Disney's Star Wars

'Stand-alone' Star Wars films planned
Yoda statue outside Lucasfilm's San Francisco offices It is rumoured the first stand-alone film will focus on Jedi master Yoda
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Films built around existing characters from the Star Wars universe are being developed alongside the new trilogy of films, the Disney studio has revealed.

"We are working on a few stand-alone films... derived from great Star Wars characters," Disney CEO Bob Iger told the CNBC channel on Tuesday.

The films, written by Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg, will be released between 2015 and 2021, he continued.

The seventh Star Wars film, directed by JJ Abrams, is due out in 2015.

Disney bought George Lucas's Lucasfilm company for $4.05 billion (£2.58 billion) last year, saying it was committed to at least three new films.

The first of these, Star Wars: Episode VII, will be scripted by Michael Arndt, the Oscar-winning writer of Toy Story 3 and Little Miss Sunshine.

Mr Iger outlined the studio's plans with CNBC ahead of a call with analysts to discuss the Disney company's latest financial results.

Despite seeing a slight dip in its quarterly earnings, the CEO said the studio was "confident about the year ahead, as well as our ability to create continued long-term growth".

While speaking to CNBC, Mr Iger admitted there had been "speculation" about "some stand-alone films" that would not form "part of the overall saga".

"We still plan to make Star Wars 7, 8 and 9 roughly over a six-year period of time starting in 2015," he went on.

"But there are going to be a few other films released in that period of time too."

Kasdan has a long association with Lucasfilm, having worked on the scripts of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi - the second and third instalments of the first Star Wars trilogy.

Kinberg's own screenwriting credits include comic book sequel X-Men: The Last Stand, Mr & Mrs Smith and Guy Ritchie's 2009 Sherlock Holmes film.

Tuesday's announcement was preceded by a report on the Ain't It Cool News site that the first stand-alone film would focus on the diminutive Jedi master Yoda.

"Word is Yoda is first," wrote website founder Harry Knowles in a posting that also mentioned such other Star Wars staples as bounty hunter Boba Fett and slug-like gangster Jabba the Hutt.

I worry about them doing too much at once and making people sick of Star Wars. They should take note of the success of Pixar who are only now releasing sequels for films ten years later. I'd much rather there were less Star Wars being released as they're so much more likely to be of a higher quality.

Of course this goes against business sense as Disney now they can make a huge amount of money releasing a lot of Star Wars movies at once because even if they ruin the franchise, they'll still make billions.

I wouldn't want to see a film focusing on Yoda either, it's better to have a little mystery and it'll be difficult to really connect with a purely CGI character as the main protagonist.

They should stick to Episodes VII, VIII, IV for now with new characters and stories before trying anything with the characters from the older movies. One of the main criticisms of the prequels was the way they messed with the older characters such as Yoda, Bobba Fett etc. Learn from past mistakes.

Yes i agree , it sounds like to much to soon , but that wont stop them will it .

A little back story wouldn't be bad imo , not sure that that would warrant stand alone films though

Understand the concerns of those who might feel a(nother) disturbance in the Force.

I just hope all of the next series of films are good. They previously had plans to do a live action TV show, focusing on minor characters from the saga - with budget being the main reason why this never got off the ground so I understand. My first thought was whether Lucasfilm are resurrecting / revamping those treatments or scripts in big screen version, but the characters namechecked in the report are more than "minor" characters.

The trouble is, the pull of this franchise is such that I'd probably pay to see an official Boba Fett film (say) irrespective of how good or bad it is. Damn them and their Jedi mind tricks.

Well, if they're going to be stand-alone films, with no connection to the previous trilogies, I'd say the concentrated release timespan isn't so much of an issue.

My biggest worry is that with the franchise moving from Lucasfilm to Disney and the bringing in of all these "big name" flavour-of-the-month writers, directors etc. (Kasdan aside) they're going to absolutely ruin the Star Wars brand.

First of all I agree completely with Crimey's comments regarding a film focusing on Yoda. While I love him as a character, unless he was involved in some fairly major events prior to his introduction in the first trilogy, I can't see it being that riveting.

Secondly, I can see the films being given the "Disney treatment" to make them more appealing to kids (who are their primary audience, after all) and that the characters will have any edge, or interest taken away in the name of making the movies PG friendly and easy to follow (and that any adult themes will be removed entirely, or else reduced to subtle nudge-wink stuff).

I say all this as someone who was annoyed Lucas felt the need to edit his films in the first place, most notably changing the scene where Han originally shoots Greedo first.

So yeah...I'm not happy at this new direction.

In my humble opinion Disney should stick to doing what they do best...making kids' films with just enough subtle adult humour that will skip over the little ones' heads.

Think we are forgetting about the recent Marvel explosion from Disney and they seem to be following the same model going forward with Star Wars. As for the writers well if they go more PG is still possibly but at least it might breathe new life into a franchise Lucas had stagnated over the past 20yrs.

Apparantly the 2 films would be a Han Solo film and a Bobba Fett film.

Just to chuck it out there but odds that they would try and get Bradley Cooper to play Han Solo? Not my personal choice just who I reckon they would.