‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ director tweets he won’t helm ‘Star Wars’
Cross off another director from the line-up of all-stars who’ve been eyed to helm the next Star Wars movie. Brad Bird — who, along with Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams, was approached by Lucasfilm to direct the next chapter in the behemoth franchise — tweeted four simple words Saturday that no doubt rocked his nearly 50k followers: “Not doing Star Wars.”
Bird (Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol) went on to tweet that “Michael Arndt is a fantastic writer and Kathy Kennedy is a brilliant producer. I will be first in line to see the new STAR WARS.” Bird reminded his followers that he’s focused on 1952, a sci-fi project for Disney (co-written by EW senior writer Jeff Jensen and Lost scribe Damon Lindelof). He’s been traveling abroad recently to scout locations for the film.
Last week, Abrams told EW’s Geoff Boucher that the next Star Wars isn’t in the cards for him, as he has “some original stuff I am working on next.” Abrams is in post-production on Star Trek Into Darkness, a sequel to his 2009 hit Star Trek.