Among the many projects George Lucas had with the Star Wars franchise, there was one that had been rumoured for many years – the live action TV series. Much like the Star Wars comic books, it should come as no surprise that since Disney purchased the series from Lucasfilm, ABC are now returning to this idea once again.
Producer Rick McCallum has said before that over 50 one-hour scripts have been written for the ambitious and effects heavy project which would necessitate a budget much larger than that of a normal TV show (around $5 million per episode). These scripts, written by the likes of Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Gallactica), were set in the 20 years between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. The rumours about the TV show have fallen quiet lately, but it now seems that the House of Mouse-owned ABC (who are also producing the Avengers spin-off show S.H.I.E.L.D) are very interested in the idea.
“We’d love to do something with Lucasfilm” said ABC president Paul Lee in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “We’re not sure what yet. We haven’t even sat down with them. We’re going to look at [the live-action series], we’re going to look at all of them, and see what’s right. We weren’t able to discuss this with them until [the acquisition] closed and it just closed. It’s definitely going to be part of the conversation.”
Lee makes no guarantees that we’ll be seeing a galaxy far, far away on ABC’s network as he’s unsure if they can juggle a TV series and movie franchise running simultaneously.
“It’s going to be very much up to the Lucasfilm brands how they want to play it,” he continued. “We got to a point here with Marvel, a very special point, where we’re in the Marvel universe, and very relevantly so, but we’re not doing The Avengers. But S.H.I.E.L.D. is part of The Avengers. So maybe something oblique is the way to [approach the Star Wars universe] rather than going straight head-on at it.”
Star Wars: Episode VII is heading for a 2015 release, although at present the film remains without a director.