It's not exactly a huge surprise that J.J. Abrams initially passed on the "Star Wars" directing gig. After all, we are talking about one of the most beloved film franchises of all time. One misstep could result in the never-ending hatred of rabid fans everywhere - just ask George Lucas. But ultimately, the allure of playing in this particular sandbox far, far away was just too great to deny for Abrams and he signed on for "The Force Awakens."
Now, jumpstarting the series after 10 years of dormancy will be Abrams' primary task. But with a handful of saga films and standalone anthology movies set for the next five years, it's fair to wonder just how involved Abrams will be in the "Star Wars" universe after "The Force Awakens" has, you know, awoken. Fortunately, Cinema Blend got the opportunity to ask him.
"It will be really interesting as a far on Star Wars to see the off-shoot movies, which I'm sure will be fantastic, and I know that there are amazing people working on them," Abrams said. "So it will be fun to see how it all comes together. My involvement is going to be as needed, but luckily with people like Rian Johnson working on these next movies, these are not filmmakers who need help so much as they just need to be given a chance to do their thing."
It sounds as if Abrams will be taking a step back and letting Johnson ("Star Wars: Episode VIII") and Colin Tevorrow ("Star Wars: Episode IX") really take the reigns. However, that doesn't mean that Abrams' ideas and foundation laid in "The Force Awakens" won't carry over to the later films. When asked how much of the story Lucasfilm has actually mapped out, Abrams revealed that he and co-writer Lawrence Kasdan had an idea of which direction to go in and that some of those elements will be featured in future pictures.
"Lawrence Kasdan and I, who wrote the script together, definitely were setting things up and were conscious of the fact...which is a really weird opportunity in features to know that this was going to be the beginning of a three-picture story," he said. "So we were working on versions of what we knew we would have done or wanted to do and had meetings with Rian and Ram [Bergman], who is a producer, very early on and went over what we were thinking. But also knew that Rian had his own ideas coming in. He was going to take this thing in the place that he felt right. So he's incorporated some of the stuff in the way that we were expecting and hoping, he's going in other places we never would have dreamed of."
Obviously, public details surrounding "Episode VIII" and "Episode IX" are few and far between. But it's fascinating to think that the seeds for each film are being planted as we speak. "The Force Awakens" will be a true launching pad for these later Saga installments, and much of that is owed to Abrams.
We'll see how it all plays out when "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" finally hits theaters on Dec. 18.
