UPDATE: Lucasfilm Considering a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Film?

Did you think I was going to let a week pass without a new Star Wars rumor? I’m hurt. I really am. Ain’t It Cool News is reporting one of the many ideas currently floating around Lucasfilm (such as the solo movies) is a movie version of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic or Kotor for short.

For those that don’t know, Kotor is a popular RPG video game set 4,000 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire, in a period known as The Old Republic. It was developed by Bioware (Dragon Age, Mass Effect). The primary writer on the series, Drew Karpyshyn, transitioned into screenwriting last year and is reporting his first script is nearly done.

Is it Kotor? According to the Ain’t It Cool News rumor that may be the case. Drew Karpyshyn, who’s also worked on Jade Empire, The Old Republic, and Mass Effect 1 & 2 for Bioware, left Bioware back last February to pursue screenwriting. Since then he hasn’t really made much headway in that department. He has however been prolific in writing novels, writing 5 Star Wars novels. with 2 of them set in the era as Kotor. (So he’s got an in at Lucasfilm.) His personal website says the following: “I don’t have any produced or sold screenplays yet. I have one script that’s nearly complete, and I will be looking for an agent soon to help me market it to major Hollywood studios.”

The frustrating part is that statement has no date on it, so it could have been updated today or months ago. AICN says that “Bioware is a hot bed of rumor regarding the notion that Drew Karpyshyn is working up a screenplay for a film version of Knights Of The Republic.” But other than that no actual evidence. Their attempts to contact Karpyshyn have yet to be answered.  It’s very possible that his screenplay is something entirely different. Something not even in the same genre. But usually when trying something new, one sticks to what he does best. We know he has contacts at Lucasfilm. it is worth noting that Karpyshyn also wrote Mass Effect, which is being developed by Hollywood, and his name never even came up. (ouch)

With the idea of new movies on the horizon anything “Star Wars” gets people excited. Lawrence Kasdan did say he would look at the Expanded Universe for inspiration (not for VII). If you ask me Lucasfilm could do a lot worse than embrace one of their most popular and successful EU franchises and turn it into a movie. And who better to write that movie then the man behind the game?

How would you guys feel about a Kotor movie? Is that something you would want to see?

UPDATE:

The Kotor movie rumors appear to be untrue. AICN updated their report  to say Karpyshyn told them that he “has heard nothing about a Knights of the Old Republic movie. Of course even if he was working on it, he couldn’t say so. But I’m going to say this looks like a rumor that we can drop for now. It was fun while it lasted.

The Force was not strong with this one.