Live-action TV series news

[Buzz Bumble]

It's been awhile, but here's a bit of news from InsideTV that the American ABC network might be interested in taking the live-action Star Wars show on ...

ABC to look at 'Star Wars' live-action TV series
ABC entertainment president Paul Lee says he's going to take a look at the long-gestating Star Wars live-action TV series now that the Disney deal to acquire Lucasfilm is complete.

"We'd love to do something with Lucasfilm, we're not sure what yet," Lee exclusively told EW. "We haven't even sat down with them. We're going to look at [the live-action series], we're going to look at all of them, and see what's right. We weren't able to discuss this with them until [the acquisition] closed and it just closed. It's definitely going to be part of the conversation."

Even many working in Hollywood don't realize a live-action Star Wars TV series has been sitting on the shelf the past few years. The project was commissioned by longtime Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum, who enlisted writers such as Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore and swore them to NDA secrecy on the plot details (more on the show's storyline below). Fifty scripts were written. McCallum once called the scripts the most "provocative, bold and daring material that we've ever done."

And then .. nothing.

The scripts gathered dust, the scope of the production and the extent of the show's necessary visual effects deemed too expensive for a broadcast or cable network. The president of one premium cable outlet told me last summer the project just didn't make any financial sense. The closest comparison was HBO's lavish Game of Thrones. But that deal gave HBO control of a major chunk of the Thrones empire, including DVD and international distribution which significantly offset the show's high production cost. The Star Wars show was budgeted at more than $5 million per episode and Lucasfilm wanted to retain ownership.

But now Disney has purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion and Disney owns more than a couple TV networks. The financials for a big-budget TV show are more compelling if the license fee and other income sources stay in the family. Already one Star Wars-related project is in the works for kids network Disney XD. Cartoon Network's popular and innovative animated title The Clone Wars will likely shift to XD after its current deal expires. Could the live-action show finally see the light of day too? It's a tricky question because a new Star Wars film is planned for 2015. Cautious brand managers are sometimes reluctant to have a live-action TV show on the air when producing live-action films ˜ such as Warner Bros. putting the kibosh on any Batman TV projects while making Christopher Nolan's trilogy.

Lee said he wasn't sure if the project was still viable. "It's going to be very much up to the Lucasfilm brands how they want to play it," he said. "We got to a point here with Marvel, a very special point, where we're in the Marvel universe, and very relevantly so, but we're not doing The Avengers. But S.H.I.E.L.D. is part of The Avengers. So maybe something oblique is the way to [approach the Star Wars universe] rather than going straight head-on at it."

Sources say the live-action series centers on the story of rival families struggling over the control of the seedy underside of the Star Wars universe and the people who live within the subterranean level and air shafts of the metropolis planet Coruscant (the Empire's urban-sprawl-covered home planet). A bounty hunter may be the main character. Set between the original Star Wars film trilogy and the prequels, the time period allows for all sorts of potential appearances from classic figures from the Star Wars universe.

Extensive art work including character designs, costume designs, and set designs were all developed by a top team of concept artists and designers who worked for more than a year on the third floor design studio at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch's main house on the project. The team was closely supervised by McCallum and Lucas.

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it might be because this roughly matches the description of the upcoming Star Wars videogame 1313. In fact, sources say story materials and the designs for the TV project were used to help make the game. So if you want to see what the TV show was supposed to look like, check out art from 1313 (one example above). This creative strip-mining could arguably help the TV show's chances - it's not like Hollywood has been shy about doing crossovers between videogames and films before.

Can you imagine that ultra-hypothetical ABC Sunday-night lineup? Once Upon a Time, Star Wars: 1313 and S.H.I.E.L.D?

 

[darthskellington]

A TV show like 1313 is exactly the sort of thing I would like to see. No need for major heroes...but plenty of opportunities for troopers and bounty hunters, and other scum.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

Reportedly ABC are still interested in making a Star Wars live-action TV series. This is from ComingSoon.net ...

ABC is teasing that a Star Wars TV show could bring the franchise (back) to the small screen
"For an entire generation, people have experienced 'Star Wars' the only way it has been possible: on a TV screen," begins the narration on the trailer for the 1997 Star Wars Special Edition theatrical re-releases. "But if you've only seen it this way, you haven't seen it at all!"

Nearly two decades later, things have certainly changed. We now have a theatrical Star Wars film planned for release every year for the foreseeable future and are being teased by the prospect that a new Star Wars TV show may now be in the works.

"[W]e have had conversations with [Lucasfilm] and will continue to have conversations with them," ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey today tells EW. "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."

Of course, fans are well aware that we already have two different Star Wars TV series currently on the air. Disney XD's Star Wars Rebels is gearing up for its third season and the channel is also airing the first season of its non-canon LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures. Those join the concluded (but still-canon) animated Star Wars TV series The Clone Wars as well as the non-canon (now dubbed "Legends") series Droids, Ewoks and an earlier Clone Wars microseries, created by Genndy Tartakovsky.

Although far from confirmed, the hope among fans is that this potential new Star Wars TV series might bring to the small screen some live-action adventures from a galaxy far, far away. After all, it has been revealed that plans for a massive live-action Star Wars TV series began after the prequel trilogy concluded in 2005 with former Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum laying out the groundwork for a series he described as "'Deadwood' in space."

"It's so unlike anything you've ever associated with George before in relation to Star Wars," McCallum told Den of Geek in 2012. "These aren't for kids. I mean, we hope they'll watch, but it's not being targeted at 8-to-9 year old boys. The situation we have is that each episode – or if you put two hour long episodes together – is bigger than any film we've ever done. It's on the 'Avatar' level and we'll only have about $5-6 million we can spend on each episode."

There are reportedly 50 scripted episodes for what was tentatively titled Star Wars: Underworld. As to whether or not those stories will ever see the light of day remains to be seen, although today's comments from Dungey suggest that, at the very least, the pricetag of such an undertaking may be something that the network is willing to reexamine.

As it stands at the moment, however, the sole live-action Star Wars TV show remains 1978's much derided Star Wars: Holiday Special. Although never officially released beyond its initial airing on CBS nearly four decades ago, the Holiday Special does feature most of the Star Wars cast reprising their big screen roles. The Force Awakens' J.J. Abrams even told MTV that he considers the story to be part of the franchise canon.