September 7 2007

source: INSIDER #96




SUMMARY & EXCERPTS:

• Writers, Scripts, & Shooting

Rick McCallum states that he & Lucas met over 200 writers from England, Paris, Prague, Budapest, and Australia in the hopes of getting group of about five or six people from all around the world. McCallum says that getting scripts together will take about six months with hopes to begin shooting in Australia 2009.

• Multiple Television Series of 13 to 16 Episodes Each per Season

McCallum says that the idea is to do 13 to 16 darker and more mature, character-based episodes over 1 or 2 years. After 2nd or 3rd year, one of the characters from the first series could move on to their own series. By the 4th or 5th year there could be 4 or 5 separate TV series of 13 episodes running each.

• Distribution: Television & Broadband Downloads

Mentions possibility of Broadband downloading of episodes bypassing conventional Network Televison due to not wanting to have interrupted storytelling. "Cable is definitely a possibility."

Thanks for the heads up DS. The new Insider interview seems clarify a lot of the television info McCallum spoke of at this past summers Celebrations. Of note is how Lucas & Co want 4 to 5 different television series with 13 to 16 episodes per season. Thats a lot of fucking Star Wars.

Here's hoping that LucasFilm meets their 2009 shooting goal early.

Better to burn out brightly than fade away for decades, like Star Trek?

Which is exactly what Lucas said in 2002.

As far as I'm concerned, Revenge of the Sith was the grand finale.


Yeah. Thanks for that, Rick.

Well, that's two challenges, can Lucas create 4-5 characters that we'll care about for that long and can they keep people watching through 48-60 episodes of Star Wars a year.

Star Trek didn't even fade away it's like that retarded uncle we all have that keeps showing up at the family functions thinking they're ideas are the best thing since sliced bread.

I still believe Lucas would go for quality over quantity (oh I really hope so!). I know that these shows will essentially be character driven but I’m sure there will still be high quality production values i.e. a fair smattering of CG, decent sets etc and all of that’s gonna take time to put together. I don’t think they’ll be anywhere near 48-60 episodes, especially as all of this "info" originated form my mate McCallum.

As for branching out it could water down Star Wars significantly or if the characters are so jump off the page interesting, it could do something similar to Heroes. In the meantime just give us 13 quality episodes from the off please, Mr L! Worry about making spin-offs later if and when your audience is still around.

From the Clone Wars Trailer thread, many of us came to the conclusion that Lucas was making Star Wars TV in part due to the merchandising. Hasbro made a deal with Lucas for extending merchandising rights until 2018. Many of the figures and vehicles today are made from the old O.G. molds from the 70s & 80s.

Last Christmas, I posted in the Collecting forum how Star Wars figures and vehicles were flying off shelves, despite the end of the movies and Star Wars fatigue. With the 2008 Prequel-Era Animation and hopefully 2009 Original Trilogy-Era Live-Action Series, Hasbro doesn't even have to make new molds, just sell re-paints and re-packs. Although Hasbro is a making a few new molds for stuff.

With that said, I think 4 to 5 Live-Action television series maybe a bit much. What's interesting is that McCallum is already floating a "main character" for potential spin-off solo series. Stuff needs to start leaking because it is apparent there is stuff to leak.

While I agree that there should be a ton of crap to see, at least from the clone wars perspective, I'm not sure how much from the live series there is. As much as he's saying, it's McCallum they man could tell me that the sky was blue, I'll still go outside and check to be sure. That might be the direction they want to go, but I bet they've gut got a semi-detailed outline.