Here’s the Official Word on Hamill, Fisher, and Ford Returning to Star Wars From A Disney CEO Himself

There’s been a lot of back and forth on the involvement of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford in Disney’s planned third Star Wars trilogy. The stars say they’re open, other folks say they’re signed, other folks say there’s nothing official yet (or sometimes Carrie Fisher tells the jerk with a camera who is following her around and grilling her about Star Wars VII while she’s walking her dogs that she’s involved just to get rid of him), and the big voice missing in the conversation is Disney’s. Of course Disney doesn’t have to say anything. Why should they? We’re already talking nonstop about the movie.

But CEO Bob Iger gave some actual official information to CNBC’s Closing Bell yesterday.

The news? There’s no news. Sort of.

A lot of talk around Star Wars, particularly the old cast, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher. Are they going to reunite?

Well George Lucas was quoted as saying that they would, but we haven’t made any official announcement yet. We’ve got a team working on the film right now, J.J. Abrams is going to direct it, we’ve got a writer named Michael Arndt who’s actually writing the script, working with some of the folks that were involved in some of the earlier films. When the story is quote unquote broken we’ll make decisions about the cast and we’ll move from there.

Is this something that you’ve been talking to them about already?

Talking to the actors? Yes, there’ve been discussions already.

So on the one hand: no, nothing is set in stone yet. Which should not surprise anybody, as no one should expect them to have a script at this point. The movie is not slated to hit theaters for two years. They’ve got plenty of time to get the script right. And we’d all like Star Wars to have a good script this time, right?

On the other hand: yes, Hamill, Fisher, and Ford are all in talks to appear. This likely means not that they’re definitely going to be in the movies, but rather that Disney is playing a long game and wants to make sure that they can contractually compel the three actors to appear in the new trilogy should a script call for them. Because it’s Disney. And they want to make sure nobody else plays with their toys but them and their properly licensed subsidiaries.

Good. Now everybody relax until the next time somebody involved in Star Wars coughs into a napkin or is aggressively pursued by an interviewer into saying something that can be misconstrued as a statement on Star Wars.

(via /Film.)