Caffeinated Clint
News as tasty as the outer-crust of a toffee apple here, folks.
George Lucas has confirmed that Kathleen Kennedy will be leading the charge on the next three “Star Wars” movies.
Lucas’s involvement will be limited to a nod here-and-there, it seems, with Kennedy, the prolific producer of such films as “Back to the Future” and “Schindler’s List”, now head of Lucasfilm, captaining the Episode 7-9 ship.
EW caught up with Lucas who offered up a rather modest response in regards to the future of “Star Wars”.
“I’ve turned it over to a wonderful producer, Kathy Kennedy, and I’ve known her for years,” he said. “She’s more than capable of taking it and making it better than I did.”
Though Lucas is the one responsible for whatever story the new trilogy has in store, it’s Kennedy – as well whoever is charged with the mission to write and direct, respectively – who’ll be calling the shots. Music to my ears, let me tell you. Kennedy’s not only one of the most respected businesswomen in the industry, but she’s renowned for making terrific decisions on a creative-level and, shit, she seems to know what works…and doesn’t work, especially when it comes to the tentpole. Kennedy’s work includes most of Steven Spielberg’s back-catalogue, but outside of the beard/s, she’s produced such gems as “The Sixth Sense”, “Alive” and “Seabiscuit”. She was also an EP on such classics as “The Goonies”, “Back to the Future”, I, II and III, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, and “Gremlins”. Sure, she’s mistaken mud for gold a couple of times – remember “Congo”? – but, by-and-large, she’s part of the reason so many of those past Summer blockbusters worked as well as they did.
But as I said, it’s also going to depend on who is hired to write the screenplays for the new “Star Wars” films, and who is chosen to direct – everyone from Joss Whedon to Neil Blomkamp is rumoured, but it’s way too early to be even playing that game internet – them. Takes a good team to make a movie. Let the troupe onboard Episodes 7 to 9 be the “Hoosiers” of blockbuster-ville.
“Star Wars : Episode 7” will be released in 2015.
