Star Wars director J.J. Abrams builds a postproduction facility in Los Angeles specifically for Star Wars: Episode VII.
Star Wars director J.J. Abrams is building a postproduction facility in Los Angeles specifically for Star Wars: Episode VII, according to a report by The Hollywood Reporter.
When Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy announced in May that production for Star Wars: Episode VII would take place in the UK, Abrams was decidedly less than happy. The filmmaker voiced his disappointment at the Produced By conference a few weeks later, noting that the move to London, expected at year's end, would be an inconvenience to his wife and kids. "When you're 13 and 14, it's like, f--- that, I don't care what the movie is," he joked in June.
Now it appears the director is building a work-around designed to keep at least a portion of the movie's production closer to home. According to THR, Abrams -- who has shot all of his films in Los Angeles (he even personally covered some of Star Trek Into Darkness' costs in order to keep production local) -- is converting a portion of his Bad Robot headquarters into production spaces built specifically for the Star Wars project.
A green room, sound studios and other new facilities will be developed within the three-story, 18,000-square-foot Santa Monica building, which already includes editing bays, a workshop for making props, a screening room that can double as a set and Abrams' personal suite of offices. Star Wars: Episode VII is set to be released in 2015 by Disney.
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
