The director said he’s committed to the Star Trek franchise.
Back when George Lucas announced he was stepping down from head of Lucasfilm and handing over the whole company to Disney for a cool $4 billion, the idea of a who would make the next Star Wars film was on everyone’s mind. Names were bandied about like so many TIE fighters, with fan-favorites like Joss Whedon (Firefly, The Avengers) and Jon Favreau (Iron Man) at the top of the list. But the one director many people wanted to see helm the re-emergence of the Star Wars brand was the guy who’d deftly handled another sci-fi reboot – J. J. Abrams. He turned them down.
“There were the very early conversations and I quickly said that because of my loyalty to Star Trek, and also just being a fan, I wouldn’t even want to be involved in the next version of those things,” Abrams said in an interview with Empire Magazine.
“I declined any involvement very early on,” he said. “I’d rather be in the audience not knowing what was coming, rather than being involved in the minutiae of making them.”
I can’t say I think Abrams would have been the best choice anyway; We’ll be spared the disappointment of a fantastic premise ending badly (Lost) or young pretty officers bickering and banging (Star Trek). On the other hand, with Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) picked to write Star Wars Episode VII, I’m not sure the new film will be what fans really want.
Honestly, given how much the prequels burned through my love of the original films, I’d like to see what a Wes Anderson Star Wars movie would look like.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
