George Lucas announced in 2011 that 50 scripts had been written for his proposed live-action “Star Wars” TV series – the one set between “Revenge of the Sith” and “A New Hope” - but he never revealed who had written those scripts.
But news has emerged from ABC’s Television Critics Association event in this regard. From Entertainment Weekly:
The project was commissioned by longtime Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum, who enlisted writers such as Battlestar Galactica‘s Ron Moore and swore them to NDA secrecy on the plot details.
Amazing news, especially since EW speculates that ABC parent Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm has brought a live-action “Star Wars” TV series closer to reality:
The Star Wars show was budgeted at more than $5 million per episode and Lucasfilm wanted to retain ownership. But now Disney has purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion and Disney owns more than a couple TV networks. The financials for a big-budget TV show are more compelling if the license fee and other income sources stay in the family.
Finally, EW offered new details on the series’ premise and characters:
Sources say the live-action series centers on the story of rival families struggling over the control of the seedy underside of the Star Wars universe and the people who live within the subterranean level and air shafts of the metropolis planet Coruscant (the Empire’s urban-sprawl-covered home planet). A bounty hunter may be the main character.
I’m not sure I’d be this excited about the adventures of the people who live in Coruscant’s air shafts had Moore not been recruited to write them.
Moore, who got his start in TV on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” went to serve as showrunner on HBO’s “Carnivale” before he masterminded the 2003-2009 “Galactica” reboot. He also co-wrote the acclaimed feature “Star Trek: First Contact.”
Find EW’s story on the matter here.
