Tag Archives: Lucasfilm

Disney + has officially announced the release date (May 25th) for the highly anticipated Obi-Wan Kenobi and released the first teaser poster. Click through for the full press release!

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Lucasfilm held a special live-stream event today featuring tons of information on the launch of The High Republic publishing event. Click through for the new trailer and live stream video clips. You can also head over to the official site to see all of the concept art revealed and more. 

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J.W. Rinzler is an author of various “The Making of…” Star Wars books and former Executive Editor for Lucasfilm. He was with the company for 15 years and had begun work on his “The Making of The Force Awakens” book when things fell apart. Perhaps you remember Rinzler’s blog and the story revolving around his canceled “The Making of The Force Awakens” book. Eventually Rinzler’s blog, where he wanted to go into more detail, was deleted and Rinzler had to sign an NDA with Disney that basically forbids him from talking about many things Star Wars fans are really interested in.
But yesterday the ForceCast podcast, the official podcast of Theforce.net, had J.W. Rinzler as a guest and while he still cannot really divulge concrete details, he did talk a bit about the transition when Disney took over Lucasfilm. And what may be of interest to toy collectors, he also talks about what changed for licensees, like Hasbro. Click through for more details!

J.W. Rinzler

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Disney has angered many Twitter users with a recent tweet explaining that any May The Fourth content you post is “theirs.” “By sharing your message with us using #MayThe4th, you agree to our use of the message and your account name in all media and our terms of use here: http://disneytermsofuse.com,” it said. The terms of use then go on to state the company can use your user-generated content “royalty-free,” and virtually without any limit. As you know, Twitter makes it abundantly clear that your content is your content. Whether this disclaimer has any true impact is yet to be seen. But there is palpable outrage if you check Twitter. PC Mag has the full story.

Even though the following news is not directly related to Star Wars I suppose most Star Wars fans are also huge fans of Indiana Jones. A fifth movie is scheduled to be released in summer 2021, but earlier tonight Variety broke the news that Steven Spielberg has decided to no longer direct the movie, he will stay on as a producer, however. And while the reasons for Spielberg’s leaving have certainly nothing at all in common with the usual Lucasfilm Star Wars shenanigans, it’s still somewhat perplexing to see how almost no Lucasfilm production can stay out of trouble. Indiana Jones already has a troubled production with various delays. Variety also reports that Indy 5 still has some script issues, two months before filming is supposed to begin. Where have we heard that before… Solo writer Jonathan Kasdan is attached to the project at the moment, he took over from David Koepp who wrote the script for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. George Lucas has no involvement with Indy 5. Harrison Ford will still star as Indiana Jones. According to Variety Logan director James Mangold is in talks to direct the movie, but there has been no actual confirmation yet.
James Mangold was originally meant to direct the cancelled Boba Fett movie, he will direct a season 2 episode of The Mandalorian, so Lucasfilm is still on good terms with him. His latest movie is Ford v Ferrari, which was positively received by audiences. Let’s hope Mangold will stay with the movie all the way through to the end if he’s hired and that Indy 5 will be a proper send off for the adventurer portrayed by Harrison Ford.

Steven Spielberg will no longer direct Indiana Jones 5

Several reports came in yesterday evening that Lucasfilm is developing a new Star Wars live action project and have hired writer/director J.D. Dillard and writer Matt Owens for it. Click through for more details!

J.D. Dillard (left) and Matt Owens (right)

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Following the Kathleen Kennedy Interview for Rolling Stone, the Hollywood Reporter released an article with their take on how the future of Lucasfilm and Star Wars might look like. So what does the Hollywood Reporter think? Click through the details!

The future of Star Wars?

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Just what is going on over at Lucasfilm/Disney? Benioff & Weiss were announced as the ones who would oversee a new Star Wars trilogy/project in 2018, and Disney CEO Bob Iger mentioned them by name again and again since then. Now Deadline reports that the former Game of Thrones showrunners have stepped down from their Star Wars project. Some speculations arose when Benioff & Weiss made a deal with Netflix not too long ago, because that begged the question of why Netflix would pay them both so much money if Benioff & Weiss would be potentially busy with Star Wars for years to come. So now we have the answer. They will not work on Star Wars. Now, this is nothing new for Lucasfilm. They’ve lost quite a few directors/writers in the past few years, all of them were fired.

And while this is just speculation one could assume that whatever idea Benioff & Weiss came up with for their movie project was nixed by Disney in favor of whatever it is Kevin Feige may be doing. Deadline thinks it was their busy schedule that informed their decision, but they fail to mention that their Star Wars project was announced long before they made a deal with Netflix which now seemingly leaves them no time for Star Wars.

Read the full story on Deadline and then leave an insightful comment! One thing is sure, following Lucasfilm news is never boring. The revolving door of creative people coming and going keeps on revolving!

DB Weiss & David Benioff

BANG Showbiz posted a short inteview clip with Rian Johnson on their Twitter page. In the interview he says he’s excited to be a Star Wars fan again and he’s looking forward to seeing the new movie in December. But then BANG Showbiz asks the big question, what about Rian Johnson’s own new trilogy? This is what he has to say about that:

“Well we’ll see, I mean I’m still talking to Lucasfilm, they’re figuring out what they’re doing, and we’ll see what happens, but you know I’d be thrilled if it happens but I’m doing my own stuff too.”

This doesn’t sound too confident. It seems plans at Lucasfilm are still shifting. We also don’t know how exactly Kevin Feige’s Star Wars project will fit in. Would Lucasfilm have three different Star Wars movie projects at the same time? Benioff & Weiss, Rian Johnson and whatever Kevin Feige is developing? But as usual things can change. It’s certainly interesting to learn that “Lucasfilm is figuring out what they’re doing”. Let’s hope they’ll figure it out very soon. We still know very little about what kind of movie we’ll get in 2022 and what will happen beyond.

Click the image below to watch the short interview clip with Rian Johnson! And leave your own – constructive – thoughts in the comments! What do you think Lucasfilm will do?

Click to go to the video

Now before you say “who” and “what?!?”… Michelle Rejwan (age 37) has been with Bad Robot and JJ Abrams for a long time, she worked as an executive / co-producer on such JJ movies like Super 8, Star Trek Into Darkness and The Force Awakens, with The Rise of Skywalker being her latest project, this time as a producer. The SVP is the “Senior Vice President”, and Michelle will be the SVP for Live Action Development & Production. So, in short, she’s basically Kathleen Kennedy’s new Number 2. Click through for a few more details!

Michelle Rejwan

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Ever since the new Star Wars movie release schedule was announced by Disney fans have been wondering whose movies we’re going to get: Rian Johnson’s or Benioff & Weiss’. ABC correspondent Clayton Sandell asked Lucasfilm just about that. And this is what he posted on Twitter:

We asked, but Lucasfilm is not yet saying if the new #StarWars films planned for 2022, 2024 and 2026 are part of the previously-announced Rian Johnson trilogy or the series from “Game of Thrones” producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

In my opinion this can only mean one thing: Lucasfilm hasn’t decided yet. If everything was already set in motion they could have announced at least which name is attached to the movies. That they didn’t doesn’t necessarily mean that plans are going to change. But I wouldn’t be completely surprised that when we get the announcement neither Johnson nor Benioff & Weiss will make the movies. I suppose Celebration Anaheim in 2020 is the earliest we will learn more. Maybe there’s still hope we’ll get movies by Favreau and Filoni instead.

I originally reported that the short interview with Tom Kane had been cut from the official recording of the livestream on the Star Wars YouTube channel. Several people commented that the clip is missing, I checked the recording by scrubbing through it two or three times and didn’t find it. But apparently it’s still there. Maybe I was just blind and didn’t see it. Anyway, you can find the clip around the 6 hour 36 minute mark. Nothing was deleted. Apologies for the confusion! 🙂

Today I would like to talk about the latest Galaxy Of Adventures short that features Leia. So far, the shorts used audio snippets from the original trilogy movies and more or less faithfully recreated the scenes from the movie using animation. For the latest Leia episode Lucasfilm did something different though, and I feel we should discuss it and what it means for both official canon and the overall franchise going forward. Click through for more details!

Find the mistake in this photo collage! (Click for the much larger version so you see what’s happening in better detail)

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JTA reported on Kiri Hart’s sudden absence from the Lucasfilm website a short while ago. Now it’s been confirmed that Kiri Hart is no longer with Lucasfilm and will merely be a consultant to them going forward, whereas her main job will be to work for a brand new company, Rideback TV Incubator, that aims at helping experienced TV drama writers with diverse backgrounds to come up with successful TV show pitches. Kiri Hart will act as the creative advisor, helping the writers polish their potential series. Read the full story on the Variety website!

Kiri Hart

With the perplexing case assortments and character selection of Hasbro Star Wars toys, fans have surmised that perhaps Lucasfilm is more involved in the process than expected. How many of us wondered why a case assortment contains the characters it does, or why other characters get released in every scale and format possible. But now a three-year-old video of Kathleen Kennedy speaking at the “The Most Powerful Women” event for Fortune has resurfaced and interestingly reveals what many have speculated. It is an interesting and illuminating video. And from where we stand it seems to have had an impact on merchandising of the new Disney Star Wars films. Let’s take a closer look at what Ms. Kennedy said.

The faces of the Disney Star Wars franchise

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Lucasfilm’s SVP of Development, Kiri Hart, profile is no longer listed on Lucasfilm’s leadership page. She also (as of this posting) is not listed on the company’s leadership team page. This development could mean a couple of things. Does it mean nothing? Does it mean that she’s been promoted to another role at Lucasfilm and they’re updating her page? Or does it mean she parted ways with the company? Time will tell to see what’s happening here. Special thanks to JTA reader Craig P. for the alert!

Lately I’ve been thinking about the future of Star Wars, both as a whole and more particular as something that makes people buy action figures. The ultimate question is: will Star Wars either fade away, become less significant once the people who grew up with the original and prequel trilogy move on, or will Star Wars find new love and enthusiasm in a new generation, despite a much more competitive environment than we had 20 or 40 years ago? Click through for some musings and for which I hope will launch a fruitful discussion about the future of Star Wars!

Mythological kids playing with mythological Star Wars toys

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BREAKING NEWS! Kathleen Kennedy’s contract with Lucasfilm has been extended for three (3) more years! The Hollywood Reporter has the exclusive full story!

Whenever you want to make a Star Wars toy, you need to have a license. This should be pretty common knowledge. Lucasfilm and Disney protect their intellectual property and whoever wants to make anything based on Star Wars needs a licensing agreement. Now, these agreements are usually secret, other than some very basic facts, no specific details are released, so it’s usually very difficult to know how much money is involved.
While digging through the internet I was able to find a (somewhat redacted) licensing agreement between Hasbro and Lucasfilm from October 1997, an agreement that was extended several times in the meantime until 2020. And while redacted, it is still very informative, so informative that I think anyone should click through now to read all the details and to finally find out how much Hasbro is paying for that Star Wars license! You may be very surprised. Also, a very interesting question will be answered: who actually owns anything Hasbro makes? So, click through for everything you need to know about Hasbro’s Star Wars license!

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Until now most media outlets put a more or less positive spin on the recent developments in the Star Wars Universe and at Lucasfilm. It was mostly the alternative media, and here especially several YouTube channels, that heavily criticized Lucasfilm for Solo’s failure at the box office and for making a – according to them – divisive movie with The Last Jedi. But now Yahoo Finance posted an article that asks the ultimate question: whether or not the Star Wars Universe is imploding. Click through for more details!

Captain Canady sees his world exploding

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For fans of the series it may be hard to believe, but Star Wars: The Clone Wars will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year. Lucasfilm announced earlier this morning that the Emmy Award winning series and its 10th anniversary will be the focus of a panel at San Diego Comic Con. Click through to read the official press release from Lucasfilm and learn everything you need to know about this exciting announcement!

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Ever since last December something is amiss in the Star Wars Galaxy. And I don’t talk about the movie(s) here, I talk about how Lucasfilm or people who work for them communicate with their fans. Or, as many have noted, with their customers actually. Or are we? There seems to be some dispute about what exactly the relationship is between Lucasfilm and the people who buy tickets for one of their movies. On the weekend a writer for the official Star Wars website offered her point of view on Twitter. And according to her Star Wars fans are not customers of Lucasfilm after all? Click through to read more!

You’re not my customers!

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Collider reports that Lucasfilm has put all future stand alone Star Wars movies on hold (which basically means they have been canceled for now). An Obi-Wan movie was in active development, but the people who worked on the movie are no longer involved.
According to Collider Lucasfilm will put all their efforts into Episode IX and after that we’ll get the new trilogy, but apparently no more Star Wars stand alone movies for now.

What do you think about all that? Solo is a huge flop, unfortunately, but was it wise to put all the other stand alone movies on hold?  Is this the beginning of the end? Thanks to all the people who reported this development!

UPDATE: Now ABC News has an article on their website. Lucasfilm reached out to ABC News and told them that the Collider information is inaccurate, that there are still multiple Star Wars movies in development which haven’t been announced yet. So is there hope for an Obi-Wan movie after all? Why can’t Lucasfilm just make an official announcement on the official Star Wars channel or website and tell fans what to expect.

Star Wars has been a global phenomenon since 1977. Millions of fans enjoy the movies and play with the toys. But how does Star Wars actually make money? Movies? Toys? And it’s also time to take a closer look at the fandom, as there are several distinct groups of fans, and each group has different needs and wishes. How does all that align with what Lucasfilm, Hasbro and EA have on offer? The ultimate puprose of this article is to start a discussion about just that: what do we all want? Click through for details!

A New Hope

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General Manager of Lucasfilm and President of ILM, Lynwen Brennan, recently gave an interview to Wales Online. And she had a few things to say about ILM, specifically that they want more girls! Click through for more details!

Lynwen Brennan, President of ILM

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