It’s a big day for ‘Star Wars’ casting news! While the big rumors are currently who will be the leads for J.J. Abrams’ ‘Star Wars: Episode VII,’ Disney and Lucasfilm have been also working on who will be the voices for their new ‘Star Wars’ animated series.
Earlier, David Oyelowo was previously rumored to have read for a role in the new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy. Now it seems he’s in final discussions to provide a voice for the upcoming ‘Star Wars: Rebel’ CGI animated series. This series will take place in between the two existing trilogies, and will depict the Empire expanding its grip on the galaxy (far, far away) while Luke Skywalker grows up on Tatooine.
Beyond that, very little has been revealed about the show, other than it will focus on a young group of rebels. Oyelowo, who can currently be seen starring in ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’, may still be in the running for a live action role on J.J. Abrams’ film. He is currently filming ‘Interstellar‘, which is directed by Christopher Nolan.
Also rumored to be up for parts on the new animated series are Freddie Prinze Jr., Vanessa Marshall, Taylor Gray and Steven Jay Blum.
Prinze is a noted fan of not only ‘Star Wars’ but other geeky things. Heck, he’s married to Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar)! He has also provided voice-over work on the ‘Mass Effect‘ video games.
Vanessa Marshall has plenty of experience doing voice work, having portrayed Black Canary on ‘Young Justice’, Black Widow in ‘Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ and Wonder Woman in ‘Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox.’
Jay Blum has provided the voices of Starscream in ‘Transformers Prime’ and Lex Luthor in ‘Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox’ as well as the video games ‘Call of Duty: Origins’ and ‘God of War: Ascension’.
The new show will be executive produced by Simon Kinberg (‘X-Men: First Class’), Dave Filoni, who worked on the previous Star Wars animated series ‘Clone Wars’, and Greg Weisman (‘Young Justice’).
None of the castings are finalized and when asked for a comment, Lucasfilm stated “We don’t have any casting announcements at the time but are excited about the series and look forward to sharing news with you in the future.”
‘Star Wars: Rebels’ will debut next fall on Disney XD.
