Is a 'Star Wars' TV Series Back On? J.J. Abrams Says Film Won't Be Kid-Friendly

For years, the apple in many a Star Wars fan's eye has been a live-action television series based on George Lucas' popular universe. We've seen it work for Cartoon Network in animated form, and Lucas even began developing a live-action show Star Wars: Underworld that supposedly had 50 hours of scripting completed, described tonally as in the vein of HBO's Deadwood and The Sopranos. Obviously that never came to pass, but with Disney holding the reins now the situation may have changed.

Blue Sky Disney says word has begun to spread behind-the-scenes that the success of Agents of SHIELD has got Disney thinking about a Star Wars series again. They stress that this is all just talk right now and the kicking around of ideas, such as where the series should take place chronologically. Also since this would be on network TV and Disney wants everything to be as widely accessible as possible, the chances are it won't be too dark.

Speaking of which, director J.J. Abrams hit The Tavis Smiley Show and addressed fan concerns that Disney would only want a kid-friendly "Disneyfied" version of Star Wars, and basically he says there's no reason to worry....

Abrams:“The beauty there is Disney doesn't want that. They are well aware of this and they are very careful to make sure that...they are sensitive to that. They don't want that at all, that's the last thing they want. But that company, which is Marvel, they have...it's incredible the scale of that company. They are as aware of that as anyone.”

We'll see about that and if that Star Wars TV show finally gets off the ground.