Is David Fincher on the not-so-short list to direct "Star Wars: Episode VII"? Buried in a new piece on Deadline.com by Mike Fleming Jr. about celebrities self-immolating themselves on the internet is word that Fincher "might be game" to direct one of the new "Star Wars" sequels. That puts Fincher on a list that includes Matthew Vaughn, Jon Favreau and perhaps even Joe Johnston, among others.
That Fincher would wind up as a speculative choice for "Star Wars" isn't all that surprising. His first job was as an assistant cameraman for Industrial Light and Magic on "Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi."
"I was one of 9,000 people getting the movie made," Fincher told Moviefone about his "Return of the Jedi" work in an interview last year. "I did the Chicken Walkers [a.k.a. AT-ST Scout Walkers] -- I was working on the Chicken Walkers. They had a lot of shots that were panning and tilting in the Redwood Forest in Crescent City and my job was to figure out a way to match-move that stuff, which hadn't been shot in motion control at all. So, I was doing a lot of sitting in the dark, taking a mirror and taking registered interpositives and projecting them out of this vision cameras using . [...] It was crazy. I mean, when you think of ILM, you always think of this thing where it's like NASA, or something. This is so thrown together and so half-ass. And I would projectile the camera on to these big cards -- these big circular cards -- and I would put a line on a tree. I would sit there with Jerry Jeffress' early, early, early field motion control unit and program match move. I'd match move the plates for the pan and tilt, then I'd bring in the blue screen, bring in the go-motion unit, match the lighting, and put the Chicken Walkers into the shot."
Fincher said he was 18 or 19 years old when he worked on "Jedi."
The current "Star Wars: Episode VII" director search is focused on Vaughn, the "X-Men: First Class" filmmaker who may or may not have been confirmed as being in talks for "Episode VII" by actor Jason Flemyng earlier this week.
For more on why celebrities should think before they tweet, head over to Deadline.com.
[via Deadline.com]
