Disney says J.J. Abrams to direct next "Star Wars"

Executive producer J.J. Abrams speaks onstage during the "Alcatraz" panel during the FOX Broadcasting Company portion of the 2012 Winter TCA Tour at The Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa on Jan. 8, 2012 in Pasadena, Calif. / Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

LOS ANGELES It's official. The force is with J.J. Abrams.

The Walt Disney Co. issued a statement Friday night confirming reports that had been circulating for two days that Abrams, Emmy-award-winning creator of TV's "Lost" and director of 2009's "Star Trek" movie, has been pegged to direct the seventh installment of the "Star Wars" franchise.

"J.J. is the perfect director to helm this," said Kathleen Kennedy, the movie's producer and president of Lucasfilm, which was acquired by Disney last month for $4.06 billion.

"Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience," Kennedy said in the statement.

• Reports: J.J. Abrams to helm next "Star Wars" movie
• Disney buying Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, slates new "Star Wars" movie for 2015

The movie will have a script from "Toy Story 3" writer Michael Arndt and a 2015 release.

Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" in the original trilogy, will work as a consultant on the new project.

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Abrams has already headed the reboot of another storied space franchise, "Star Trek," for rival studio Paramount Pictures. The next installment in that series, "Star Trek: Into Darkness," is set to hit theaters May 17.

But he has long been known as a "Star Wars" devotee. Abrams spoke about the plot of the original "Star Wars" in the lecture series "TED Talks" in March 2007, and reportedly became enamored of "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof partly because Lindelof was wearing a "Star Wars" T-shirt when they first met.

In 2009, Abrams told the Los Angeles Times: "As a kid, `Star Wars' was much more my thing than `Star Trek' was."

In Friday night's statement he called it an "absolute honor" to get the job.

"I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid," Abrams said.

Lucas himself said in the statement that "I've consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller. He's an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn't be in better hands."

[hypnotoad72]

A while ago, he said he had no interest.

Was he a liar, or did he realize his two Trek flicks have a style much closer to that of "Star Wars" (whiz-bang action, zero plot, shallow characters)?

[tmittelstaed]

Paramount directed J.J. Abrams to "reboot" Star Trek and wanted something that would "Pam's Dream" away the franchise - so they could use cheap crummy writers and crank out Space Opera instead of the more brainac Star Trek stories. And they got their wish.

I doubt Disney has the same agenda.

[hypnotoad72]

Disney has the same agenda - to make money and cash in.

The "how" of the issue is what's up for grabs.

[DF68]

Great. Maybe now Paramount can find a real director to direct the Star Trek films. As a matter of fact, maybe they can find some real screen writers too other than Orci, Kurtzman, and Lindelof. These guys are roughly my age and they're given far too much credit fanfare for the dreck they produce. Someday, I'd like to see something other than "Cringe Trek" minus the stupid.

[hypnotoad72]

JJ has a great visceral style, but all he did was pervert "Trek" into a generic action series, devoid of what made Trek unique in the first place.

I'll give him real credit for the icing, but the cake underneath is made out of sawdust.

[Resin-Smoker]

To be honest I cant think of a single thing to say here that wouldn't come off as derogatory or worse.

[venusvegasvada]

I guess screwing up Star Trek wasn't good enough...

[donkeyrokman]

Abrams's treatment of Star Trek was brilliant. Whatever he does with Star Wars can only be an improvement over the dumpster fires the aging Lucas produced.

[hypnotoad72]

Donkey,

JJ used the images of Trek to cash in on nostalgia. If people stopped drooling over the visceral and compared the depth of the franchise since 1964 to the present day, the JJ flicks have the least in common.

The 2009 added more camp than Trek V could ever hope to do...

Indeed, the 2013 flick even rips off scenes from older Trek films. If people were upset over "Nemesis" doing the same thing...

The man's mooching, and adding nothing in return.

There is NOTHING brilliant about it.