Hey Yo, Draven here.
There have been rumors for months of some turmoil behind the scenes of STAR WARS: EPISODE VII. We recently heard that the film was changing screenwriters, and today THR has a new report with some more details.
A lot of us have been skeptical that J.J. Abrams was going to meet a Summer 2015 release date, as production has continued to be delayed and is now scheduled to begin next Spring. That is obviously a short window for a film that is going to require a ton of post-production visual effects work. Reportedly though producer Kathleen Kennedy went to Disney CEO, Bob Iger and asked for a release date delay to 2016. He denied her request because they have a big plan with a lot of money involved and moving EPISODE VII’s release date would screw it all up.
Where does J.J. Abrams stand on all of this? Well, he apparently is okay with meeting a Summer 2015 release date and wants to try. The issue though is that according to this new report, the script for Episode VII is nowhere near ready to be filmed. Michael Arndt left to take on other projects and Abrams has sought the help of Original Trilogy writer, Lawrence Kasdan to get the script completed before next Spring.
What does all of this mean for the quality of the film though? Well it probably isn’t ideal for the filmmakers and this puts a ton of pressure on Abrams. We don’t want EPISODE VII to be anywhere near the quality of the first two Prequel films but Iger has other priorities as CEO. He has to answer to investors and obviously the success of the Prequel Trilogy means that quality doesn’t necessarily matter in order for STAR WARS films to be extremely profitable.
It isn’t all doom and gloom in the report though as they quote an insider on the recent announcements:
"It's nothing out of the ordinary. Almost every big movie changes writers at some point. There's no drama here."
But as they say usually when there is this much smoke, there is some fire. It should make for an interesting documentary or book in the future though.
What do you guys think of this report? Are you losing confidence in Disney? I am hearing that even more is going to come out soon so stay tuned.
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