On Thursday August 05th, the Television Critics Association conducted their semi-annual press tour in Beverly Hills, California. The President of ABC Entertainment, Channing Dungey, was in attendance and spoke the the crowd;
“[W]e have had conversations with [Lucasfilm] and will continue to have conversations with them,” She spoke further on this after the panel had concluded and reconfirmed ABC’s planning; “I think it would be wonderful if we could find a way to extend that brand into our programming… It’s all a little bit hush-hush. That company exists under a big shroud of secrecy. If you feel Marvel’s secretive, [Lucasfilm] takes it to a whole other level … [Talks] are ongoing. We don’t have an official timeline yet.”
EW asked Dungey if the the project would be a live action show but she said she could not confirm. But we have been hearing rumors and whispers of a live action Star Wars show now for over a decade. It was initially in the press from the mouth former Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum. At that time there were approximately 50 scripted episodes for a show that was, in early stages of the project, titled “Star Wars: Underworld”. It was pitched to HBO but they turned it down.
Now, eleven years after that news first broke, we are again considering the possibility of a Star Wars show.
The time seems right for this to develop and become a realized show. Disney and LucasFilm have been making major strides to expand the Star Wars universe and mythos from theatrical releases to the animated world to comic books and novels and beyond. We are at a time when there are planned Star Wars projects set for every year for the foreseeable future.
As long as ABC stays true to what is Star Wars, stays true to it’s roots and history and gives high a the high production quality that Star Wars fans want to enjoy,
I say bring it on. Just don’t give us a reminder of the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special musical that aired on the Fox Network.
