With new 'Star Wars' on tap, Lucasfilm bails on Episodes II and III in 3D
Lucasfilm said today that it is going to focus its efforts on making the next "Star Wars" rather than releasing the remaining prequels in 3D.
With the creative team for "Star Wars Episode VII" now in place, Lucasfilm and Disney appear to be using the forward movement on that project as an excuse to shelve plans to release 3D versions of Episodes II and III.
In a news post today on StarWars.com, Lucasfilm announced the abandoning of the release of the 3D versions of the two prequel films.
"Lucasfilm has decided to postpone this fall's scheduled release of 'Star Wars' Episodes II and III in 3D," it wrote today. "Given the recent development that we are moving forward with a new 'Star Wars' trilogy, we will now focus 100 percent of our efforts on 'Star Wars: Episode VII' in order to ensure the best possible experience for our fans. We will post further information about our 3D release plans at a later date.
In the weeks since Disney announced the purchase of Lucasfilm for $4 billion, it has made additional news by hiring "Toy Story 3" writer Michael Arndt to pen the screenplay for the next "Star Wars" film, and last week, got the entire "Star Wars" universe excited -- for better or worse -- by hiring "Star Trek" director and "Lost" creator J.J. Abrams to direct "Episode VII."
Lucasfilm released Episode I in 3D a year ago.