LUCASFILM: ABRAMS AIN’T LEAVING ‘EPISODE VII.’ FARACI shrugs, PAGE VIEWS INTACT.
I probably shouldn’t criticize Devin Faraci for drudging up nonsense rumors, when I covered those same rumors. Whatever. I get three page views a day, and make no money. Faraci gets paid, and seems to generally giggle while stoking the flames of geeks across the internet. Wielding the hammer of God (or Thor, their parent company owns him), Lucasfilm has smote the rumors that Abrams is leaving Episode VII.
Someone had a little too much fun at Comic Con: today, while running down rumors of a new writing team boarding the third “Star Trek” installment for Bad Robot and Paramount, Badass Digest writer Devin Faraci struck a nervewhen he insinuated that director J.J. Abrams would soon be dropping out of the astronomically anticipated “Star Wars: Episode VII.” Sure enough, a few hours later, Lucasfilm has issued a sternly worded rebuttal. Abrams is still very much directing “Star Wars: Episode VII,” and as for those “Star Trek” specifics he unleashed in the same post, well now they seem dodgier than Han Solo’s claim that he made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.
The original post claimed that the writer, while in San Diego for Comic Con, has been “hearing tons of rumors that J.J. Abrams is on the verge of dropping out of ‘Star Wars.'” He went on: “”This has been something I’ve heard for a while now, and from multiple insiders. I know that he didn’t want to shoot the movie in England and was overruled, but that happened a while ago. This weekend at Comic Con I continued to hear these whispers. No director for ‘Trek 3’ has been found yet – might Abrams end up coming back after all, leaving ‘Star Wars’ to someone else? I’m expecting Star Wars news out of the German Star Wars Celebration at the end of the month – if there is some sort of announcement of a title or casting and Abrams isn’t there, start wondering.” Well, if you can’t believe whispers, what can you believe?
In their statement to IGN, Lucasfilm said, “There is no truth to the rumor. J.J. is having a great time working on the script and is looking forward to going into production next year.” Oh, well, nothing to see here.
The same post claims that the third ‘Star Trek’ entry wil be co-written by Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz, veterans of Abrams’ Bad Robot production company thanks to their work on “Fringe,” a series co-created by Abrams and Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who served as co-writers on the first two ‘Trek’ features. (They also worked on “X-Men: First Class” and “Thor.”) The report claims that while Stentz and Miller have been hired on as writers, Kurtzman and Orci will also contribute, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The same report states that Paramount wants the movie ready for 2016, so they can tie it into the 50th Anniversary of the original “Star Trek,” which, if true, definitely rules out Abrams as a director for the third ‘Trek’ movie, considering much of his 2015 will be spent finishing up and promoting “Star Wars: Episode VII.
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