He's writing and directing Star Wars: Episode VIII, and at least doing the treatment for Episode IX. Deadline's report conflicts with what The Wrap says (that he's only confirmed to write treatment on IX), but it's early days.
He also brings the house down when he sings Weird Al at karaoke. This was shot by a mutual friend. I was front of stage center singing my head off.
This tremendously inept post by Rob Bricken at io9 speaks volumes to how so many have such completely uninformed perspectives on life, the universe, and everything:
First, let’s admit one simple truth: There’s no way Disney is going to force J.J. Abrams or any director to adhere to the Star Wars Expanded Universe, as established through decades of books, comics, and videogames. The EU is too big and unwieldy, and furthermore, it’s too focused on Luke, Leia and Han to allow any kind of freedom to explore the characters anew — characters we already know are going to be in Episode VII at the very least.
"Adhere to the Star Wars Expanded Universe"? I had to re-read the whole piece to make sure Bricken wasn't joking. Contrary to what he says, Clone Wars was never considered a part of Expanded Universe. It's very much in-continuity. That this guy gets something like this so wrong makes me wonder why he hit publish on this pile of garbage.
"Hey girl, I wanna Expand your Universe."
Kotaku reports that a source has told them that Star Wars 1313 was going to be about Boba Fett:
This happened last May. Star Wars creator George Lucas looked at 1313—which at that point had been scrapped and refocused multiple times—and told the team he wanted it to be about Boba Fett, the mercenary whose origins as a clone were revealed in the Star Wars prequel movies.
You can see concept art from this version of Star Wars 1313 above. Boba Fett stands over someone who looks a whole lot like Bossk, a lizard-like bounty hunter who Fett has apparently captured. They appear to be in the seedy underworld of Coruscant.
Like I said yesterday, the game is not entirely dead, and it's expected that Disney is shopping it around for sub-licensing to finish it out and publish it.
I was afraid this would happen. The moment the Disney deal got announced, I worried most about LucasArts landing at a company that was on track to end all internal development. LucasArts was not the same company it was during what people consider its golden age, but it was still full of talented people doing interesting work.
In this statement to Game Informer, they confirm the closure of the legendary development house and confirm that future Star Wars games will be sub-licensed externally in the future.
Would it have killed them to announce the layoffs before GDC so that developers could network and look for work there?
They comment further to indicate that the hotly-anticipated Star Wars 1313 and Star Wars: First Assault are not necessarily dead, and could find themselves a home:
Website Kotaku is reporting that 150 LucasArts employees have been laid off, and that the games Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313 have been cancelled. However, the representative we spoke to said that the company is also evaluating its options regarding projects currently in development, which could be licensed out to external development and publishing partners:
"It is worth noting that we are looking for proven external partners who can help us provide video games to our fans. We still believe in the video game industry, we still will provide Star Wars games, we're just looking at different models rather than internal production... They're evaluating everything. There's always a possibility that it [Star Wars 1313] can still come out via licensing."
The representative also remarked on the general mood at the studio today, which, understandably, is not upbeat:
"It's super sad. It's a terrible day. I want to make sure everyone realizes that there still will be Star Wars games out there."
"Super sad", huh, bro? Great word choice, and yes, of course there will still be Star Wars videogames out there. I think your audience actually cares more about the fate of the developers that make the games they care about. They aren't so dim as to assume that one of the most lucrative franchises in gaming history was going to suddenly stop making piles of cash.
I'll spare you the Alderaan "voices cry out" reference with regard to the few hundred super-talented people without jobs as of today. They deserve more respect than that or how this big heave-ho is being press-released. Here's hoping they all land on their feet and get to do work that is rewarding and means something to them.
Before we start down that road, everyone would be kidding themselves if they think Disney will let go of Secret of Money Island, Day of the Tentacle, or Grim Fandango (or sub-license them, for that matter).
An excellent piece from Businessweek describes the due diligence process undergone by Disney chief Bob Iger, which is just one of many good bits of the piece. It reveals a bit of Lucasfilm trivia I didn't know about, the Holocron:
His company maintained a database called the Holocron, named after a crystal cube powered by the Force. The real-world Holocron lists 17,000 characters in the Star Wars universe inhabiting several thousand planets over a span of more than 20,000 years. It was quite a bit for Disney to process. So Lucas also provided the company with a guide, Pablo Hidalgo. A founding member of the Star Wars Fan Boy Association, Hidalgo is now a “brand communication manager” at Lucasfilm. “The Holocron can be a little overwhelming,” says Hidalgo, who obsesses over canonical matters such as the correct spelling of Wookiee and the definitive list of individuals who met with Yoda while he was hiding in the swamps of Dagobah.
About four years ago, I wrote an article that took me all night.
"I wasn't born until 1983, so I've only heard stories from friends and their parents about the summer of '77. You didn't have to be a "geek" or a "nerd" or a five year old who loves CG to go see Star Wars."
I went into work the next day without any sleep, because my wife and I were part of the first audience in North America to see the new Star Trek movie. So sue me, I liked the lens flares (and still do):
"Star Trek has never been this visually dynamic. The camera work is full of lens flares, reflections, and focus effects that really sell the atmosphere as being less steady and...overly-tidy than before. You also have a more nuts n' bolts, gaskets n' pipes styled Enterprise, where the ship feels like a labyrinthine submarine merged with an aircraft carrier. The mixture of practical and CG alien and creature effects are also fantastic, with all kinds of new stuff never seen before in the franchise in terms of design or quality."
Now JJ Abrams is apparently set to direct Star Wars: Episode 7: Revenge of a New Subtitle, and...I think he's a perfect fit.
This could theoretically open the door to the original, un-altered versions of the Original Star Wars Trilogy becoming available legally and in HD. Then again, it could result in them being just as buried as original cuts of Disney titles.
Seven (Make that eight and counting) things after listening to their conference call announcement just now:
1) Disney now owns all LucasFilm IP: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Skywalker Sound, LucasArts (games), Lucas Books/Animation/Licensing/Marketing/Online, and ILM (the company that once owned Pixar), as well as the trademark for "Droid". Disney will now own all intellectual property rights with some distribution and licensing "entaglements" based on existing deals, much like how Universal still has the Marvel theme park license for a while yet and Sony makes Spider-Man movies.
2) Much was made of Disney's global licensed product and distribution reach making better use of LucasFilm licenses, with all emphasis on the $4.05 billion paid being relative to the value of the Star Wars franchise. For example, this would imply that any Star Wars (and Indiana Jones?) licensed comic books will now go under Marvel once the current Star Wars/Dark Horse contract ends, and video games would go through Disney Interactive.
UPDATE 1:: Bob Iger: "We're likely to focus more on social and mobile than we are on console. We'll look opportunistically at console, most likely in licensing rather than publishing, but we think that given the nature of these characters and how well known they are, and the storytelling, that they lend themselves quite nicely, as they've already demonstrated to the other platforms" ...so maybe Star Wars comics are safe at Dark Horse? ...I want to say no way in hell, when you own one of the two megalithic comic publishers...
UPDATE 3:: The Star Wars 1313 game is staying on track, per a LucasArts statement.
3) Disney plans to release a new Star Wars movie every 2-3 years starting in 2015. All of them will be in 3D.
4) Star Wars Episodes 7, 8, and 9 will be a trilogy. The treatment is done, is in "early stage development", and the movies are to be released every other year.
5) ILM will remain a studio-agnostic gun for hire. Disney does not want to change anything about how they operate.
6) Fox retains ownership and distribution of all existing Star Wars movies (until that contract expires... UPDATE 4:: Episode 4 is owned "in perpituity" and all other existing movies are owned through 2020). Disney can use any and all characters from the entire Star Wars canon in all of its new movies. All future films will be distributed by Disney, unlike Paramount retaining partial distribution rights when Marvel was acquired. No mention was made of who now owns the Star Wars Holiday Special.
7) They made it extremely clear that the Indiana Jones (and other non-SW) IP was not factored into their valuation of LucasFilm, only Star Wars and Star Wars-related IP. They made an oblique reference to "entanglements" (i.e., Paramount's distribution and ownership of the existing movies and, I expect Young Indy, if they remember it exists).
8) This may be reaching, but they made repeated reference to the broader reach of the Disney content family in general, and toward the end someone asked about the Disney Faeries and other "girl-oriented" IP expansions and how they'd handle that. Disney sidestepped addressing it in terms of specific plans, but acknowledged that they have many plans in this area for sure.
UPDATE 2:: Bob Iger: "We love the fact that this will take its place in our live-action strategy as a known and loved brand. We really like Star Wars’ potential on TV, and Disney XD would be a great home for that."
This means that the long-rumored live-action Star Wars TV series is just the tip of the iceberg. No word on how Clone Wars (distributed by Warner Bros on home video) falls into any of this.
9) I just realized this means that Disney now fully owns Captain EO and Star Tours. This deal has been in the works for a long while, I guarantee you. Think about it.
All in all, and call it controversial, but I firmly believe this is the best possible thing to happen to Star Wars in a long, long time.
I'm re-listening to my recording of the call and will update as necessary with corrections and additions.