Remember when Michael Arndt was going to write the new Star Wars. We all thought, ‘the dude who penned Little Miss Sunshine? Really?’ It was a confusing time, but eventually we got over it and said, ‘you know he’s a really talented guy. I bet he could do good work here.’ Then, just when we were reconciled with the idea, Arndt up and left. He has since been replaced by the duo of J.J. Abrams (duh) and Lawrence Kasdan (YAY!! He wrote Empire! Let’s dance about it!). All of this change is pretty intense given that Star Wars has had its eyes set on 2015 from the get go. Weirdest of all then has been the radio silence regarding the reasons for Arndt’s departure. Silence, that is, until now.
While on a conference call, Abram’s put out an answer saying (a totally generic studio engineered answer, but it’s something), “[i]t became clear that given the time frame and given the process and the way the thing was going that working with Larry in this way was going to get us where we need to be and when we needed to be. Working with Larry Kasdan, especially on a Star Wars movie is kind of unbeatable.” Abrams also said a bunch of really nice things about Michael Arndt, and mentioned a willingness to work together in the future. I guess I generally believe what Abrams has to say. That kind of time limit is pretty stressful for a writer, and when you have Kasdan on the bench it must be hard to keep him there. I can’t say I’m not excited to have one of my all time favorite writers doing work here, but I miss the idea of an indie comedy guy writing Star Wars. Maybe they’ll bring him back for Yoda’s origin story or whatever.
Source: SlashFilm