Michael Arndt confirmed to script 'Star Wars: Episode VII'

Darth Vader of Star Wars (dualshockers.com)

Michael Arndt the writer of Toy Story 3, has been hired to write Star Wars: Episode VII.

Last month, Disney announced plans to make a new series of Star Wars after buying Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion. The Episode VII has been scheduled to be released in 2015.



George Lucas will serve as "creative consultant" on the new movies, but will not play a hands-on role in the development of the movies. Last Friday, it was emerged that Arndt was brought in several months ago to draft a "pretty extensive and detailed treatment" for three new Star Wars movie.

He has now been the official script writer of the first film. An announcement on the Star Wars website reads: "A pre-production of Star Wars: Episode VII begins, Lucasfilm has confirmed that the award-winning writer Michael Arndt will write the screenplay for the new Star Wars film. As revealed in the ongoing video series posted here on StarWars.com, Kathleen Kennedy and George Lucas have begun story conferences with Michael Arndt."

Arndt is a Star Wars with an impressive CV. He won the Oscar in 2007 for his original screenplay to the movie Little Miss Sunshine then went on to script 2010's Toy Story 3, which give him another Oscar nomination. He also co-written the next The Hunger Games series, Catching Fire, due next year.

NME