Star Wars plans revealed
2005-04-28 07:50
Los Angeles - Stars Wars creator George Lucas has revealed that Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia may turn their talents to television following the release of the last Star Wars film next month.
The movie effects pioneer thrilled fans by announcing his plans last weekend at the first Star Wars convention that Lucas has attended in 18 years, Daily Variety said.
The sixth and final episode in the series of movies that Lucas launched in 1977, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, is due to hit US screens on May 19, leaving many fans anxious about the fate of their heroes.
But Lucas revealed at the gathering of hard-core fans in the midwestern US city of Indianapolis that his company Lucasfilm is working on two television shows that would keep his famed series alive.
Both series will be set in the years between the end of Revenge of the Sith and the beginning of the original Star Wars, he said.
One of the shows will be a half-hour 3-D animated programme that expands on the Lucas's existing cartoon Clone Wars miniseries.
That show would probably be made in a new computer generated animation facility that LucasFilm is building in Singapore, he said.
The other is a live-action series that would focus on some supporting characters who have been introduced in the movie series.
"We're probably not going to start that for about a year," Lucas, who also created the Indiana Jones movie and television series, told fans.
"Like on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, we want to write all the stories for the entire first season all at once," he said adding that he would likely launch the small-screen series and then "step away".
But Lucas stressed that the plans are not official yet and that neither project is close to production. In addition, he has yet to find a US television network to run the series.
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