It’s hardly a secret that one of George Lucas’ masterplans is a live action Star Wars television series. He’s unlikely to make new Star Wars films again, and so this seems like the live action future for the franchise.
It’s believed that Lucas’ plan would be to fund the production of the show himself, and when he has a season in the can, to shop it around to interested parties. And producer Rick McCallum has revealed one or two details about the current state of play with the show.
He’s confirmed that it’s very much still on the agenda, although there’s still a problem with containing the budget to a reasonable degree. Furthermore, the plan, he reaffirms, is to set the show between Revenge Of The Sith and A New Hope.
50 one-hour long episodes have already been written for the show (we understand that Matthew Graham is one of the writers on the series), “Each one hour episode is bigger than any of the prequels were”, he said, but the working budget of $5m an episode isn't enough to bring it to the screen yet. George Lucas continues to wait for the price of the necessary effects work to become affordable.
McCallum's interview, which he gave to IGN, shows little sign of urgency towards the project, and it's not a series you can say with any certainty is definitely going to happen. It just appears to be very much on the to-do list.
Oh, and we have a working title. It’s Star Wars: Underworld. Make of that what you will…
