasn’t all that attached to them re Star Wars, so I got over it. Why hasn’t everyone else? Why does anyone care about this stuff 13 years after George L took a wizz on the franchise with Ep 1 and kept wizzing through two more movies, then wizzed on the original with those stupid revisions? Why is this coveted intellectual property? It seems as used up as a kleenex in an allergy convention.

Phew! OK, I’m done now, please forgive my excess.

More to the point: what other franchises is Disney getting beyond Star Wars and Indy? Are there hidden profitable/exploitable bits that aren’t apparent? If it’s just SW and Indy, I think they got gypped.

[Lantern]

@Gukumatz

Whedon is regrettably busy with the new Marvel-based ABC series and writing/directing the Avengers 2 until 2015.

Well at this point I don’t think the date is set in stone and Whedon might be prepared to reduce his role in the ABC series if it meant snagging a Star Wars film. I am sure he is very high on the list given that he has already worked with Disney and that Avengers was a staggering box-office success well above any other superhero movie. His writing credentials are also a plus.

I wonder if Brad Bird is going to be hurt by the failure of John Carter which was directed by another Pixar director: Andrew Stanton. I agree he would be a good choice though.

What about Peter Jackson? He is a big Star Wars fan and he will be finsished with the Hobbit in 2014.

And can we rule out James Cameron? IIRC he was also inspired to become a filmmaker by Star Wars.

Basically there is a whole bunch of middle-aged directors who grew up with Star Wars and for whom this would be a dream project.