Storm Troopers Just Wanna Have Fun!

Tuskegee Airmen Have Yet To Publicly Voice Concerns That George Lucas Will 'Jar Jar Up' Their Story

For his next trick, franchise-despoiling superproducer George Lucas has opted to abandon his long-delayed follow-up to Howard the Duck—having deemed the character not "sacred enough to really warrant a full-on sequel violation"—and instead has turned to the inspirational true story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American combat squadron to fight in World War II:

Lucas hopes to begin shooting by year's end or early 2009, McCallum said. The movie's title refers to the color of their fighter planes' tails, which were distinctive and allowed U.S. bomber crews to know they were being escorted by the aggressive Tuskegee Airmen.

Getting To Know Your Extreme-Fighting Children Of Legendary Hollywood Superproducers

Congratulations to Amanda Lucas, daughter of franchise-ruination-hastening Hollywood superproducer George Lucas, for having successfully completed her first public, mixed martial arts competitive bout in Auckland this weekend. From /film.com:

Amanda Lucas, the 27-year-old daughter of George Lucas, made her mixed martial arts debut in Auckland New Zealand on Saturday night under the stage name Amanda “Powerhouse” Lucas.

Even Hours of Instant Messaging Can't Help Us Make Sense of 'Indiana Jones 4'

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has been unveiled at last for international critics, and with most verdicts coming in mixed to above-average, our discriminating tastes still found much left to be desired. Defamer editor Seth Abramovitch and senior editor S.T. VanAirsdale attended yesterday's screenings in Los Angeles and New York, respectively, after which the slow process of psychological reckoning and franchise restoration began the only way they knew how: via instant messaging.

What follows contains numerous spoilers, though not much that isn't distinguishable from the trailer or the word-of-mouth teeming around the Web this morning. In any case, if you want a virginal Indy experience when the film opens Thursday, we'd recommend skipping to the next item right about now. Or join in the fray as our wounded critical minds clear the air and let the healing begin.

Lucas And Spielberg Given Hefty Chunk Of Indy's Possibly Saggy Back-End

Hard as it is to believe, after what seems like 19 endless years of false-starts and "Slowly Veering Lincoln Continental of Doom" jokes, we are less than one month away from seeing the fourth chapter of the Indiana Jones saga. The adventuresome archaeologist enters a far different Hollywood from the days when he first planted sunbeam-focusing scepters in secret map rooms, however; studio sash-tightening has required its makers to defer their fees in exchange for that venerable Hollywood trade-off, a piece (and in this case, a gigantic piece) of the back-end. The LAT breaks down Crystal Skull's financial model:

Paramount spent about $185 million to make the movie and will pay at least $150 million to market it worldwide. The studio will earn a distribution fee of 12.5% of the revenue it receives from the film's release in all media, including theaters, DVD and television.

Steven Spielberg Mulls Canceling The Internet To Preserve An Unspoiled Moviegoing Experience

It's been a rough week for you, the Internet-Enabled Movie Fan with Something to Say. Just a day after noted haimishe Luddite Barry Sonnenfeld's semi-hysterical vision of a Facebook-infiltrated culture in which Big Brother will monitor our every Twittered activity, comes a similarly technophobic EW.com conversation with the creative duo behind the Indiana Jones series (and possessors of 68.2% of all the world's wealth), Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Playing a sort of good cop/bad cop routine, Spielberg bemoans the eroding of the moviegoing experience by keyboard-tapping chatterboxes, while Lucas tempers all the grumpy-old-man talk by pointing out that the internet is also capable of producing some good things (e.g. an audience who actually cares what Indy has been up to after his 19-year sabbatical). We quietly slip in mid-conversation:

STEVEN SPIELBERG: It really is important to be able to point out that the Internet is still filled with more speculation than facts. The Internet isn't really about facts. It's about people's wishful thinking, based on a scintilla of evidence that allows their imaginations to springboard. And that's fine.

Were Shia LaBeouf And Harrison Ford Stoned To the Bone While Shooting 'Indy 4'?

As if George Lucas' forewarning that Indy 4 just won't be all that great weren't enough to lower our expectations, now we learn that heir to the throne Shia LaBeouf filmed most of his scenes while injured. As the star told MTV News, "I pulled a rotator cuff in my hip...because the injury got worse and worse while filming, I pulled my groin also." And not only did Shia gimp his way through scenes, recent reports suggest that he may have been high as a kite while filming. A recent blind item suggests Harrison Ford and his Mini-Me made a habit out of puffing the green dragon in Shia's trailer and even had code names for being stoned.

Frank Darabont's Week Less Than 'Majestic'

"Honestly, our storytelling sensibilities have diverged to the point where that would be a pointless exercise."

George Lucas Cannot Caution Enough Against Setting Your 'Crystal Skull' Hopes Too High

George Lucas is still traumatized by the sullen faces of Star Wars fans who filed out of the first preview screenings of The Phantom Menace, and, spotting its jittery director standing by the exit, spit, "You ruined Christmas, my childhood, and Life Day!" before whipping their crumpled comments cards at his head. So it's not terribly surprising to learn that the producer of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is taking a far more tempered, "Hey, Indy fans: Let's just try to remember this is just a movie...and the originals weren't even that great to begin with!"-approach to his latest revisiting of a devoutly worshiped franchise:

"When you do a movie like this, a sequel that's very, very anticipated, people anticipate ultimately that it's going to be the Second Coming," Lucas says.

'Indy 4' Golf-Cart-Driving Secrets Revealed!

Spielberg Reassures Lucky Set Visitors That He's Not Going To Let Lucas Jar-Jar Up 'Indy 4'

As a reward for assisting DreamWorks in the daring sting operation that prevented further leaking of secrets related to the production of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of This Thing My Wife Bought At Liberace's Estate Sale, a grateful Steven Spielberg invited some members of the online press to the Universal backlot for an audience with the national treasure himself. Once there, he informed his awed guests about his ongoing debate with CGI-happy Indy partner George Lucas on their differing filmmaking philosophies. Reports /Film:

Producer and friend George Lucas tried at length to convince Spielberg to film the movie digitally but Steven resisted. He joked that he is the last person in Hollywood still cutting the film negatives, and that he learned from the greats and they all worked that way. He says that he has still never used an Avid to edit, and won't do so until Tintin.

Crystal-Skull-Crazy George Lucas Considering Giving Them Own Spinoff Franchise

Producers are keeping details of the fourth installment of the Raiders franchise close to the vest—one extra who blabbed its secrets to a local paper was famously poisoned to death by what are suspected to have been a plate of bad dates—but even George Lucas can't help but spill a few beans when asked by an MTV News reporter about the crystal skulls that drive the movie's plot:

"I think this is actually better, it's up there with the Ark of the Covenant," he declared of the fourth film's "McGuffin" (a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock to describe an object which drives a film's plot). "Sankara Stones and the Holy Grail were a little tough, but I think this time we've really got a great one.

The Rock Returns To 'Witch Mountain'