Do the math, and you likely could have figured out that in order to land in theaters by Summer 2015, J.J. Abrams was going to have to begin filming Star Wars: Episode VII -- the first Star Wars since 2005’s Episode III – Revenge of the Sith -- in 2014. Now someone close to the upcoming production has gone on record to confirm the start date of the wildly anticipated sequel.
Bryan Burke, a producer on both Star Trek Into Darkness and Abrams’ upcoming foray into the Star Wars universe (alongside Kathleen Kennedy), spoke with Collider recently and stated that they expect to be ramped up and shooting next year.
“We’re progressing on a schedule to hopefully begin next year, or the beginning of next year, and the location is still kind of floating around in the air all depending on script and a whole bunch of other issues,” Burke said. “As I just said, everything is kind of a free-flowing thing, and when we feel like the story level on this script and everything is really coming together and schedules are all working and pieces line up, we prowl ahead, and Star Wars will be no different.”
The way he carefully words it, we’re led to believe that the story for Abrams’ Star Wars isn’t locked into place. That’s unlikely. If you read a number of Abrams’ Into Darkness interviews from a recent world tour, he says that it’s very early in the process to talk specifics – which is a nice deflection, but also improbable. I’m confident that Kennedy and her crew know exactly what will be happening in Episodes 7-9, and they wouldn’t be moving forward with an advanced plan to get Star Wars movies in theaters every summer if they didn’t have a concrete plan.
So with Abrams on schedule to shoot next year, expect to hear location confirmations, script details and casting as this year progresses. We’ll bring you whatever we hear going forward.
