Tag: Star Wars

  • This May the Fourth, late actress Carrie Fisher gets Walk of Fame star

    By Associated Press

    LOS ANGELES: Carrie Fisher is receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a May the Fourth tribute to one of the “Star Wars” franchise’s most beloved figures.

    On Thursday, Fisher — who died in 2016 — joins “Star Wars” co-stars Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill on the Hollywood tourist attraction that recognizes luminaries from film, television, music and other entertainment industries.

    The trio’s stars are all located on the 6,800 block of Hollywood Boulevard, near where the original film debuted in 1977.

    Fisher played Leia Organa, who over six films morphed from a princess to a general leading the forces of good in its fight against oppressive regimes aiming to control a galaxy far, far away. Billie Lourd will be accepting the star on behalf of her mother.

    Fans have long campaigned for her to receive a Walk of Fame star. The honour comes on May the Fourth, essentially an official holiday for Star Wars fans; it’s a play on a line, “May the Force be with you” that Fisher has said often in the films.

    Devotees worldwide celebrate with a variety of tributes, while retailers hold special sales on Star Wars merchandise.

    The induction ceremony will be held at 11:30 a.m. Pacific and live-streamed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

    Fisher will be given the 2,754th star on the Walk of Fame. Ford received his star in 2003 and Hamill was honored in 2018.

    Walk of Fame stars are given to performers who are nominated and a $75,000 fee is now required to create the star and maintain it.

    LOS ANGELES: Carrie Fisher is receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a May the Fourth tribute to one of the “Star Wars” franchise’s most beloved figures.

    On Thursday, Fisher — who died in 2016 — joins “Star Wars” co-stars Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill on the Hollywood tourist attraction that recognizes luminaries from film, television, music and other entertainment industries.

    The trio’s stars are all located on the 6,800 block of Hollywood Boulevard, near where the original film debuted in 1977.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    Fisher played Leia Organa, who over six films morphed from a princess to a general leading the forces of good in its fight against oppressive regimes aiming to control a galaxy far, far away. Billie Lourd will be accepting the star on behalf of her mother.

    Fans have long campaigned for her to receive a Walk of Fame star. The honour comes on May the Fourth, essentially an official holiday for Star Wars fans; it’s a play on a line, “May the Force be with you” that Fisher has said often in the films.

    Devotees worldwide celebrate with a variety of tributes, while retailers hold special sales on Star Wars merchandise.

    The induction ceremony will be held at 11:30 a.m. Pacific and live-streamed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

    Fisher will be given the 2,754th star on the Walk of Fame. Ford received his star in 2003 and Hamill was honored in 2018.

    Walk of Fame stars are given to performers who are nominated and a $75,000 fee is now required to create the star and maintain it.

  • Daisy Ridley returns to Star Wars   

    By Express News Service

    Lucasfilm has unveiled a new film set 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker which will star Daisy Ridley as she returns to the role of Rey Skywalker.

    The untitled film will focus on the formation of a new Jedi Order led by Rey, and will be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, the director of Ms Marvel. Rey has taken on the title of Jedi Master in the film.

    Ridley was last seen in The Rise of Skywalker where her character claimed the name of Skywalker following her defeat of her grandfather, Sheev Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) at the conclusion of the movie.

    The sequel trilogy was based around her character and her rise from nobody into Jedi as she joined forces with Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) while battling against Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren.

    Lucasfilm has unveiled a new film set 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker which will star Daisy Ridley as she returns to the role of Rey Skywalker.

    The untitled film will focus on the formation of a new Jedi Order led by Rey, and will be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, the director of Ms Marvel. Rey has taken on the title of Jedi Master in the film.

    Ridley was last seen in The Rise of Skywalker where her character claimed the name of Skywalker following her defeat of her grandfather, Sheev Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) at the conclusion of the movie.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    The sequel trilogy was based around her character and her rise from nobody into Jedi as she joined forces with Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) while battling against Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren.

  • Hollywood’s maestro goes for more Oscars history: John Williams

    By AFP

    NEW YORK: From “Star Wars” to “Jaws” to “Schindler’s List,” John Williams has written many of the most instantly recognizable scores in cinema history.

    The 91-year-old is already the oldest person to receive an Oscar nomination for a competitive award, which he earned thanks to his spare yet poignant compositions for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.”

    With 53 total nods, Williams has more Academy Award nominations than any other living person, and is second only to Walt Disney, who had 59.

    And if he gets another statuette on Sunday, which would be his sixth, he will become the oldest person ever to triumph in any competitive category. The record is currently held by screenwriter James Ivory, who was 89 when he won.

    It “seems unreal that anybody could be that old and working that long,” Williams recently told NBC News, adding: “It’s very exciting, even after 53 years.”

    “I’m very pleased, I think it’s a human thing — the gratification of any kind of appreciation of one’s work.”

    Out of the dozens of nominations over the course of his extraordinary career, the composer won Academy Awards for the original “Star Wars,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and three films by Spielberg, with whom he is closely associated — “Jaws,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Schindler’s List.”

    He’s even competed against himself multiple times for Oscars glory.

    William is known for his grand neo-Romantic scores in the fashion of Wagner, a contrast to the more experimental fare prevalent among many modern composers outside Hollywood.

    But his work is also steeped in mid-century influences including jazz and popular American standards.

    Williams holds he’s not as Wagnerian as his music might indicate, but admits the 19th century German giant’s influence on Hollywood’s early composers, and therefore his own, is palpable.

    “Wagner lives with us here — you can’t escape it,” he told The New Yorker in 2020.

    “I have been in the big river swimming with all of them.”

    ‘Single greatest collaboration’

    Williams was born on February 8, 1932 in New York’s Queens borough to a percussionist father, and was the eldest of four children.

    The family moved to Los Angeles in 1948, where Williams later studied composition and took a semester of jazz band at Los Angeles City College.

    While in the Air Force, he played both piano and brass while arranging music for the service’s band.

    Afterwards, he moved to New York, where he enrolled at the prestigious Juilliard school to study piano.

    Though he aspired to be a concert pianist, it became clear to Williams that composition was his true forte.

    He moved back to LA, where he worked on orchestrations at film studios — earning plaudits for his range — and as a session pianist, including for the film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”

    Williams notched his first Oscar nod for the 1967 film “Valley of the Dolls,” and won his first in 1972 for “Fiddler on the Roof.”

    His momentous partnership with Spielberg began in the early 1970s, when the soon to be household-name director approached him to score his debut, “The Sugarland Express.”

    Spielberg approached him once more to work on his second film, “Jaws.”

    The menacing two-note ostinato Williams composed for the film has practically become synonymous with fear itself: “John Williams actually is the teeth of Jaws,” Spielberg said last year at a concert for the composer’s 90th birthday.

    The pair then worked on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and a decades-long creative partnership unfurled.

    At the Williams birthday celebration in Washington, Spielberg dubbed their relationship “the single greatest collaboration of my career and one of the deepest friendships of my life.”

    “Through the medium of movies, John has popularized motion picture scores more than any other composer in history.”

    ‘Soundtrack of our lives’

    Spielberg also introduced Williams to one George Lucas — it would become another iconic collaboration that spawned perhaps the most recognizable film score ever.

    Several of Williams’ “Star Wars” compositions are prime examples of leitmotif, with musical cues tying together the vast, character-rich story.

    “He has written the soundtrack of our lives,” conductor Gustavo Dudamel told The New York Times last year. “When we listen to a melody of John’s, we go back to a time, to a taste, to a smell.”

    “All our senses go back to a moment.”

    Other credits from Williams’ more than 100 film scores include the music for 1978’s “Superman,” the first three “Harry Potter” films and a number of “Indiana Jones” films.

    “Harrison Ford made Indiana Jones into an iconic action hero, but John made us believe in adventure again, through that pulse-pounding march,” said Spielberg.

    Off-screen, he is responsible for the “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” first composed for the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles and used ever since on US broadcasts.

    Williams has recently indicated he might take a step back from film scoring, giving more energy to conducting and composing concert music; he was a longtime leader of the Boston Pops orchestra.

    But speaking at a panel with Spielberg earlier this year, Williams seemed to walk back the notion of slowing down, vowing to work until he’s 100 or so.

    “So I’ve got 10 more years to go. I’ll stick around for a while!” he told the crowd. “You can’t ‘retire’ from music.”

    “It’s like breathing.”

    NEW YORK: From “Star Wars” to “Jaws” to “Schindler’s List,” John Williams has written many of the most instantly recognizable scores in cinema history.

    The 91-year-old is already the oldest person to receive an Oscar nomination for a competitive award, which he earned thanks to his spare yet poignant compositions for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.”

    With 53 total nods, Williams has more Academy Award nominations than any other living person, and is second only to Walt Disney, who had 59.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    And if he gets another statuette on Sunday, which would be his sixth, he will become the oldest person ever to triumph in any competitive category. The record is currently held by screenwriter James Ivory, who was 89 when he won.

    It “seems unreal that anybody could be that old and working that long,” Williams recently told NBC News, adding: “It’s very exciting, even after 53 years.”

    “I’m very pleased, I think it’s a human thing — the gratification of any kind of appreciation of one’s work.”

    Out of the dozens of nominations over the course of his extraordinary career, the composer won Academy Awards for the original “Star Wars,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and three films by Spielberg, with whom he is closely associated — “Jaws,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Schindler’s List.”

    He’s even competed against himself multiple times for Oscars glory.

    William is known for his grand neo-Romantic scores in the fashion of Wagner, a contrast to the more experimental fare prevalent among many modern composers outside Hollywood.

    But his work is also steeped in mid-century influences including jazz and popular American standards.

    Williams holds he’s not as Wagnerian as his music might indicate, but admits the 19th century German giant’s influence on Hollywood’s early composers, and therefore his own, is palpable.

    “Wagner lives with us here — you can’t escape it,” he told The New Yorker in 2020.

    “I have been in the big river swimming with all of them.”

    ‘Single greatest collaboration’

    Williams was born on February 8, 1932 in New York’s Queens borough to a percussionist father, and was the eldest of four children.

    The family moved to Los Angeles in 1948, where Williams later studied composition and took a semester of jazz band at Los Angeles City College.

    While in the Air Force, he played both piano and brass while arranging music for the service’s band.

    Afterwards, he moved to New York, where he enrolled at the prestigious Juilliard school to study piano.

    Though he aspired to be a concert pianist, it became clear to Williams that composition was his true forte.

    He moved back to LA, where he worked on orchestrations at film studios — earning plaudits for his range — and as a session pianist, including for the film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”

    Williams notched his first Oscar nod for the 1967 film “Valley of the Dolls,” and won his first in 1972 for “Fiddler on the Roof.”

    His momentous partnership with Spielberg began in the early 1970s, when the soon to be household-name director approached him to score his debut, “The Sugarland Express.”

    Spielberg approached him once more to work on his second film, “Jaws.”

    The menacing two-note ostinato Williams composed for the film has practically become synonymous with fear itself: “John Williams actually is the teeth of Jaws,” Spielberg said last year at a concert for the composer’s 90th birthday.

    The pair then worked on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and a decades-long creative partnership unfurled.

    At the Williams birthday celebration in Washington, Spielberg dubbed their relationship “the single greatest collaboration of my career and one of the deepest friendships of my life.”

    “Through the medium of movies, John has popularized motion picture scores more than any other composer in history.”

    ‘Soundtrack of our lives’

    Spielberg also introduced Williams to one George Lucas — it would become another iconic collaboration that spawned perhaps the most recognizable film score ever.

    Several of Williams’ “Star Wars” compositions are prime examples of leitmotif, with musical cues tying together the vast, character-rich story.

    “He has written the soundtrack of our lives,” conductor Gustavo Dudamel told The New York Times last year. “When we listen to a melody of John’s, we go back to a time, to a taste, to a smell.”

    “All our senses go back to a moment.”

    Other credits from Williams’ more than 100 film scores include the music for 1978’s “Superman,” the first three “Harry Potter” films and a number of “Indiana Jones” films.

    “Harrison Ford made Indiana Jones into an iconic action hero, but John made us believe in adventure again, through that pulse-pounding march,” said Spielberg.

    Off-screen, he is responsible for the “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” first composed for the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles and used ever since on US broadcasts.

    Williams has recently indicated he might take a step back from film scoring, giving more energy to conducting and composing concert music; he was a longtime leader of the Boston Pops orchestra.

    But speaking at a panel with Spielberg earlier this year, Williams seemed to walk back the notion of slowing down, vowing to work until he’s 100 or so.

    “So I’ve got 10 more years to go. I’ll stick around for a while!” he told the crowd. “You can’t ‘retire’ from music.”

    “It’s like breathing.”

  • Hollywood’s maestro goes for more Oscars history: John Williams

    By AFP

    NEW YORK: From “Star Wars” to “Jaws” to “Schindler’s List,” John Williams has written many of the most instantly recognizable scores in cinema history.

    The 91-year-old is already the oldest person to receive an Oscar nomination for a competitive award, which he earned thanks to his spare yet poignant compositions for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.”

    With 53 total nods, Williams has more Academy Award nominations than any other living person, and is second only to Walt Disney, who had 59.

    And if he gets another statuette on Sunday, which would be his sixth, he will become the oldest person ever to triumph in any competitive category. The record is currently held by screenwriter James Ivory, who was 89 when he won.

    It “seems unreal that anybody could be that old and working that long,” Williams recently told NBC News, adding: “It’s very exciting, even after 53 years.”

    “I’m very pleased, I think it’s a human thing — the gratification of any kind of appreciation of one’s work.”

    Out of the dozens of nominations over the course of his extraordinary career, the composer won Academy Awards for the original “Star Wars,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and three films by Spielberg, with whom he is closely associated — “Jaws,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Schindler’s List.”

    He’s even competed against himself multiple times for Oscars glory.

    William is known for his grand neo-Romantic scores in the fashion of Wagner, a contrast to the more experimental fare prevalent among many modern composers outside Hollywood.

    But his work is also steeped in mid-century influences including jazz and popular American standards.

    Williams holds he’s not as Wagnerian as his music might indicate, but admits the 19th century German giant’s influence on Hollywood’s early composers, and therefore his own, is palpable.

    “Wagner lives with us here — you can’t escape it,” he told The New Yorker in 2020.

    “I have been in the big river swimming with all of them.”

    ‘Single greatest collaboration’

    Williams was born on February 8, 1932 in New York’s Queens borough to a percussionist father, and was the eldest of four children.

    The family moved to Los Angeles in 1948, where Williams later studied composition and took a semester of jazz band at Los Angeles City College.

    While in the Air Force, he played both piano and brass while arranging music for the service’s band.

    Afterwards, he moved to New York, where he enrolled at the prestigious Juilliard school to study piano.

    Though he aspired to be a concert pianist, it became clear to Williams that composition was his true forte.

    He moved back to LA, where he worked on orchestrations at film studios — earning plaudits for his range — and as a session pianist, including for the film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”

    Williams notched his first Oscar nod for the 1967 film “Valley of the Dolls,” and won his first in 1972 for “Fiddler on the Roof.”

    His momentous partnership with Spielberg began in the early 1970s, when the soon to be household-name director approached him to score his debut, “The Sugarland Express.”

    Spielberg approached him once more to work on his second film, “Jaws.”

    The menacing two-note ostinato Williams composed for the film has practically become synonymous with fear itself: “John Williams actually is the teeth of Jaws,” Spielberg said last year at a concert for the composer’s 90th birthday.

    The pair then worked on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and a decades-long creative partnership unfurled.

    At the Williams birthday celebration in Washington, Spielberg dubbed their relationship “the single greatest collaboration of my career and one of the deepest friendships of my life.”

    “Through the medium of movies, John has popularized motion picture scores more than any other composer in history.”

    ‘Soundtrack of our lives’

    Spielberg also introduced Williams to one George Lucas — it would become another iconic collaboration that spawned perhaps the most recognizable film score ever.

    Several of Williams’ “Star Wars” compositions are prime examples of leitmotif, with musical cues tying together the vast, character-rich story.

    “He has written the soundtrack of our lives,” conductor Gustavo Dudamel told The New York Times last year. “When we listen to a melody of John’s, we go back to a time, to a taste, to a smell.”

    “All our senses go back to a moment.”

    Other credits from Williams’ more than 100 film scores include the music for 1978’s “Superman,” the first three “Harry Potter” films and a number of “Indiana Jones” films.

    “Harrison Ford made Indiana Jones into an iconic action hero, but John made us believe in adventure again, through that pulse-pounding march,” said Spielberg.

    Off-screen, he is responsible for the “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” first composed for the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles and used ever since on US broadcasts.

    Williams has recently indicated he might take a step back from film scoring, giving more energy to conducting and composing concert music; he was a longtime leader of the Boston Pops orchestra.

    But speaking at a panel with Spielberg earlier this year, Williams seemed to walk back the notion of slowing down, vowing to work until he’s 100 or so.

    “So I’ve got 10 more years to go. I’ll stick around for a while!” he told the crowd. “You can’t ‘retire’ from music.”

    “It’s like breathing.”

    NEW YORK: From “Star Wars” to “Jaws” to “Schindler’s List,” John Williams has written many of the most instantly recognizable scores in cinema history.

    The 91-year-old is already the oldest person to receive an Oscar nomination for a competitive award, which he earned thanks to his spare yet poignant compositions for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.”

    With 53 total nods, Williams has more Academy Award nominations than any other living person, and is second only to Walt Disney, who had 59.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    And if he gets another statuette on Sunday, which would be his sixth, he will become the oldest person ever to triumph in any competitive category. The record is currently held by screenwriter James Ivory, who was 89 when he won.

    It “seems unreal that anybody could be that old and working that long,” Williams recently told NBC News, adding: “It’s very exciting, even after 53 years.”

    “I’m very pleased, I think it’s a human thing — the gratification of any kind of appreciation of one’s work.”

    Out of the dozens of nominations over the course of his extraordinary career, the composer won Academy Awards for the original “Star Wars,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and three films by Spielberg, with whom he is closely associated — “Jaws,” “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and “Schindler’s List.”

    He’s even competed against himself multiple times for Oscars glory.

    William is known for his grand neo-Romantic scores in the fashion of Wagner, a contrast to the more experimental fare prevalent among many modern composers outside Hollywood.

    But his work is also steeped in mid-century influences including jazz and popular American standards.

    Williams holds he’s not as Wagnerian as his music might indicate, but admits the 19th century German giant’s influence on Hollywood’s early composers, and therefore his own, is palpable.

    “Wagner lives with us here — you can’t escape it,” he told The New Yorker in 2020.

    “I have been in the big river swimming with all of them.”

    ‘Single greatest collaboration’

    Williams was born on February 8, 1932 in New York’s Queens borough to a percussionist father, and was the eldest of four children.

    The family moved to Los Angeles in 1948, where Williams later studied composition and took a semester of jazz band at Los Angeles City College.

    While in the Air Force, he played both piano and brass while arranging music for the service’s band.

    Afterwards, he moved to New York, where he enrolled at the prestigious Juilliard school to study piano.

    Though he aspired to be a concert pianist, it became clear to Williams that composition was his true forte.

    He moved back to LA, where he worked on orchestrations at film studios — earning plaudits for his range — and as a session pianist, including for the film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”

    Williams notched his first Oscar nod for the 1967 film “Valley of the Dolls,” and won his first in 1972 for “Fiddler on the Roof.”

    His momentous partnership with Spielberg began in the early 1970s, when the soon to be household-name director approached him to score his debut, “The Sugarland Express.”

    Spielberg approached him once more to work on his second film, “Jaws.”

    The menacing two-note ostinato Williams composed for the film has practically become synonymous with fear itself: “John Williams actually is the teeth of Jaws,” Spielberg said last year at a concert for the composer’s 90th birthday.

    The pair then worked on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and a decades-long creative partnership unfurled.

    At the Williams birthday celebration in Washington, Spielberg dubbed their relationship “the single greatest collaboration of my career and one of the deepest friendships of my life.”

    “Through the medium of movies, John has popularized motion picture scores more than any other composer in history.”

    ‘Soundtrack of our lives’

    Spielberg also introduced Williams to one George Lucas — it would become another iconic collaboration that spawned perhaps the most recognizable film score ever.

    Several of Williams’ “Star Wars” compositions are prime examples of leitmotif, with musical cues tying together the vast, character-rich story.

    “He has written the soundtrack of our lives,” conductor Gustavo Dudamel told The New York Times last year. “When we listen to a melody of John’s, we go back to a time, to a taste, to a smell.”

    “All our senses go back to a moment.”

    Other credits from Williams’ more than 100 film scores include the music for 1978’s “Superman,” the first three “Harry Potter” films and a number of “Indiana Jones” films.

    “Harrison Ford made Indiana Jones into an iconic action hero, but John made us believe in adventure again, through that pulse-pounding march,” said Spielberg.

    Off-screen, he is responsible for the “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” first composed for the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles and used ever since on US broadcasts.

    Williams has recently indicated he might take a step back from film scoring, giving more energy to conducting and composing concert music; he was a longtime leader of the Boston Pops orchestra.

    But speaking at a panel with Spielberg earlier this year, Williams seemed to walk back the notion of slowing down, vowing to work until he’s 100 or so.

    “So I’ve got 10 more years to go. I’ll stick around for a while!” he told the crowd. “You can’t ‘retire’ from music.”

    “It’s like breathing.”

  • ‘Star Wars’ movie in the works from ‘Watchmen’ producer Damon Lindelof

    By ANI

    WASHINGTON: ‘Watchmen’ producer Damon Lindelof is developing a new “Star Wars” movie for Lucasfilm, and the ‘Ms Marvel’ helmer, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is in talks to direct.

    According to Variety, Lindelof and an unnamed co-writer will collaborate on the next film. If the idea is approved, it will be his fourth attempt to revive a significant sci-fi brand.

    In addition to Lindelof’s innovative continuation of “Watchmen” for HBO in 2019 — for which he won Emmys for writing and limited series — Lindelof produced “Star Trek” in 2009, “Star Trek Into Darkness” in 2013, and “Prometheus,” the prequel to “Alien” in 2012.

    As per the reports of Variety, the project’s announcement comes as Lucasfilm faces a decision about “Star Wars.” Despite the studio’s live-action series for Disney+, such as “The Mandalorian,” “The Book of Boba Fett,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor,” enjoying significant popularity, it hasn’t released a movie in theatres since 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.”

    According to Variety, Rogue Squadron was scheduled to be released in December 2023, and Patty Jenkins was announced as the film’s director in 2020. However, Disney removed the movie from its release schedule in September.

    Currently, only one undisclosed “Star Wars” picture has a release date; none of the other “Star Wars” film projects is in various stages of development and some from directors like Taika Waititi, Rian Johnson, and Kevin Feige, have even been formally revealed.

    Johnson recently revealed to Variety that his envisioned “Star Wars” trilogy is still in the works, but that he must first finish the production of his “Knives Out” films.

    Michael Waldron (“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”) revealed to Variety in May that he had begun writing a “Star Wars” story that Feige would produce. However, Waldron has already been hired to write “Avengers: Secret Wars,” so his dance card will get highly full.

    The short documentaries “Saving Face” and “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” were directed by Obaid-Chinoy, a two-time Oscar winner. Most recently, she was the director of two episodes of “Ms Marvel” on Disney Plus.

    WASHINGTON: ‘Watchmen’ producer Damon Lindelof is developing a new “Star Wars” movie for Lucasfilm, and the ‘Ms Marvel’ helmer, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is in talks to direct.

    According to Variety, Lindelof and an unnamed co-writer will collaborate on the next film. If the idea is approved, it will be his fourth attempt to revive a significant sci-fi brand.

    In addition to Lindelof’s innovative continuation of “Watchmen” for HBO in 2019 — for which he won Emmys for writing and limited series — Lindelof produced “Star Trek” in 2009, “Star Trek Into Darkness” in 2013, and “Prometheus,” the prequel to “Alien” in 2012.

    As per the reports of Variety, the project’s announcement comes as Lucasfilm faces a decision about “Star Wars.” Despite the studio’s live-action series for Disney+, such as “The Mandalorian,” “The Book of Boba Fett,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor,” enjoying significant popularity, it hasn’t released a movie in theatres since 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.”

    According to Variety, Rogue Squadron was scheduled to be released in December 2023, and Patty Jenkins was announced as the film’s director in 2020. However, Disney removed the movie from its release schedule in September.

    Currently, only one undisclosed “Star Wars” picture has a release date; none of the other “Star Wars” film projects is in various stages of development and some from directors like Taika Waititi, Rian Johnson, and Kevin Feige, have even been formally revealed.

    Johnson recently revealed to Variety that his envisioned “Star Wars” trilogy is still in the works, but that he must first finish the production of his “Knives Out” films.

    Michael Waldron (“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”) revealed to Variety in May that he had begun writing a “Star Wars” story that Feige would produce. However, Waldron has already been hired to write “Avengers: Secret Wars,” so his dance card will get highly full.

    The short documentaries “Saving Face” and “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” were directed by Obaid-Chinoy, a two-time Oscar winner. Most recently, she was the director of two episodes of “Ms Marvel” on Disney Plus.

  • California baker creates life-sized bread sculpture of Star Wars’ Han Solo 

    By Associated Press

    BENICIA: Han Solo may be a hunk. But “Pan Solo” is a hunk of bread.

    That’s what a bakery in the San Francisco Bay Area has dubbed its 6-foot (1.8 meters) bread sculpture of the “Star Wars” character as he appeared after being frozen in carbonite in “The Empire Strikes Back.”

    Hanalee Pervan and her mother, Catherine Pervan, co-owners of One House Bakery in Benicia, California, spent weeks moulding, baking and assembling the life-sized sculpture using wood and two types of dough, including a type of yeastless dough with a higher sugar content that will last longer.

    The two worked at night after the day’s business was done. The lovingly crafted details show Han Solo’s anguished face and his hands straining to reach out.

    Hanalee said she might have gotten a bit obsessed.

    “Mom made me leave it because I was obsessing over the lips,” Hanalee Pervan told the New York Times. “She was like, ‘You need to walk away.’”

    Creating Pan Solo was particularly meaningful, she told the paper, because she contracted COVID-19 in January 2021 and lost much of her senses of smell and taste.

    “So just to find joy in a different part of food is really important,” she said.

    The sculpture is now on display outside of the bakery, located about a half-hour’s drive north of San Francisco.

    Pan Solo is the bakery’s entry in the annual Downtown Benicia Main Street Scarecrow Contest. The public will get to vote on their favourites from among more than two dozen creations entered by local businesses.

    The Pervans, who are big science-fiction and fantasy fans, entered another “Star Wars”-themed creation in 2020 featuring the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda.

    Unfortunately, Pan Solo won’t last forever. The dough eventually will be composted, not eaten. So as a wise Jedi might warn: Don’t use the forks, Luke.

    BENICIA: Han Solo may be a hunk. But “Pan Solo” is a hunk of bread.

    That’s what a bakery in the San Francisco Bay Area has dubbed its 6-foot (1.8 meters) bread sculpture of the “Star Wars” character as he appeared after being frozen in carbonite in “The Empire Strikes Back.”

    Hanalee Pervan and her mother, Catherine Pervan, co-owners of One House Bakery in Benicia, California, spent weeks moulding, baking and assembling the life-sized sculpture using wood and two types of dough, including a type of yeastless dough with a higher sugar content that will last longer.

    The two worked at night after the day’s business was done. The lovingly crafted details show Han Solo’s anguished face and his hands straining to reach out.

    Hanalee said she might have gotten a bit obsessed.

    “Mom made me leave it because I was obsessing over the lips,” Hanalee Pervan told the New York Times. “She was like, ‘You need to walk away.’”

    Creating Pan Solo was particularly meaningful, she told the paper, because she contracted COVID-19 in January 2021 and lost much of her senses of smell and taste.

    “So just to find joy in a different part of food is really important,” she said.

    The sculpture is now on display outside of the bakery, located about a half-hour’s drive north of San Francisco.

    Pan Solo is the bakery’s entry in the annual Downtown Benicia Main Street Scarecrow Contest. The public will get to vote on their favourites from among more than two dozen creations entered by local businesses.

    The Pervans, who are big science-fiction and fantasy fans, entered another “Star Wars”-themed creation in 2020 featuring the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda.

    Unfortunately, Pan Solo won’t last forever. The dough eventually will be composted, not eaten. So as a wise Jedi might warn: Don’t use the forks, Luke.

  • Amandla Stenberg to headline new Star Wars spin-off

    By Express News Service

    Actor Amandla Stenberg will headline the upcoming Star Wars spin-off series The Acolyte.

    The Disney+ mystery-thriller series will take viewers into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark-side powers in the final days of the High Republic era. In the real universe of Star Wars, an acolyte can refer to individuals with force abilities who learn from a more experienced Sith Lord.

    Details about Stenberg’s character and the plot the series will take are currently kept under wraps. Leslye Headland will write, executive producer, and serve as showrunner of the series. The Acolyte is set to begin production in 2022.

    Stenberg, who is well-known for his role in The Hate U Give, recently appeared in Dear Evan Hansen. Their television credits include The Eddy, Drunk History, New Yokio, Mr Robinson, and Sleepy Hollow. 

  • ‘Star Wars: Rogue Squadron’ delayed due to Patty Jenkins’ scheduling conflict

    By PTI

    LOS ANGELES: Filmmaker Patty Jenkins’ “Star Wars” movie “Rogue Squadron” has been delayed after initially planning to start the production in 2022.

    According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film was set to begin pre-production by the end of this year, but has been taken off the production slate for next year due to scheduling conflicts with Jenkins.

    The “Star Wars” spin-off movie was originally announced in December 2020 at Disney and Lucasfilm’s Investor Day.

    Matthew Robinson, best known for co-writing and co-directing the 2009 comedy “The Invention of Lying” with Ricky Gervais, is on board to pen “Rogue Squadron”.

    The film will be the first feature project in the long-running “Star Wars” franchise to be directed by a woman.

    As per the official plotline released by Lucasfilm, it will introduce a new generation of starfighter pilots as they earn their wings and risk their lives in a boundary-pushing, high-speed thrill-ride, and move the saga into the future era of the galaxy.

    “Rogue Squadron” would also be the first feature since the end of the “Skywalker Trilogy”, which concluded with 2019’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”.

    It is scheduled to be released on December 22, 2023.

  • Daniel Craig shares how he landed ‘Star Wars’ role

    By IANS

    LOS ANGELES: Hollywood star Daniel Craig has talked about how he landed himself a cameo in the film ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’.

    The 53-year-old actor, who’s making his final outing as 007 in ‘No Time To Die’, recalled how being on set for 2015’s ‘Spectre’ saw him take a shot and end up being cast by director J.J. Abram’s for role as a Stormtrooper, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

    Speaking at a BAFTA talk, Craig said: “I nearly gave up after that. What else am I gonna do?

    “I think we were doing ‘Spectre’, and all of our crew were on Star Wars. Ben Dixon, who was our seconding, a great lovely man Ben Dixon, he was on was seconding and I kind of went to – I had to go into Pinewood to, I don’t know what I had to go to Pinewood for, to do some fitting or something.

    “And I said to Ben, I said, ‘Part for me?’ And he was like, ‘Are you serious?’ I was like, ‘Yeah’. And he went, ‘I’ll go ask JJ’. And he came back and said, ‘Yeah’.”

    Craig’s idea for his cameo was a “background” character, or a hidden role doing something clumsy in the background, but he ended up much more involved.

    He said: “Thing was, I thought ‘background Stormtrooper’. I mean I wanted to do that guy that bumps his head in the original one, you know that person who drops his lightsaber or something.

    “Then I was in a whole f****** scene, I was like OK! And we did the scene and then I just thought they’ll loop me, they’ll put another voice on it, you know, then I had to spend like three hours with JJ on a looping session like doing all the dialogues. Like really, you want me to do this? Get someone else to do this.”

    The actor couldn’t quite believe his luck.

    He added: “And I kind of went and said no way was I in ‘Star Wars’. I mean, I thought I was great to kind of play around with that and everybody kind of started hating on me ’cause I sort of said I didn’t like ‘Star Wars’ and I just was like, ‘Oh it was so stupid’.

    “But it was amazing and I’m in the movie and Rian says when he saw the movie the first thing he did afterwards was he said, ‘Who was that f***** Stormtrooper?’ He said he knew it was somebody, whatever. It’s the way I walk, clearly.”

  • ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ series will not disappoint fans, says actor Ewan McGregor

    By PTI

    LOS ANGELES: Actor Ewan McGregor has teased that his upcoming limited series, based on his “Star Wars” character Obi-Wan Kenobi, will live up to the audience expectations.

    McGreogor, who is reprising his role of Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi from the “Star Wars” prequel trilogy, revealed that the team has already finished shooting for the Deborah Chow-directed Disney Plus series.

    “We finished shooting our series, and it was really, really good fun. I really enjoyed working with Deborah Chow, and I think it will not disappoint,” he said after winning his maiden Emmy award for Netflix mini-series “Halston”.

    “The new technology that we employed doing it is cool, and it was a different experience than making the original three films that I did,” the actor added.

    ‘John Wick: Chapter 3’ executive producer Joby Harold has penned the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, which will be a single-season, six-episode show set eight years after ‘Revenge of the Sith’ and 11 years before ‘A New Hope’.

    The series also features actors Hayden Christensen, Joel Edgerton, Kumail Nanjiani, Maya Erskine, O’Shea Jackson Jr, Moses Ingram, Rupert Friend and Benny Safdie.

    Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of the most pivotal characters of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” universe.

    It was first portrayed by legendary actor Alec Guinness in the original 1977 movie “A New Hope”.

    Guinness later appeared as a force ghost in the two-follow-ups — “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) and “Return of the Jedi” (1983).