April 27 2007

source: toschestation.nl
podcast: toschestation-RickMcCallum.mp3

SUMMARY

• Lucas worked he last 7 to 8 months on Story Arc of the Live-Action Series.
• Character Driven & Different group of characters.
• First episode by end of 2008 so series can start in 2009.

TRANSCRIPT

ToscheStation: Will ”Young Indiana Jones” be used as a blueprint for the upcoming live action Star Wars television series?

Rick McCallum: No, the Star Wars television series will be used as a blueprint for how we’re going to do our own films, the more personal movies George wants to make, how we’re going to use technology to make a movie for 10 or 15 million dollars with a lot of effects in it. Nowadays movies cost a lot of money and it doesn’t work.

Movies are too expensive. It’s about how to change the perimeters of how do you set up the movie, how do you shoot it around the world, how do you make it look big in a more reasonable way. Most people forget that it takes three and a half, four years to make a Star Wars film. It’s long and that is why we are so excited to make the TV series because it’s much more character driven, you make a mistake one week and fix it the next week.

You got this extraordinary story of twenty years between Episode III and IV while Luke is growing up that needs to be explored. So, we are looking forward to it. One of the things we are also looking forward to is finding a new group of talent to work with on feature films very much the same way as we did with Young Indy. Almost everyone that worked on Young Indy stayed with us for seventeen years or longer and some are still with us. Now we’re gonna start off with a new group, the next generation of filmmakers.

ToscheStation: Could you tell us something about the status of the Star Wars television series? Something about the actors maybe?

Rick McCallum: I can’t tell you anything about actors because we’re not there yet. This is a long process to get it right. First of all: where are we going to shoot? Then: who’s going to write? And finally: who’s going to direct? George has been working for the last seven, eight months on the story arc line of where the series goes.

The dream is to do way over one hundred hours of it. If we can get it right, we have some fantastic characters that nobody has ever met before and start a whole other world of Star Wars that comes out every week instead of every three years.

ToscheStation: Will any of the older characters appear in the series?

Rick McCallum: It’s a whole different group of characters.

ToscheStation: When do you expect the first episode will be televised?

Rick McCallum: That’s tough. The TV world is changing a lot. Hopefully we will have finished the first episode by the end of 2008, so that in 2009 it can come out.

ToscheStation: An important question a lot of non-American fans are probably wondering about is if they will have to wait longer to see series in comparison to the American fans? In other words: will it be released worldwide at the same time?

Rick McCallum: Too early too tell, but most likely worldwide. We know we have a large group of fans that don’t want to wait. It’s one of the reasons we push the release dates of our movies so that everyone can see it at the same time.