So now that we know there’s going to be more Star Wars films, one can’t help wonder how long the series will last, and how old we’ll be once it all ends.
There was a big cover story in Entertainment Weekly about the resurrection of Star Wars via Disney, and we know for certain there is going to be three more movies, because the whole series was originally intended to encompass a total of 9 films.
We also know the first film has a writer, Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3), and the search for a director is currently under way. However, according to EW, Kathleen Kennedy, who is the new president of Lucasfilm, reportedly “wants the company to produce two or three films a year (it’s averaged fewer than four per decade)…”
Now it’s not clear if there are going to be spin offs, like the animated versions of Star Wars, but it would be very difficult to get two to three films out a year, which makes me wonder if this was a misprint that will soon be cleared up. Even with The Hobbit being cut into three parts, the third episode arrives six months after the second part, and that could even be cutting it too close. (Or perhaps having the third part come out sooner will make the money pile up faster).
Then again, George Lucas recently told MTV the Star Wars franchise could continue for at least 100 years. He added, “I have story treatments of 7, 8 and 9 and a bunch of other movies, and we have hundreds of books and comics and everything you could possibly imagine…It’s a very big universe I’ve created and there’s lots of stories sitting in there.”
But just because you can stretch something out for a long time doesn’t always mean you should. In fact, I was surprised to read there would be more Star Wars movies, because what else could be left to say after Darth Vader died in Jedi? It will be interesting to see what can be done with Star Wars, but only if it’s reinvented by new people on the same level of Empire, and that will be tough to do.
Yes, it’s great that there’s going to be fresh blood making the new Star Wars flicks, but maintaining momentum and interest will undoubtedly be a challenge over a 100 year period.
