Disney confirms plans for stand-alone Star Wars movies, hires Lawrence Kasdan & Simon Kinberg

Written by Vince Mancini / 02.06.13

Disney has a lot of big plans for Star Wars, because that’s what you do when you acquire a new brand, you talk big about how important it is and announce crazy plans to make it mega super awesome. They first declared they’d be making a Star Wars VII and hired JJ Abrams to direct, even though he’s already directing Star Trek, which is kind of like the same guy being in charge of Coke and Pepsi. Yesterday, Harry Knowles said Disney was also planning stand-alone Star Wars movies, starting with one based on Yoda. Now Disney has confirmed plans to make stand-alone movies, which makes Knowles’ Yoda scoop seem highly likely. It’s still no guarantee that it will actually happen (we’ll get to that), but it proves that they want to.

Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed for investors that his company has lined up Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg to work on stand-alone Star Wars movies. Disney acquired Lucasfilm in a $4.05 billion transaction last year.

Kasdan’s work has been sort of meh as a director, but he did co-write The Empire Strikes Back, the only Star Wars movie that really stands the test of time for me. He also wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark, and his son Jake directed the criminally underseen/underrated Walk Hard. Simon Kinberg wrote Sherlock Holmes and This Means War (woof).

As THR first reported, Kasdan and Kinberg are working on separate films that will serve as spinoffs of the main new trilogy.

Of course, take all of this with a grain of salt (tequila optional). LucasFilm (pre-Disney) had also announced plans for a 3D re-release of the prequels, only to cancel when the first one underperformed and no one seemed particularly excited about it. Are we really so starved for Star Warses that we’ll shell out for a new trilogy AND an unspecified number of stand-alone movies, with writers doing backflips to keep the continuity straight all the while? It seems unlikely, but my generation are idiots, so who knows.

Speaking of not being particularly excited, does this whole Disney thing mean I can’t make fun of George Lucas and his racecar bed and the money pouch beneath his chin and his insatiable appetite for cats every time there’s Star Wars news now? Is that over? I gotta try to make fun of Bob freakin’ Iger now? (pictured, above). Oy. I mean I’ll do it, but it’s going to be much less fun. Just look at that dude. He makes Mitt Romney look like Frank Zappa. Ten bucks says the motherf*cker’s gluten-free.

Read the rest of this entry »

18 Comments TAGS: , , , , ,

‘Safety Not Guaranteed’ Duo Not Attached To New Star Wars Films

Written by Ashley Burns / 11.28.12

Ever since Disney bought the rights to the Star Wars franchise from George Lucas, who is currently building his own working Death Star out of Cheetos, we’ve been keeping our guard up for an onslaught of bogus rumors, and rightfully so. I mean, as if Harrison Ford would actually play Chewbacca and Shi LeBeouf would play Han Solo. I can’t believe people expected us to believe that. But there have been some solid, accurate rumors, including Toy Story 3 scribe Michael Arndt writing an Episode VII treatment, so maybe we’re getting to the good stuff now.

Today’s first Star Wars report is a total bummer, because despite earlier reports of the contrary, Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly are not going to be the duo behind the new era. As it turns out, the Safety Not Guaranteed director and writer (respectively) will be working for Disney, but it’s for a remake of yet another childhood classic, according to Variety.

Read the rest of this entry »

11 Comments TAGS: , , , , , , , ,

Matthew Vaughn returning for X-Men: First Class sequel

Written by Vince Mancini / 01.30.12

Before X-Men: First Class came out, it

Fox has just closed a deal with Matthew Vaughn to come back and direct the sequel to X-Men: First Class, with Simon Kinberg writing the script and Bryan Singer back as producer. [Deadline]

The last one had Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz (Thor) and Jane Goldman and Vaughn (Kick-Ass) writing the script, while Simon Kinberg previously wrote the Ratner X-Men, Jumper, Sherlock Holmes, and that upcoming McG movie, This Means War, which makes him perhaps not the most promising-sounding candidate. But it’s super hero movie, so it’ll probably get six rewrites anyway. In any case, the good news is that Matthew Vaughn will be directing the next X-Men movie. The bad news is that Matthew Vaughn will be directing the next X-Men movie, and not something potentially more badass. It will also be interesting to see where they go with titles. I’m assuming the Rambo-esque “X-Men First Class Part 2″ will be the play here, but with all these reboots and origin stories and sequels of prequels of origin story reboots, these things are going to need footnotes before long. Rise of the Planet of the Apes Part 2 dash 1 to the power of Spider-Man. X-Man Up to Tha Streets.

18 Comments TAGS: , , ,

Sign Up

Follow Us