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Star Wars Has Gone to the Underworld
For anyone who has grown with the Star Wars franchise, be it from the inception of the movies or the ride at Disneyland, there’s been that small group of us that have always yearned for a more “adult” Star Wars. And while we aren’t expecting anything X-rated, we can expect some more details regarding the live-action Star Wars TV series called Star Wars: Underworld.
In a recent interview with IGN, Star Wars: Underworld (which is simply a working title) producer Rick McCallum sheds some more light on the status of the much anticipated live action series.
So what’s the hold up? Unfortunately, the series is on indefinite hold, and not for reasons why you would think. The Lucas camp is biding their time, simply waiting for technology to catch up to their vision.
This is, in all honesty, a pretty bizarre move considering that Lucas has always been known for innovating certain tools and ways of movie making to suit his needs – and not waiting for something to “pop-up” to paint his vision.
“We have fifty of the most unbelievable scripts,” McCallum said. “Each one hour episode is bigger than any of the prequels were. And they’re complex, they’re dark, they’re adult … But right now, technologically there’s no way that we can do them for the five million dollar mark [per episode]; which would be the maximum that we could do. That is because there is so much digital animation, because we have so many digital characters. I think the idea is that we just hold off [and] wait and see if there are any major breakthroughs in the next year or two.”
It’s clear in the interview that Underworld seems very ambitious for a weekly serial, especially trying to make a weekly 1 hour bite equal to the majesty of the prequels. With having to spend that kind of money, and earn it back in such a short period of time, it does make some sense in playing the waiting game. Another interesting tidbit that McCallum shared was distribution for the show.
With the Star Wars films being distributed by 20th Century Fox, it would seem as though airing Underworld on Fox or FX (or any other 20th Century Fox channel) would be a perfect partnership. Though, McCallum makes it sound that a typical Network/Cable/Premium Cable distribution plan won’t work to be able to recoup all the expenses to make the show.
Despite the show being on hold, I am very enthusiastic about the future of this project as well. It will just be a matter of time before I’m swilling in the pits of Coruscant, knee deep in the seedy Underworld of the Star Wars universe!
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