Rumors about the pre-production of Star Wars, the live action series, to be shot in Australia, have been confirmed by several inside sources.
The quality and style of writing that will be used will be of the highest quality, and local, and writers will be sourced from outside traditional Science Fiction shows. Several big names within the Australian industry (including writers from the Award-winning Love My Way and the Award-winning Secret Life of Us) have been approached by Star Wars uber-producer, Rick McCallum.
Love My Way and Secret Life of Us can be characterized by the focus on relationships and emotional landscapes (traditional ‘chick shows’, if you will). Bringing this element into the world of Star Wars sees a marked departure of the final three films and animated Clone Wars, where the primary audience was children.
This throws the new series into a whole new spotlight, and should excite fans of the Star Wars universe looking towards more adult fare.
Back in March last year, George Lucas talked to Entertainment Weekly about the announced live-action Star Wars television show:
“The live-action has [none of the characters from the Star Wars movies], because it’s after Episode III, so everybody’s dead, basically, or hiding somewhere. You hear about the Emperor, just like you do in Episode IV, but it’s mostly about a whole different world. I mean, there are a million stories in the big city – you’ve only seen one of them,” laughs Lucas. “Some of the characters from the features find their way in there, so it’s not completely divorced. It’s as if we just went down the street and told a different story. You know, we were doing, I don’t know, 24, and now we’re going to move down the street here and do The Wire. Same thing, it’s just different people doing the same thing in the same city.”
“I’m just starting to work on the scripts now for the live-action TV series. We finished the first year of Clone Wars, [and] we’re in the middle of working on the second year. I’m finishing the scripts for the third year. And now I’m working on the scripts for the first year of the live-action show. [Smiles] So it’s a lot of scripts,” Lucas told EW. “…What we do in our TV series is we write the entire first year and finish it as a script. Then we start getting ready to shoot it, then we start casting, and then we do it. We know where the whole first year is before we even start to work on it. I mean, I can do that because I’m financing the whole thing. So I’ve got it pegged out for 100 episodes, and I know exactly what I’m going to do and how I’m going to do it and what the risks are.” “The live-action TV series probably won’t go on until around 2010. It’ll take this year just to get through all the scripts and then another year to get them all shot.”
Lucas confirmed that the series will at least have 100 one-hour episodes
“I’m going to 100 episodes no matter what”
He also confirmed (as with Clone Wars), he would be fairly ‘Hands Off’
“You know, I’m an executive producer now – I don’t do the day-to-day work. I check in once a week, maybe, and it’ll be the same thing on the live-action show.”
[Source] Scifitv.com.au & EW
