Recently we found out that Michael Arndt (‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire‘, ‘Oblivion‘) was out from writing the rest of ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ and J.J. Abrams (‘Super 8‘, ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’) and Lawrence Kasdan (‘Empire Strikes Back’) were taking over. What we didn’t know was why, until now.

With the film moving forward full steam so far, having such a big change like this would usually mean there are some issues with the writing or direction of the script. With Arndt being such a highly prolific writer, that doesn’t seem like it would be an issue with anything he is working on. So what else could have caused this need for a change?

While everyone has been quiet on the issue so far, Abrams opened up as to what exactly happened to prompt a change for who was responsible for the writing duties on the first film that will take us into the future of ‘Star Wars’. From what he is saying, there was no internal disagreement or butting of heads, it was all a matter of being able to complete the film in the time frame they have.

With a confirmed release date of December 18th 2015 they need to have the script finished up pretty quickly:

“It became clear that given the time frame and given the process and the way the thing was going that working with Larry in this way was going to get us where we need to be and when we needed to be. Working with Larry Kasdan, especially on a ‘Star Wars’ movie is kind of unbeatable.

Working with Michael was a wonderful experience and I couldn’t be a bigger fan of his or adore him more, He’s a wonderful guy and was incredibly helpful in the process. [This event] doesn’t preclude working with Michael again in the future, he is one of the best writers around.”

So folks that sounds pretty straight forward as to why they had to switch writers. Is it the entire reason? We’ll probably never know, but with a movie having to be written, filmed, and ready to be shown to millions of movie goers in just over two years and a month, timing could very be all that was an issue here.

What do you think? Was the force just not strong enough with Arndt or did the studios have just too tight of a schedule to let the writing take too long?

Source: Slashfilm