Disney Confirms Stand-Alone Star Wars Films

Here is the official statement from Lucasfilm:

The Star Wars cinematic galaxy is about to experience a Big Bang. Lucasfilm is officially announcing new spinoff films that will expand the mythos and depths of the Star Wars universe in previously unexplored ways.

One of the standalone films will be written by Lawrence Kasdan, screenwriter of The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and co-writer of Return of the Jedi while the other will be penned by Simon Kinberg, writer of Sherlock Holmes and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The movies will be separate from the upcoming Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, on which Kasdan and Kinberg are also consulting, and are expected to be released sometime after Episode VII. Each standalone film will focus on a specific character, and two spinoff films are currently confirmed.

In a call to investors, Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, revealed while the original focus was on the highly-anticipated sequel trilogy, the idea of spinoff films was bandied about early and the additional films are now becoming a reality. “We are in development of a few standalone films,” he said, “that are not part of the Star Wars saga…there are now creative entities working on developing scripts for what would be those standalone films.”

While I do love the Star Wars movies, I hope they don’t overdue it.  I guess it remains to be seen if this is a good idea or not.

Samuel L. Jackson on Star Wars VII

“I’m not surprised but totally geeked by the idea of there being more ‘Star Wars’.  It’s like, okay, Obi-Wan was dead when episode four started, so maybe everyone thinks I’m dead and we’ll find out what happened to Mace Windu.”

On wanting to come back to the franchise:  “I can come back as one-armed or a one-handed Jedi that’s still around that didn’t actually die, I could do that or be a ghost hologram. I don’t care!  I just want to stay associated with the franchise. Not that I won’t, because I’ve been in three of them.”

On why he loves Star Wars:  “I just always loved it. I always loved the idea of it, that there’s this whole civilization out there somewhere else that’s just as much fun and different and diverse and wild as we are.”

New Star Wars Trilogy: Directors for Episodes 7, 8, 9

From sources at the website Deadline: “I’ve also heard Jon Favreau is panting after this job, and even that David Fincher, who apparently worked for Lucas’s ILM in a menial job as a teen, might be game for one of these new films. Unfortunately, we are getting nothing out of Lucas Land on what they call speculation. I broke a story recently that Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg will write future Star Wars installments, most likely the second and third installments of the new trilogy, I’d heard. Lucas, through Disney, denied every speck of this, but I ran it anyway. They won’t comment or clarify these things because they want to announce it themselves on their own Twitter or website or whatever they’ve got.”

I think whatever director(s) end up getting the job, the studio just needs to make sure to keep the films somewhat consistent.  Every director has their own unique style but these are Star Wars films and need to be that first and foremost.  These films need to feel like Star Wars films.  Even George Lucas didn’t get this right with his new trilogy.  Throwing in characters like Jar Jar Binks (and later dropping C-3PO to his level) was just completely out of place and distracting.  Even the battle droids were given overly goofy voices for some reason.

Jon Favreau:  He could be an interesting choice.  With his past experience doing the Iron Man movies he obvious knows how to handle action scenes, a big budget and to some degree, multiple characters.  He does like to put a large amount of humor in his films, sometimes overly silly humor.  If he can be kept in check and not stray too much from the feel of the other Star Wars movies (or at least the original trilogy) I think he COULD do a good job directing one of the new movies.

David Fincher:  I seem to remember Fincher being interested in doing one of the films from the last trilogy, but Lucas ended up directing all of them (unfortunately).  Though his style is usually very dark, violent and sometimes overly sexual for no reason; if kept in check he could handle one of the darker films where everything goes wrong, like The Empire Strikes Back.  He seems to be a fan of Star Wars, so hopefully he could put his own agenda to the side and stay in line with the feel of Star Wars.  I don’t know if he is the best choice, but it would be interesting to see what he could do with one of these movies.