Today, at Walt Disney’s Q2 Fiscal 2014 Earnings Conference Call, CEO Bob Iger announced the studio has plans for “at least three” Star Wars films outside the upcoming new trilogy, which will begin with the J.J. Abrams-directed Star Wars: Episode VII. Given the December 18, 2015 release plans for Episode VII, speculation is these films will alternate years with the new trilogy, which would place them in 2016, ’17 and ’18.
We’ve known before these one-off, origin story films would be coming out, but until now it was thought to be only two with reports they would focus on characters such as a young Han Solo, Boba Fett or Yoda. Iger didn’t confirms which of the characters the features would focus on, but we do know Episode VII co-wrtier Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg are working on developing the screenplays.
In other Star Wars related news, Movie Cricket (via Slashfilm) has a report from a Star Wars convention in England where John Morton who played Dak in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back said the upcoming animated show Star Wars Rebels would provide a link to the original trilogy and Episode VII. Rebels takes place between Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope and Morton suggests the Rebels characters will show up in Episode VII in live-action form:
Rebels is the key. Rebels will provide the link to bring in the continuity from Clone Wars, the Original Trilogy and the Prequels to enable LucasFilm and Disney to tee-up ‘Episode VII’. If you want my informed opinion, it will enable ‘Episode VII’ to leapfrog over the whole trilogy.
The key that is going to make this work is Rebels. Rebels will set up and point the direction for ‘Episode VII’.
The characters they are creating in Rebels will be around in ‘Episode VII’.
Of course, Morton hasn’t had anything to do with Star Wars since playing a minor role in Empire Strikes Back, so how he has this much information on any of this is confusing to me.
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