George Lucas has been a man forever driven by the conflicting desires of making massive, technically groundbreaking blockbuster entertainment, while also pursuing more experimental avenues (or at least talking a lot about it). And this week perhaps marks the most obvious clash of those ideologies. On the one hand, the animated musical "Strange Magic," produced by Lucas, is opening cinemas nationwide, while on the other, he has revealed during the press run for the film that he’s working on two new movies….that you’ll never see, as they will find him indulging in his more adventurous filmmaking tendencies.
"The way [the films] are, they’re not really movies that can be released," Lucas told Hero Complex. "They’re movies more for myself and maybe I’ll show them to some of my friends." The filmmaker cites the cost of distribution these days, but of course there are plenty of other viable avenues (particularly in the streaming world) that would make getting his brewing projects out there much more affordable, but for now it looks like he’s not entertaining those options. But what will these movies be like? Well, they definitely sound interesting.
"They’re like things I did in school or movies I produced, like ‘Koyaanisqatsi,’ ‘Powaqqatsi,’ things like that,” Lucas said, noting he hasn’t yet started shooting. “But it’s different because they’re dramatic films. It’s very hard to explain because it’s never been done yet.”
Meanwhile, Lucas made headlines last month when it was revealed he hadn’t yet seen the trailer for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," but it seems he’s since corrected that mistake. He tells Page Six he has now seen the tease for J.J. Abrams‘ film. His thoughts? He liked it, "it was intriguing."
And since we’re talking about ‘Force Awakens,’ some word has emerged over the last couple of days that the film might have a female Stormtrooper. Consequence Of Sound has the details, but basically, an actress named Amybeth Hargreaves (who might just be a stand-in for Gwendoline Christie) has been credited as a Stormtrooper in the film, in a CV listed by her agency. We’ll leave the speculation to you about what that really means. And one more thing: Yahoo has revealed that Leanne Best ("Home Fries," "The Woman In Black 2: Angel Of Death") is also part of ‘Star Wars 7.’