Rumor of George Lucas Returning to Write Star Wars Disney+ Series Debunked

The Internet erupted with a major rumor that Star Wars creator George Lucas was returning to [...]

By Joe Schmidt

The Internet erupted with a major rumor that Star Wars creator George Lucas was returning to Lucasfilm as an executive producer and writer for the Rogue One prequel series featuring Cassian Andor and K-2SO. Lucas has not been involved with the franchise he created since he sold his production company to Disney in 2012, though he has stopped by the sets of various movies and series during the filming process. The fact that he would return to the Star Wars galaxy seemed too good to be true, especially when it comes to a corner of the franchise he had nothing to do with.

Well, apparently it is too good to be true, as ABC reporter Clayton Sandell made it clear that Lucas is not returning to produce and write the Cassian Andor spinoff series on Disney+.

It's interesting that this rumor even cropped up, and that it was about the Rogue One spinoff and not something like The Mandalorian or the Obi-Wan Kenobi series that Lucas had more direct influence on.

It's also interesting that Lucas would be willing to come out of his so-called retirement after the sale of Lucasfilm to work on Star Wars after Disney Chairman Bob Iger admitted in his memoir The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company. According to Iger, when Disney purchased Lucasfilm they also purchased treatments for a sequel trilogy that Lucas himself wrote — and Lucas didn't like that they decided not to use them.

"Alan Horn and I read George's outlines and decided we needed to buy them, though we made clear in the purchase agreement that we would not be contractually obligated to adhere to the plot lines he'd laid out," Iger wrote in his book.

He added, "He knew that I was going to stand firm on the question of creative control, but it wasn't an easy thing for him to accept. And so he reluctantly agreed to be available to consult with us at our request. I promised that we would be open to his ideas (this was not a hard promise to make; of course we would be open to George Lucas' ideas), but like the outlines, we would be under no obligation."

Iger then detailed a meeting with Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, and J.J. Abrams in which they went over the ideas for Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

"George immediately got upset as they began to describe the plot and it dawned on him that we weren't using one of the stories he submitted during the negotiations."

There's no word yet on when production will begin on the Rogue One prequel series planned for Disney+.

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