This morning I was hit with news via Twitter that IESB.Net broke the story that Lucasfilm is hard at work on developing another trilogy of Star Wars films to be released a year or two after the final installment of Star Wars 3D.
Their website has been crippled with traffic from the story and it might take a while to load, but you can find the story here.
I’m always very skeptical about news of new Star Wars movies. Lucasfilm has been pretty adamant that there are no more films coming out and I’m reasonably in the loop. I can pretty safely ignore stories like this 99 times out of 100. But IESB is a usually reliable site and they are staking their entire reputation in the truth of this story. If it doesn’t pan out, they’re up a creek as far as their reliability is concerned.
They claim that a spy deep inside of Lucasfilm leaked to them special knowledge of a desire by George Lucas, confident from the success of Clone Wars, to make more films set in the Star Wars Universe. By all accounts, Lucas has said the Skywalker Saga has ended and we won’t be revisiting that again in any officially canon form.
IESB’s spy speculates that it is indeed a sequel, though how far into the Star Wars universe it is they didn’t know.
From their report:
What do we know? First of all, these new film will have nothing to do with the live action television series currently in development. That show already has over 50 scripts ready to go and plenty of pre-production time and money has been spent on artwork and storyboards. Once that show goes into production, Lucasfilm hopes to be able to produce at least 100 episodes since that is the threshold for syndication in the United States.
Too early for story details but one thing that our source is certain about, they will not be prequels but instead sequels. It’s not for certain if they will be the long awaited Episodes 7, 8 and 9 but could instead be Episodes 10, 11 and 12 or possibly even further out in the Star Wars timeline. And by giving space in the timeline, possibly even as far as 100 years or 1,000 years in the Star Wars universe future, Lucas avoids having to make these stories “fit in” with what the previous stories have told.
I’m telling you this firmly: take this news with a grain of salt. A grain of salt with a vengeance. Until Lucasfilm makes any sort of official announcement (or a little bird deep in Lucasfilm tells me so personally), this isn’t happening.
It’s not unheard of, though. The prequels were bankrolled off the backs of the Special Editions, which helped advance the technology further to make them possible. If Lucas is pushing the technology and form further with Star Wars 3D and will be using that to bankroll the live action TV series and a new trilogy, I will be nothing but elated.
The possibilities of a sequel trilogy set in the Star Wars universe are endless. And I’d love to see George produce them in the same way he’s producing the Clone Wars and give top filmmakers who are Star Wars fans a chance to play in the sandbox. Though, if he does decide to direct them, I’ll still be there first in line. As far as the films are concerned, he hasn’t let me down yet.
What do you guys think about this?
UPDATE: Tracy Cannobbio from Lucasfilm responded to my request for comment on this story thusly:
“This is, of course, completely false. George Lucas has lots of projects keeping him busy right now – including plenty of Star Wars projects – but there are no new Star Wars feature films planned.”
I will take Tracy’s word for it, even though IESB ran their article with the following caveat:
Can we expect Lucasfilm to confirm our story? Have they ever? Nope, I am sure that they will spin this or completly deny the story, but we will stand 100% behind our source.
So, they can stand behind their source all they want. Lucasfilm, quite predictably, is standing by the fact that it’s not happening, though in truth they’d have to say that at this point one way or the other. It is interesting though that Tracy’s email to me is identical in wording to the email Wired got from their source at LFL. At the very least, this story was enough for LFL to get together on an officially worded denial.
In any case, be sure to weigh in below.