Ever since things were made official late last week that J.J. Abrams would be directing and producing ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’, fans have been responding with exuberance, rage, and confusion because a number of questions regarding the choice suddenly arose. The biggest question was in regards to the filmmaker’s other franchises, specifically ‘Star Trek’, which will be two movies deep by the end of this year. Is he giving up Starfleet in favor of the Rebel Alliance? Fans have been yearning to know! Well, thanks to Hero Complex, we have the answer.
According to an interview with Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore, Abrams will still be connected and heavily involved to the ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchises. Well, he’ll be involved anyway. Here’s the official word from Moore on the subject:
“J.J. will continue to develop projects for us including a new ‘Mission: Impossible’, and he is committed to produce another ‘Star Trek’.”
There you have it. At the very least, he’ll be producing new installments of each franchise, but there’s still a chance that he’s still up for directing them as well. However, considering how involved he gets in his projects and how huge this new ‘Star Wars’ movie is going to be for Disney, he’ll likely have his hands full taking the reins from George Lucas for a few years.
Despite the long road ahead of him to get to the galaxy far, far away and the workload that comes with that alone, Abrams’ slate is still appearing to fill up to the brim. Besides ‘Star Wars’, he’s producing ‘All I’ve Got’ for Ron Howard, he’s producing the micro-budget film ‘God Particle’, and he has two pilot orders for sci-fi shows on NBC and Fox. Adding the all that work for the inevitable third ‘Star Trek’ and fifth ‘Mission: Impossible’ might be spreading the man too thin, especially when Paramount will probably not want to wait until 2015 to start working on the sequel to ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’.
Regardless of what else he takes on, I’m sure that J.J. Abrams will be fully committed to making the new ‘Star Wars’ movie everything it could be. He is a fan after all and he definitely doesn’t want to disappoint the other fans.
Do you think J.J. Abrams is taking on too much? Do you think he can juggle three major franchises, a few movies, and two brand new television shows at once? Share your thoughts in the comments below!