In the aftermath of the sudden news that Disney had bought LucasFilm, it took little time for the attention of the world (including, er, us) to focus on the first in a new trilogy of promised Star Wars movies. However, while all this was going on, it turns out that a Star Wars stalwart has quietly, and without fanfare, retired.
Rick McCallum has worked on a wide range of projects for Lucasfilm throughout his career. That includes producing The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, the Star Wars special editions, the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and the more recent Red Tails.
Furthermore, McCallum has been the face of the Star Wars live action television series, that has been in development at Lucasfilm for the past few years. It’s reported that that at least 50 hours of scripts are in place for the series, and the last we heard was that all concerned were waiting for the necessary technology to become economical enough to make the show. He told us that the show was to be like "Deadwood in space" when we interviewed him earlier this year.
It looks, though, as if McCallum will no longer have any part in it. The news of his retirement was actually revealed, quietly, a few weeks ago by Lucasfilm’s Steve Sansweet. He’s a man with the job title ‘director of content management and fan relations’, and he dropped the news during the ForceCast podcast at the end of October.
A couple of things, then. This clearly leaves Kathleen Kennedy as the guardian and driving force behind the Star Wars franchise now (we hope it still leaves her time for Jurassic Park 4). And it also puts question marks over the aforementioned Star Wars live action show. We can’t imagine that Disney wouldn’t want to do it, though, but whether it stays in the same form remains to be seen.
As for Rick McCallum, we wish him a very happy retirement. Here’s hoping he’s not dropping out of the film and TV business altogether.
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