I think at this point we’re all presuming that the original three big cast members from the classic Star Wars trilogy will be back in the sequel trilogy produced by Disney. El Mayimbe at Latino Review broke the story that said Harrison Ford would be coming back in the role. Carrie Fisher jokingly confirmed her involvement yesterday. Mark Hamill has been claiming that he’d be involved in this new trilogy since the late 70s/early 80s.
But nothing is official.
Nothing is confirmed.
Neither Lucasfilm nor Disney have said anything, save that JJ Abrams is, indeed, directing Episode VII from a story by George Lucas and a script by Michael Arndt, and that there are standalone films in the works.
That’s it.
But that kind of changed today. George Lucas all but announced that they’re at the very least in talks with the original cast, telling Bloomberg Business Week:
Asked whether members of the original Star Wars cast will appear in Episode VII and if he called them before the deal closed to keep them informed, Lucas says, “We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison—or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, ‘Look, this is what’s going on.’ ” He pauses. “Maybe I’m not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them.” Then he adds: “I won’t say whether the negotiations were successful or not.”
It must be odd for him not being the man in charge able to say what he wants, but that’s the case now that he’s sold his company to Disney.
But if there’s a definitive word for Star Wars, it’s George Lucas.
Disney better get on top of some announcments fast if they want to surprise anyone about anything at all.
I also hope that we’ll have surprises left for the movie when it comes out in 2015.