Lucasfilm Says No Live-Action Shows Are Coming Any Time Soon
Last year, we saw two different rumors pop up that excited fans who hoped to see a live-action Star Wars TV show. The first indicated that there were as many as three different shows in development that might head to Netflix, and the second came straight from Kathleen Kennedy herself when she revealed that she was very interested in developing Star Wars: Underworld, George Lucas's planned TV series that was shelved when Disney bought Lucasfilm. (Some reports indicated that Lucas had already commissioned as many as 100 scripts for that series.)
Now TVLine is here with some bad news: they've spoken to several sources who say that no live-action shows are currently in development at the company. If a live-action show were on the way, one guy who would know about it would be ABC president Paul Lee (who would certainly be vying for the show to air on his network), but he says "they are focused on their movies, so we don't have any plans at the moment." A Lucasfilm representative chimed in, saying "Our current focus for TV is animation." Even J.J. Abrams weighed in, saying that his Bad Robot Productions wouldn't have anything to do with a live-action Star Wars show because he has a TV deal at rival Warner Bros. across the street.
An anonymous source also told them: "It’s smart brand management [not to do one]. I imagine they’re looking to avoid the Marvel-ization of the franchise."
Aside from the fact that Lucasfilm is 100% trying to Marvel-ize its franchise (as evidenced by the upcoming spin-offs), maybe this person was trying to say that they didn't want to water down the brand, which makes a little more sense when you think about where Lucasfilm stands right now. They have a lot to lose if they put out a crappy live-action show that directly ties into the movies, because I don't know if you've noticed but A LOT of attention is being paid to anything Star Wars-related right now. The company is in the process of rebuilding after the prequels creatively bankrupted them on the movie front, so it makes sense that they're taking their time and trying to make sure everything they're doing is as good as possible and not jumping too far ahead of themselves.
Look, it's clear that we're going to get a Star Wars live-action show eventually. I'd much rather them take their time with it and making sure it's really going to be worth watching than the alternative.