Hello $4 billion!
In the most April Fools-esque tradition, yet completely genuine, comes the news that corporate behemoth Disney, not content with buying Pixar and Marvel, have now consumed, sorry, bought, LucasArts for a tidy sum of $4 billion. This of course means that they now have access to the Star Wars vaults and, in a canny move, the buyout was accompanied by the news that a new Star Wars film is planned for release in 2015, Episode 7, kicking off a new trilogy. Whether or not the new films will follow original scripts, or the well established bestselling series of books by Timothy Zahn, is as yet unknown. George Lucas is to remain a Creative Consultant on the new films, whilst his longtime producing ally, Kathleen Kennedy, takes over as head of LucasFilm.
In the opinion of your humble editor, what this means is that the new trilogy will be infused, hopefully, with a glut of new talent, married to the veteran expertise of LucasFilm’s many stalwarts. So, there will be new directors for each film, replacing George who, let us be candid, did not do a great job on the prequel films. Will the likes of Mark ‘gizajob’ Hamill and Carrie Fisher, let alone Harrison Ford, return for some creaky space operatics? Quality control this time around will, it is hoped, be a little tighter and more scrutinised…
Andy Jamieson, Editor-in-Chiefdom
UPDATE: This is a genuine press photo to promote the deal between Lucasfilm and Disney. Feel free to make up your own captions….
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