Star Wars Clone Wars TV Television
New Movie Film Motion Picture
Show Series Shows
Live Action Computer Animated
CG CGI Animation
Type of Series: Live-action TV show (Real Flesh and Blood Actors)
TV Genre: Science fiction/fantasy, action/adventure
Working Title: Star Wars - Glory of the Empire
Story Ideas: George Lucas
Executive Producer: George Lucas
Main Characters: Boba Fett
Release Date: Fall 2010
In the Star Wars Insider Magazine Issue 99, Rick McCallum (producer of the landmark Star Wars prequel trilogy) confirmed that Boba Fett will have a prominent and important role in the live action Star Wars TV show, scheduled for release in late 2009. The inclusion of Boba Fett in the live action TV series is the result of fan ideas from SuperShadow.com. George Lucas promises to incorporate a large number of fan ideas in the various Star Wars TV shows. Progress on this TV series has been slowed as a result of the writer's strike.
TV Guide conducted an interview with George Lucas. Below is an excerpt from this interview regarding the future Star Wars TV shows:
TV Guide: Can we talk about the two Star Wars television series you're working on?
George Lucas: There's Clone Wars and we're in the middle of that.
TV Guide: Tell us about it.
Lucas: Well, it's basically like Star Wars [in that it] takes place between, obviously, [the films] Episode 2 [Attack of the Clones] and Episode 3 [Revenge of the Sith], but it's the same kind of action. Unfortunately, it doesn't fall into the realm of what animation [typically] is, which is either adult, kind of off-color humor or kiddie stuff. This is, like Star Wars, sort of in between those two things.
It's a lot of battle stuff and it's obviously the Clone Wars so it's a war picture. So it's kind of a PG-13 animated TV series, which is something that has never been done before and obviously doesn't fit in any of the conventional slots that these things fall into. In that, it's very different and I think it's very exciting. It's got a very, very sophisticated look to it. It's very much like the features. We're still trying to figure out how to put it on the air.
TV Guide: And you're going to do a hundred episodes?
Lucas: We're going to do a hundred episodes. I think we're on [No.] 40 right now. We'll probably end up with 50 to 60 episodes before we start to put it on the air. We'd like to put it on next fall, in about a year from now, but we'll see what happens.
TV Guide: Where do you see it living? How do you see this playing? Obviously, it doesn't sound like a Saturday morning cartoon.
Lucas: Right now, we don't know. It's out there to people and people are talking about it, but so far, everybody's got the same conundrums: "How do we program it? Where does it live? Where can we put something like this?" You know, it has to go after 9 o'clock and it can't be on a kiddie channel.
TV Guide: So you see it on a more mainstream channel or the Sci-Fi Channel or something like that?
Lucas: Well, it's one of those things. Television is sort of bifurcated up into small niches and unless you fit in one of those niches, no one knows what to do with you. And, of course, I'm always outside the box, so it's like: "Uh-oh, we don't have a box for you." [Laughs] But it's Star Wars and it's really good so I'm sure somehow or another, people will also start thinking outside the box and it will find its home.
TV Guide: What about your Star Wars live-action series for TV?
Lucas: Yes, I'm working on that. We're just going to start writing it in about a month from now, start doing scripts for it.
TV Guide: And where will that live in the Star Wars continuum relative to Clone Wars and relative to the films?
Lucas: Well, Clone Wars has got all the characters in it, Yoda and Anakin and Obi-Wan and the Emperor and all that, so it's basically the movie. The live-action [series] is not the movie. It's the Star Wars universe, but it's characters from the saga who were [previously] minor and it follows their stories. It's set between [movie episodes] 3 and 4, when the Empire has taken over. It's like Episode 4 in that the Emperor and Darth Vader are heard about, people talk about them, but you never see them because it doesn't take place where they actually are.
There are storm troopers and all that, but there are no Jedi. It's different, but I think it's very exciting because I get to explore a part of that universe that I haven't been able to explore. Once you have a saga, it's got a lot of requirements because it's about a particular [thing], in this case, Darth Vader and so it's his story from the time he's 10 to the time he died. You really can't go off that track because that's the story. Whereas now, I can make a left turn on 10th Street and go down there and see what's going on.
TV Guide: And how are you going to produce this one? Are you going to film a certain number? Are you going to have a deal with a network before you go ahead with filming?
Lucas: No, we'll do it just the same way that we're doing the animated series, which is we usually write a whole year first and then we'll start shooting and then we'll shoot the whole year and then once we've got [something to show], we'll see where we can put it. We're going to do a hundred of them, too. [It should be] easier [to place] than the animated one because it's live-action.
TV Guide: So you'll film before you get a commitment? Or how will that work?
Lucas: Well, we're doing these before we get a commitment so we're just doing them on the faith that we're going to [sell them]. I mean, we're doing them ourselves, so we can finance them, we don't need to have a commitment of any kind. We're simply going to sell them.
TV Guide: Will you be looking for a network like an HBO to say: "We'll take all hundred"?
Lucas: Yeah, but they probably won't do that. [Laughs] Somebody might, but usually what they'll do is they'll take 13 or 26 and then see what happens and they'll take the next group. If that group doesn't work, then we'll move to another place. Lucasfilm is basically acting as the production company.
TV Guide: Yeah, but usually a network will commission a single pilot off a script or pick. Well, you know the process.
Lucas: Right, but I have enough confidence that this is good and I'll make it really good so I'm not too worried about that part of it. And if worse comes to worse, I'll end up with a lot of library product. [Laughs]
TV Guide: A whole lot of DVD stuff.
Lucas: Yeah. It's the San Francisco way of doing things: This is something I want to do and I'm going to go ahead and do it. And how the system copes with it or how I mesh it into the system or how I manage to end up earning my money back and all that kind of stuff is a whole different problem that I don't think about at this stage. I just go and do what I want to do. I mean, even when I did the very first Star Wars, I was doing it and I had three of them.
And I assumed that the [first] film wouldn't be successful and I assumed that I would have to somehow struggle very hard to get the other two made. But my job was to get all three of them made, you know, and that's why I took the sequel rights and everything because I didn't want anybody else to control that because I wanted to control that. And the assumption was if [the first one] didn't make any money, the studio would just sit on it and it'd just make it that much harder for me [to make the rest].
The following information about the computer-animated Star Wars Clone Wars TV show originates from Celebration 4:
The show will hit TV screens by Fall 2008 in high definition. Instead of being created like an ordinary animated TV series, George Lucas is making this show more similar to the live-action Star Wars movies regarding story and cinematography.
Lucas has a huge hand in development of this show regarding the plot line. In fact, Lucas and producer Catherine Winder are developing the final scripts with the various episode writers.
Each episode will run about 22 minutes long. This will provide a lot of opportunities for character development. Lucas is basing the show primarily after Episode 4: A New Hope regarding the action sequences with lighter moments and comic relief.
Lucas is being consulted for all character portrayals so this show will represent Lucas’ true vision of Star Wars.
George Lucas announced at Celebration 3 that Lucasfilm is planning two future Star Wars television shows. The first show will be computer animated and will be based on the popular Clone Wars cartoon shorts broadcast on the Cartoon Network. Lucas has stated he wants to produce at least 100 episodes of the computer-animated TV show.
The second series will be a live-action Star Wars TV series (with real flesh-and-blood actors just like the Star Wars movie saga) that will be set in the days after Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith and before the events of Star Wars Episode 4 A New Hope. This television show will feature minor characters from the prequel trilogy.
No TV network affliliation has been announced and the computer-animated TV series should hit the airwaves by Fall 2008. Meanwhile, it may be Fall 2009 or even later before the live-action TV show is ready for prime-time broadcast on a major TV network.
Star Wars producer Rick McCallum gave the following info about the computer-animated Star Wars TV series:
"The animation is being done right now as we speak, it's starting to prep. That's being done here at the Ranch. A lot of the effects will be done in Singapore. But that won't really start moving forward, I mean it's just now conceptual work and script work now. I think George is trying to get 13 scripts done first before we really get into the pipeline of it. But that'll start happening probably at the end of March."
About the Star Wars live-action TV series, Rick McCallum related the following:
"The live-action television series is something we're planning for just at the beginning of 2007 and we're just starting to interview writers and trying to really figure out, you know, which direction... It is going to be much darker, much grittier, it's much more character-based. George envisions somewhere like 100 hours between 'Episode III' and 'Episode IV' with a lot of characters that we haven't met but have been developed in other novels and other things...
So, we're really excited about that because I think finally we can have the opportunity to answer everybody's questions once and for all by the time we finish the series. Principal photography will take place all around the world, probably with a base in Sydney. And, yes, we will be shooting in hi-def"