I think at this point we know it's a given that the new Star Wars movies do at least feature the characters of Luke, Leia and Han, we just need official confirmation that the actors that portrayed them in the original trilogy will be returning. We had heard Harrison Ford had already signed but again, nothing official. Mark Hamill says he hasn't signed yet but is in negotiations, and we thought Carrie Fisher had confirmed she'd play Leia again but she was apparently only "joking". Well now we have comments from George Lucas himself on the whole hullabaloo, and he reckons despite everything we've heard previously, Disney/Lucasfilm were already in final negotiations with the trio. “We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison—or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation," reveals Lucas. "So I called them to say, ‘Look, this is what’s going on.’ Maybe I’m not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them.”
Sounds like all of this has indeed been building up to a "whoop-de-do" announcement, so as if to cover himself to allow for the loudest fanfare possible, Lucas adds:
“I won’t say whether the negotiations were successful or not.” Lucas also elaborates on what he'll actually be doing in his consulting role on the new movies.
“I mostly say, ‘You can’t do this. You can do that,’ ” he explains.
“You know, ‘The cars don’t have wheels. They fly with antigravity.’ There’s a million little pieces. Or I can say, ‘He doesn’t have the power to do that, or he has to do this.’ I know all that stuff.” Be sure to head on over to
Bloomberg Business Week for the full report, as there's lots more interesting stuff on Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm.
About The Author:
Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.