A while ago, I talked about an update on Lucas moving forward with the Star Wars TV show which people over reacted and assumed Lucas himself would be doing all the writing for the show.
Now thanks to Cinematical we get confirmation on the writing duties:
Lucas is heading to Los Angeles next week to meet with writers. They say (via one agent) that “Lucas’ plan is to recruit several freelancers — aka ‘writers of real significance’ — to spend a week at the Skywalker Ranch in November to come up with story ideas for the series.The agent also said that Lucas has indicated a desire to hire writers from other countries. The scribes would then disperse and write the 13 episodes that would be produced and financed by Lucas.”
Now I am excited about anything Star Wars, but frankly, as much of a flannel legend Papa Smurf is, we all know he has grand potential to write a show that wont last as long as Firefly.
So this is actually GREAT news that he is hiring notable writers to cram ideas together for a TV series. He plans to finance 13 episodes himself and some people think this is a risk since no one has officially signed a deal for the series yet, but this is a win-win for Lucas.
See, for a TV series to be born someone pitches the idea to the network who then takes a chance that it will fly and the NETWORK pays for a handful of episodes, and sees how the market will react. This project Lucas is taking on is going to be financed up front out of his own very deep pockets. Networks will be fighting for the rights to show this series because it means minimal risk on the network’s part. They can always cancel it if it blows. Lucas makes some of his money back from the time it will spend on tv.
If no one picks up this series at all, you KNOW it will find its way out to the dvd retail market (followed by a special edition 6 months later) and at very least it will make its money back.
But since it looks like Lucas is making some good decisions here (not writing it himself, marketing it to adults, etc) I am very hopeful for the future of Star Wars on TV.
