Welcome to a new feature here on StarWarsUnderworld.com: Hoth Off The Press. This is where you can find all the biggest stories in the Star Wars galaxy from the past seven days. This week, we have updates about the future of The Mandalorian, some cool new behind the scenes looks at The Rise of Skywalker, Ewan McGregor talking about the Kenobi series, Kathleen Kennedy on having a woman direct a Star Wars film, publishing updates, and so much more!
IgerCon 2020: The Mandalorian season two (and lots of Baby Yoda merch) is on the way!
The Walt Disney Company held their first quarter investors relations conference call, or "IgerCon" as some have take to calling it, on Tuesday this week, and Disney CEO Bob Iger had high praise for the role The Mandalorian played in the successful launch of Disney+ late last year. While he didn't have much to offer in terms of teases about the future (he rarely does in these February calls), he did promise fans that the hotly anticipated second season would be arriving in October of 2020. Iger also shared in the excitement generated by the series' breakout star, "The Child" (aka Baby Yoda) and assured everyone listening that lots of Baby Yoda merch is on the way (like, for instance, Sideshow's life size Baby Yoda that was recently made available for pre-order).
Behind the scenes of The Rise of Skywalker
The Academy Awards ceremony is coming up on Sunday and the promotional team for The Rise of Skywalker are making one final push for the film to be the first in the franchise to pick up an Oscar since 1980. The film is nominated for Best Visual Effects, Sound Editing, and Best Original, and features highlighting the team's behind each cateory have been released. Composer John Williams spoke with KUSC about the music of The Rise of Skywalker. Meanwhile, Vanity Fair posted a fantastic break down of some of the work ILM did creating the visual effects for the film (you can see an example featuring Leia below). And, ABC News has an excellent feature on the sound design team that worked on the film. Among the reveals: George Lucas' kinda-sorta cameo!
Kathleen Kennedy Says We Will Absolutely A Female Director For A Star Wars Film
Lucasfilm president, and producer of the last five Star Wars films, Kathleen Kennedy was honoured at the BAFTAs with the Fellowship Award (which was presented to her by Daisy Ridley and John Boyega) last weekend, where she spoke with the BBC about if and when we'll see a Star Wars film directed by a woman. Kennedy said that we would "absolutely, without question" see one, and highlighted the fact that The Mandalorian has already had two female directors with Deborah Chow and Bryce Dallas Howard, with Chow going on to direct the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ series. With eleven films over 42 years, all of which were directed by men, it's long overdue for a woman to take the reigns of a Star Wars film. You can see Kennedy's response to the question below,
Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy speaks to @BBCNews about her #BAFTAs Fellowship award and assures that a woman will “absolutely” direct a #StarWars film. -B- pic.twitter.com/A7rbeSd3NQ— The Star Wars Underworld (@TheSWU) February 2, 2020
Ewan McGregor Talks Kenobi Disney+ Series
Arguably the most anticipated upcoming Star Wars project is the Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ series, which will see Ewan McGregor reprise his role as Kenobi from the prequel trilogy for another adventure. Which made the reports that the series was experiencing script issues and had been delayed indefinitely so disheartening. Fortunately, McGregor himself has been making the talk show rounds promoting his role in Birds of Prey and could address the rumors directly. He appeared on The Tonight Show where he said that filming was slated to begin next year (and that he was watching The Mandalorian to prep for it). He also spoke about his excitement at returning to the role during an appearance on Good Morning America.
Alphabet Squadron: Shadowfall, "Project Luminous", and other publishing updates
It's been a (relatively) quiet period for Star Wars publishing, but all that is about to change in less than a month when Lucasfilm unveils the details about "Project Luminous". The multi-authour, multi-publisher initiative was teased at conventions throughout 2019, and is now slated to be revealed at an event on February 24th. One caveat though, ABC's Clayton Sandell reports that the reveal will be focused on publishing only, and won't address the rumored video game and film tie-ins. In other publishing news, Del Rey unveiled the cover for the sequel to last year's Alphabet Squadron, titled Shadow Fall, along with the first excerpt from the novel by Alexander Freed. In other novel news, the first in the Thrawn: Ascendancy trilogy (titled Chaos Rising) has been delayed from May 5th to October 6th. While the delay is unfortunate, Del Rey revealed that the book will now feature blue page edges to match the famous Chiss' skin tone.
R.I.P. Bossk Actor Alan Harris
Alan Harris, the man who portrayed the Trandoshan bounty hunter Bossk in The Empire Strikes Back, passed away this week at the age of 81. While Bossk might be his most notable role in the saga, it wasn't his only. Harris actually played multiple roles across four films. Empire was undoubtedly his busiest film, where he played Bossk and served as Anthony Daniels' double in the C-3PO suit. He also played stormtroopers in both A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, while also playing two different Rebel characters in ANH and serving as Boba Fett's double on Jedi. His final work in the saga was as Terrance Stamp's double for certain scenes in The Phantom Menace. Anthony Daniels honoured Harris' memory on Twitter, which you can see below,
I am sorry to learn that Alan Harris has died. I have such warm memories of him as my stand-in on the first trilogy. He was always a complete professional and a great support. He was also a gentleman— Anthony Daniels (@ADaniels3PO) February 1, 2020
Other Star Wars Tidbits From This Week:
- The "BB Update" to Star Wars Battlefront II went live this week, adding BB-8 and BB-9E (aka BB-H8) as playable characters to the game. Check out some gameplay here.
- StarWars.com has released a new preview of Marvel's The Rise of Kylo Ren #3 by Charles Soule. The comic hits shelves on February 12th.
- Sonic the Hedgehog star Ben Schwartz revealed that he contributed some jokes for C-3PO to the script of The Rise of Skywalker during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Schwartz also worked with JJ Abrams on The Force Awakens, where he's credited as Voice Consultant for BB-8.
- You can now buy Star Wars "sporks" at the Galaxy's Edge theme parks and online. The sporks were originally going to be available at the restaurants in the park but early attendees kept stealing them so you now have to use Earth cutlery at the parks (I stole a menu from Oga's Cantina last time I was there, so I guess I'm part of the problem).
- Some test footage for "Star Wars: Underworld", the live action series George Lucas was developing before he sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, has been making the rounds this week. The footage was created by Stargate Studios over ten years ago as a VFX test and is not actually from the series (which never made it past the script phase). Check it out below,
The SWU Podcast Network:
- The SWU Podcast LIVE | 31/01/20: Dominic, Ben, and Chris read and reacted to some listener feedback about The Rise of Skywalker and more!
- The Kazuda Kast | "The Escape": Dominic, Ben, and Ciaran discuss the series finale of Star Wars Resistance!
- The IPC Podcast LIVE #271 | Superman II: Ben and Zac review the 1980 classic Superman II!
That's it for this week, see you in seven days!
Follow The Star Wars Underworld on Twitter @TheSWU for more updates about this story and other breaking Star Wars news.
0 comments:
Post a Comment