Favreau to write and exec produce TV series

[RamonAtila 92]

You people blow my mind. Could Favreau have been chosen maybe cause he's a big-name director who delivered on a big ticket franchise before?

[Tank 3,140]

No one is disputing that is exactly why he was chosen.

[Tank 3,140]

But I'd counter that Jane Espensen has more experience running genre TV shows.

[Poe Dameron 483]

I'd love to have Espenson on the team, but not in charge. She's awesome, but I will forever typecast her as the funny writer from Buffy. Also, her brief run as the Caprica showrunner seems more of a fiasco than a recommendation.

 

Plenty of other women running television shows for as long as I can remember and plenty of writers/producers capable of making the jump. Television's a different beast of course and doesn't have nearly as big an issue as the movies on this count.

 

Besides, do we really think Favreau ends up actually being the showrunner? More likely, he writes/directs the pilot and the general plot of the 1st season or two, and then hands the whole thing off to someone with more experience and who isn't busy making $1 billion movies while keeping an executive producer and created by credit.

[Filthy Jawa 356]

I think that's what we all think.

[Lord Darth Hunter 216]

I agree it is kind of too bad that this thread never got around to actually discussing its own topic, but here we are.

 

I get the arguments on both sides. But if I have to pick a point to stand behind, it's that in this new Disney-era of Lucasfim, that puts diversity on camera, including many strong female leads, this is the list of creative forces hired:

 

JJ Abrams

Gareth Edwards

Rian Johnson

Lord and Miller

Ron Howard

Colin Trevorrow

Benoit and Weiss

Jon Favreau

 

That's nine white guys in a row (or seven, if you'd rather count that way). Sure, it's about picking safe (the Ron Howard choice underlines that), and that's what corporations do, but there is a certain hypocracy at work, or a deceit, when a film company professes to be about diversity and only hires white men to direct.

Don't forget on top of all this Johnson has been given a whole trilogy of his own already.

[Filthy Jawa 356]

You're right, I should have said "RJ x 4" and "B&W x 3"....And "JJ x 2"

[Poe Dameron 483]

I think that's what we all think.

Then this thread is really silly.

 

Or, at the least, premature.

[Jacen123 1,632]

Are you saying that Choc has a problem with being premature?

[The Choc 1,520]

Are you saying that Choc has a problem with being premature?

 

How did I get rolled into this? I just reported the news, LOL

[Jacen123 1,632]

Whoever started it, smarted it.

[3 & 6 years to go... 489]

Just read an article on commingsoon.net that this TV series will be set 7 years after the final battle of Endor in ROTJ. Completely new characters in this, though.

[Robin 170]

I like Sofia Coppolas work. Ive daydreamed about what she might do with something like Batgirl or Teen Titans. Now with this SW TV becoming more a thing, Ill do the same with it.

 

Also, so much coolness could happen with a Star Wars TV project, especially if it was an anthology... really hoping its an anthology.

[Tank 3,140]

It's not an anthology.

[Robin 170]

Ohhhh well.

[Odine 974]

What do you mean by anthology in this context? Self contained episodes that don't necessarily relate to each other other than being in Star Wars universe and can be viewed independently?

[Robin 170]

Yes. Nothing has to connect from story to story, not cast or even time period. It doesnt have to just be one episode, maybe a creative lead is granted two or three to work with.

[Odine 974]

Ahh that would've been a good idea.

[Tank 3,140]

Season long anthologies are in vogue, but given the high level of production design involved with Star Wars it's not very cost prohibitive.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

Did you mean cost effective?

 

If so, that makes sense. Didn't Lucas toy with the idea of a live action series before TCW in the mid 2000s, and even considered taking the filming to Eastern Europe, and found even THAT was too expensive to do?

[Tank 3,140]

Hahaha, yes. Wrong word. Me am a writer.

 

Lucas said he couldn't do a TV show cause it would cost 3mil an episode, which is just absurd.

[Poe Dameron 483]

Lucas said he couldn't do a TV show cause it would cost 3mil an episode, which is just absurd.

Lucas has always been oddly miserly. Although, I confess, the economics of modern television baffle me.

[Guest]

It's not an anthology.

I read this in Arnold voice. "It's not a tum-ah" "Its not an anthology"

[3 & 6 years to go... 489]

Great, now I am going to be thinking that all day.

[Tank 3,140]

 

Lucas said he couldn't do a TV show cause it would cost 3mil an episode, which is just absurd.

 

Lucas has always been oddly miserly. Although, I confess, the economics of modern television baffle me.

It’s an insane thing— especially given that no two shows have the same budget. I’m on a Hulu show right now, relatively low budget, and the things we have to cut to save money are ridiculous. For example— we had to lose our main character’s pet because a trained dog costs $700 a day. We had to move all scenes that took place at a diner to people’s dining rooms because securing a diner location or building a set and filling it with extras wasn’t worth the cost.

 

Lucas must have wanted to basically shoot, produce, and finilize the show the with the same scope and quality as the films. That’s the only way it would cost that much... basically he just looked at it like a movie he was going to cut into episodes (as 10 eps at 3m would be somewhat similar to a SW film budget)— which is probably unwise for a variety of reasons.

 

If you look at the scope of shows like GOT or Westworld though, there are ways to do it. Hell, the OT managed to pull it off by most all of the story taking place on remote planets away from the heart of the over-populated galaxy.