When you hear that Star Trek Into Darkness director J.J. Abrams is upgrading his Bad Robot, visions may dance in your head of Abrams adding a massive death ray cannon to point at anyone who dares make another tired lens flare joke. He is actually, according to the Hollywood Reporter, converting some of his production company’s space into facilities to shoot and edit part of **Star Wars Episode VII{
“But we thought the big news was that the new** Star Wars**would shoot in the UK!” we hear you cry, and indeed you would be correct. But ever since that announcement, the rumblings have been that Abrams isn’t too happy about having to uproot his family for the duration of the shoot.
It would appear that the new production spaces – including a green screen area, sound studios and other facilities – will be part of a compromise to let him bring some of the work back to Los Angeles, where he’s shot most of his films. Given how busy the Bad Robot lot are with films, web videos, TV shows (and now books!), this upgrade might have been planned anyway, but it certainly follows Abrams’ pattern of going the extra mile to stay in his home city: after all, he shelled out money to keep Into Darknes****s from warping off to some other locale…
However it shakes out, Disney is looking to have** Episode VII **in cinemas in 2015. Exactly what date that year is something we’re still waiting to learn, though current thinking points to a December/holiday release. Happy Sithmas?