As soon as news broke of the Lucasfilm acquisition by Disney and a new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy starting in 2015, rumors began about who would be helming the starship into this new generation. Every big name in the business right now like J.J. Abrams, Matthew Vaughn, and more were linked to the project, but all turned out to just be speculations and wishful thinking. One name that came up was Guillermo Del Toro and, back in November, he said that he hadn’t been asked, but if he were, he would think about it. Well, apparently he was asked!
In an interview with The Playlist, Del Toro revealed that he received a phone call about possibly directing ‘Episode VII’, which is currently being written by ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ and ‘Toy Story 3’ scribe Michael Arndt. The extremely active filmmaker said:
“We got one phone call to my agent saying, ‘Is Guillermo interested?’ And basically I have so much stuff already of my own, and I’m pursuing stuff that I’m generating already… It was very flattering. It was just a phone call, it didn’t go past that, it was very nice to be asked, but believe it or not, I’m busy enough.”
“Busy enough” might be an early contender for understatement of the year. For starters, there’s ‘Pacific Rim’ coming out this year and it’s sequel already in the works. There’s the Hulk TV show for ABC, ‘The Haunted Mansion’, ‘Pinocchio’, ‘Crimson Peak’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Heaven Sent’, and many more that I’m forgetting.
When asked who he’d like to see in the director’s chair, Del Toro said that he’d like Pixar’s golden boy and ‘Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol’ director Brad Bird to helm the next step into the galaxy far, far away, though Bird has already announced that he won’t be joining the project.
Now that Del Toro is officially out of the running, who is still left for the job? Who can you think of that’s qualified for the job of directing ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
