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Star Wars is ‘the forever franchise’ says Kathleen Kennedy…

November 17th, 2015 by Irwin Fletcher Comments

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As part of the marketing campaign for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Lucasfilm executives, including Kathleen Kennedy, have explained to Wired how Star Wars might outlive us all. The company’s president said that we will continue to delve into the universe George Lucas created for many years to come. Below are some of the highlights from an extensive interview on The Forever Franchise.

Also, here is perhaps the greatest piece of Star Wars artwork you will ever see…

Star Wars

How Kasdan and Abrams figured out the beast that is Force Awakens:
“The feeling we wanted [for Force Awakens] was from the first trilogy,” Kasdan told Wired, noting the only must-have returning pieces were Han, Chewie, Luke, and Leia. “It’s fun, it’s delightful, it moves like a son of a bitch, and you don’t question too much. … On the first day, I said, look: Delight, that’s the word. In every scene, that should be the criterion we’re using. Does it delight?” He and Abrams walked around “recording into an iPhone and breaking the story” to outline the plot. “We walked for miles, through Santa Monica and Manhattan and eventually Paris and London.”

Abrams on the pressure of making The Force Awakens:
“I do feel like there’s a little bit more of a burden on Larry and me to come up with a story that could at least be the beginning of what transpires over three films,” he told Wired.

How Rogue One was given the green-light: 

Lucasfilm’s CCO John Knoll approached Kennedy in 2012, not long after she took over: “I just have this very simple idea … about the rebel spies in the opening crawl of A New Hope who steal the plans for the Death Star,” he said. (He was referencing this line from the movie’s opening credits: “Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star.”) Sold.

The Forever Franchise

There’s going to be a lot more where that came from:
“They are making more. A lot more. The company intends to put out a new Star Wars movie every year for as long as people will buy tickets,” Wired‘s Adam Rogers writes. “Let me put it another way: If everything works out for Disney, and if you are (like me) old enough to have been conscious for the first Star Wars film, you will probably not live to see the last one. It’s the forever franchise.”

Rogue One might not be what you think it is:
“We’re essentially making a period piece,” Hart told Wired of Rogue One. “The benefit of making additional episodes that move forward on the timeline is that we are making new space for ourselves.”

You can read the whole story and much more on the idea of the forever franchise, here.

Cheers to Squareeyed for the story

I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.