Star Wars creator and master money-maker George Lucas stopped by The Daily Show recently to chat with Jon Stewart about his upcoming WWII passion project, Red Tails. Lucas has been working hard to get the movie made for over two decades now, but, as you’ll hear in the video, faced many hurdles in succeeding, including most major studios not wanting to take on a big budget risk with an almost entirely black cast and a movie they didn’t think could be marketed in foreign markets.
But as always, the conversation found its way to Star Wars as Lucas compared the two, and an interesting announcement was made. You can read more and check out the video of George Lucas on The Daily Show below.
Lucas shared that both Red Tails and Star Wars were so big and so fantastic that it was simply impossible to fit them into one two-hour movie (4:47 mark). When asked if that meant there was going to be six Red Tails in all, Lucas said there is a sequel and prequel—which he claims are both better than this first movie—but we’d only see them if the movie has a great first weekend. Always the business man, he is.
But it was one little line that will either enrage or elate fanboys everywhere. Lucas stated that Red Tails is as close to Star Wars: Episode VII as we’ll ever get (7:00 mark). Not that many people actually expected to ever see an Episode VII (no matter how often it’s rumored) or that we should take these statements to heart, but all things considered it was a strange thing to say. Is Red Tails really that much like Star Wars apart from being too big for one movie, or is ol’ George going out of his way to tell everyone it’s not happening?
Red Tails tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, a team of African American fighter pilots in World War II who are widely considered to be under-appreciated for their heroics. It’s written by John Ridley and directed by Anthony Hemingway, and stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Bryan Cranston, Michael B. Jordan, Method Man, and Ne-Yo.
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