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EXCLUSIVE: Here’s some tantalizing dish to chew on before the Thanksgiving turkey and trimmings. After hiring Michael Arndt to script the first installment of the relaunch of George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise, I’ve heard Disney has approached Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg and I believe it is to get the ball rolling on the subsequent installments mapped out by Lucas. Both of the scribes in question have franchise experience.
Kasdan scripted two of the original Star Wars films in the 1980 The Empire Strikes Back and the 1983 follow-up Return of the Jedi. He also scripted Raiders Of The Lost Ark for Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Kinberg’s franchise work: X-Men: The Last Stand, Sherlock Holmes and the upcoming X-Men: Days Of Future Past which Bryan Singer will direct.
Disney’s $4 billion buy of George Lucas’ signature franchise certainly has stirred up passions from fans. I’m still feeling so let down by the last three films that I am not sure they can bring back the magic on the original trilogy, which was so groundbreaking for its time. But that time seems like a galaxy so far far away.
Back in the late 1970s, Star Wars set the bar for visual effects in science fiction. Doing that again is very difficult in the age of The Hobbit, The Dark Knight and Avatar. But Disney was certainly proven right when it spent the same money on Marvel, and already has made back much of that cash with The Avengers.
Disney plans to generate a film every other year starting in 2015. Getting great writers is the right way to relaunch Star Wars, and the studio got off to a good start hiring Star Wars fanatic Arndt to do the first installment. The studio has told me that they will not address speculation. Fair enough. But I’m going to go with my sources on this one and I would not be surprised if these guys sign on, or if they are already in the fold.
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Mapped out by Lucas? Arndt has developed treatments for the next three…
Lucas mapped out the third trilogy 20 years ago. They’re referring to Lucas’s story of nine films. A treatment is more detailed and Arndt did that.
Which were in turn mapped out by Lucas prior to that….
Kasdan? YES. Kinberg? HELL NO.
+1
I agree Kinberg and First Class are way overrated. I mean he wrote Xmen 3 and Jumper. Bad choice. But Kasden is a homerun.
+2
Absolutely on Kasdan. No fucking way on Kinberg… even Brad Bird would be better if they want someone who can write for CG. Too bad Leigh Brackett isn’t around. It’s about the humans.
Kasdan should be a no-brainer.
Too bad Kinberg is an absolutely terrible writer.
That photo of Jar Jar Binks should hang above the desk of any future Star Wars writer as a silent reminder: “Don’t Do This.”
I could not possibly agree more!!
Agreed Kinberg isn’t the most talented wordsmith out there, but you can’t argue with success. Love ‘im or hate ‘im, films he’s worked on — either as screenwriter or script doctor — have grossed BILLIONS worldwide. So he’s clearly doing something right in as much as his work appeals to a wide enough demographic to keep him insanely busy / perpetually employed.
Wow, someone at Disney is actually smart and knows their history. HELLO, MCFLY, why the heck didn’t Lucas hire Kasdan to script the last ones. He scripted the best one of the series, EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.
Because Kasdan said no when asked. HELLO, MCFLY!
Strictly speaking, it’s not someone at Disney who is smart and knows their history. It’s Kathleen Kennedy, the head of Lucasfilm. Disney is the parent company of Lucasfilm and have a hands-off policy with regard to the making of the new Star Wars films.
I see Kinberg wrote some X-Men movies. One of them reviled and another widely adored. And there is a Neil Blokamp connection with Kinberg through Elysium. He was on the Marketsaw rumored director list, cue Internet articles about Blokamp exploding everywhere.
Too bad Darabont doesn’t do writing-for-hire anymore / has such an acrimonious relationship with Lucas post-INDY 4. Would certainly be interested in seeing what he could come up with in the SW universe.
FD would be great! what happened to him and Lucas with Indy4?
Kinberg? Ugh, enough with this guy already. Mr. and Mrs. Smith was a long time ago people…
Yeah, even Kasdan phoning it in would probably be better than the first two prequels combined. I guess Kinberg is there to make sure at least one of the new movies is as bad or worse than either Menace or Clones. #FirstClassplotholes
While Empire is the best of the bunch, ROTJ was mediocre so not sure about Kasdan returning to write.
Only so much you can do when Ewoks are forced upon you.
The Ewoks weren’t really the core problem in ROTJ – which I would compare to ‘The Godfather Part III’ in that it’s a worthy conclusion to the story whilst not quite reaching the giddy heights of it’s two predecessors – the problems were the cloying sentimentality in regards the Ewoks, the fact that Han Solo didn’t have a character arc in the film, and the fact that George Lucas didn’t give director Richard Marquand the time or freedom to do it his way… I personally think Lucas should have hired Peter Hunt to direct ROTJ, and given him the time and freedom to do it right, Hunt directed the best James Bond film to date, ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’, and would have been the perfect guy to give the ‘Star Wars’ saga both a fitting and mature conclusion, alas…
I hate to kibitz – but wouldn’t these be films ’8′ and ’9′, not ’2′ and ’3′?
7 & 8
8 & 9 would be correct. The article states, “After hiring Michael Arndt to script the first installment of the relaunch of George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise, I’ve heard Disney has approached Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg and I believe it is to get the ball rolling on the subsequent installments mapped out by Lucas.”
They are assumed to be writing the scripts for the 2nd and 3rd new movies, thus episodes 8 & 9.
How do these meetings work exactly? Do you go in operating under the assumption that everybody hates the prequels ir do you try to say constructive things about them?
Hey, missta, I love me some Jar Jar. Me thinks me writes sum mo’ Jar Jar characters.
Happy to see L. Kasdan in line to write at least one.
Kasdan for all 3.
Billy Dee Williams is waiting
Anyone involved in the best of the SW films (ESB natch) should be at the top of everyone’s list.
Maybe Disney will be the best thing that’s happened to the franchise since the Ewoks started the ball rolling downhill…
I wonder if Kinberg being hired is a sign that Matthew Vaughn will direct. Hope so.
Best idea they could possible have. Kasdan wrote the best of the series, “The Empire Strikes Back” w/ the late & amazing Leigh Brackett.
Well done, Kathleen Kennedy!
Sorry but us real fan boys only want George to write and direct the next trilogy. Sure he’s old and fat and no longer interested, he’s still the man and we must force him to use the force and give us what we have longed for since 1983. We hated the prequels and we demand he restore our sense of wonder and awe. Come on George. Get back in the game! Come out of retirement! Boycott all things Disney until they hire Lucas to do the job. We don’t care about these A-list writers and A-list directors that have been mentioned. We want pure Star Wars and nothing else.
I’ll just assume that by fanboy you mean you’re a fan of crap movies. The original was good but almost gave Lucas a nervous breakdown. So he gave up a ton of control for Empire. And it ended up being the best of the series. Then Lucas decides to come back into the fray for Jedi co-writing it, and it’s decent only because Lawrence Kasdan was involved. Then come the prequels, all written and directed by Lucas, and you saw how that went. Lucas is best when his only credits are “Story By” and “Executive Producer.”
Yanking your chain, Skytalker was. Not trusted, Lucas is, by true fanboys. Comfort food for franchise, Kasdan is. Mmmm? Yess.
The original is better than “good”. It’s truly special. I remember seeing it as a 15 year old and being BLOW AWAY right from the first shot of that ship coming over the top of the screen (I got giddy thinking it was never going to end). Empire is only technologically better, with some great action sequences, but it doesn’t have the magic that the first movie had.
I think they should get Stallone to write it so they can take care of Rocky 7 and Star Wars 7 at the same time.
” yo Leia get this fricken Ewok out of my face.”
What about some of the Pixar people? I loved Empire but that was like a million years ago.
Kenneth Branagh would be great as I thought Thor was well done.
Michael Arndt is one of the “Pixar people” (Toy Story 3).
You are all haters!! Kinberg is an exceptional writer and more importantly knows what it takes to make good films as either writer or producer. He has done uncredited rewrites on numerous films that have gone onto be exceptional films and killed it with x-men first class. He is ibe of most versatile and talented people in the business.
I think that before you judge you should know what your talking about and not just reading a credit list from IMDB.
Something that occurred to me… I wonder if Disney will get into some kind of distribution deal with Fox for these films. It would be strange not to heard the Fox Fanfare before the main title score. I wonder how that will be resolved…
It’s possible Disney will ink out a deal with Fox, similar what they did with Paramount when they bought “Avengers” and “Iron Man 3″ from them. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see the ‘Star Wars’ sequels open with the Fox logo and fanfare, but have that ‘Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures’ tag at the end of the credits.
With word of Lawrence Kasdan possibly coming on-board for Episodes 8 and 9,maybe the studio can get Kasdan to step in the director’s chair since nobody(filmmaking-wise) is(so far) willing to accept the challenge of handling the choir of helming the next STAR WARS Episode/film(and possibly feel that they can’t handle the helming of such an entry/Episode/film that’s part of a majorly important and widely glanced upon film franchise/series).