At some point soon, JJ Abrams may need to reach out to the world of “Star Wars” fandom just to calm them down, because the official silence is starting to get very, very noisy indeed.
Today’s article in “The Hollywood Reporter” will no doubt whip “Star Wars” fans into a frenzy as they worry about what they will or won’t see in theaters in 2015, and we decided to chat about it a bit as well.
Disney didn’t buy the “Star Wars” franchise so they could tenderly soothe the nerves of worried fans. They bought it because they are a merchandise driven company, and “Star Wars” remains giant business even in the down periods between movies. Adding a new film to the mix sends the toy business into overdrive, and I suspect Disney is already building the vault where they plan to keep all the money that Bob Iger will swim in, Scrooge McDuck-style, after hours.
While I think fans have every right to worry, I also think we’ve reached a point where there is very little that any “Star Wars” fan has to say that hasn’t already been said a thousand times, and all the hand-wringing ultimately doesn’t help anything. People who are determined to hate JJ Abrams already have their minds made up, and I doubt anything’s going to make them feel better. I get tired of all the conspiracy speak about Damon Lindelof and Kurtzman and Orci, though, and I wish fans had a way of stepping outside themselves to hear their own shrill arguments sometimes.
Greg Ellwood and I discussed what this could mean and what to take away from today’s news in the video you’ll see embedded here. I think Kennedy is a very strong producer overall, and I suspect she will continue to push for the best possible film, and perhaps the mix of her strengths and the things that Abrams does well will end up resulting in a movie that will restore faith rather than reconfirming the lack of it.
We’ll see, and it sounds like we’ll see in 2015, come hell or high water.