Lawrence Kasdan

“Star Wars” fans have dubbed May 4 as “‘Star Wars’ Day” (as in “May the fourth be with you…”), and Hero Complex is celebrating with a look to the future of pop culture’s favorite space saga. Disney announced last month it will release a new “Star Wars” film every year beginning in 2015 with “Episode VII,” the first installment in a planned trilogy. In between those movies, Disney is releasing two standalone “Star Wars” films not part of the overall saga, penned by Simon Kinberg and “The Empire Strikes Back” scribe Lawrence Kasdan. “I’m trying to start fresh,” Kasdan told Hero Complex in February. “There are certain pleasures that we think the saga can bring to people that they’ve been missing, and we’re hoping to bring them that, and at the same time, have them feel that it’s all new.” […]

The Force is strong with Alan Horn. At CinemaCon on Wednesday, the Walt Disney Studios chairman said the company plans to release three “Star Wars” films by the end of the decade — one in 2015, 2017 and 2019. In between those movies, “we expect to have pictures derived from that universe,” Horn said, indicating that spinoff movies should be expected in 2016 and 2018 as well. The news comes six months after Disney acquired Lucasfilm in a surprise deal for $4.05 billion. At the time of that deal in October, the company said it planned to release a seventh live-action “Star Wars” movie in 2015. It has since been announced that J.J. Abrams will direct that film, while Oscar winner Michael Arndt (“Little Miss Sunshine,” “Toy Story 3″) has been tapped to write the screenplay. PHOTOS: J.J. Abrams career […]

Fans were relieved this week to learn that Lawrence Kasdan would be writing another “Star Wars” movie. After all, it was Kasdan who penned “The Empire Strikes Back,” the film that is almost universally regarded as the best in the series. It was partly for the fans, Kasdan said, that he decided to return to “Star Wars” — just not the fans you’d expect. “[My] kids are looking forward to it,” Kasdan said. “It’s a movie that my grandson, who’s not even 3, is already excited about. There are not many movies like that.” Indeed, and Kasdan wrote three of them. After 1980′s “Empire,” George Lucas recruited Kasdan to pen the “Return of the Jedi” — the final installment in the trilogy — as well as “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the film that began the “Indiana Jones” franchise. What […]