Hollywood

Disney said today that it has begun production on "Star Wars Rebels," a new animated television series. It will air in 2014, first as a one-hour special, and then will continue as a regular series.

The special will be shown on the Disney Channel, while the series will air first on Disney XD channels globally, Disney said. It will be produced by LucasFilm Animation.

The announcement that production has commenced on "Star Wars Rebels" comes just two months after Disney shut down "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a popular and long-running cartoon series. What's unclear is whether the announcement of "Star Wars Rebels" will do anything to ease the enmity toward Disney that has sprung up in the wake of the "Clone Wars" shutdown, as well as the closure of LucasArts, the video game arm of LucasFilm. … Read more

NICASIO, Calif. -- Growing up in the 1960s, Ben Burtt was such a big "Star Trek" fan that when he went off to college at a school where he had no TV, he had his father record the audio from each week's episode and mail it to him.

Sitting in his dorm room, Burtt would listen to the shows with headphones on, taking in each new episode with no pictures. But he didn't need the video to understand what was going on. "It was so vividly portrayed with excellent sound effects," Burtt said, "… Read more

Netflix subscribers eagerly awaiting the return of "Arrested Development" can see what's in store courtesy of a new promo trailer.

Posted by Netflix on YouTube Sunday, the 90-second spot briefly catches us up with each member of the Bluths, including Michael, Lindsay, Tobias, Gob, Buster, George Michael, Maeby, Lucille, and George Sr. And from the clip, it seems little has changed since we last saw the family that gives new meaning to the word dysfunctional.

Buster still seems as frightened of the world as ever. Gob is still hitting on women in the most inappropriate way possible. … Read more

Joss Whedon fans can now catch the latest musings of their favorite creative guru in 140 characters or less.

Whedon finally hopped onto the Twittersphere early Monday using the nom de Twitter of @JossActual. Displaying his usual deadpan sense of humor, Whedon describes himself as a "ladies man, man's man, man about town... Java man, Isle of Man, Mandroid, Man Who Would Be King Ralph, girly man."

As of late Monday, the writer and director known for "The Avengers," "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer," "Firefly," "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" … Read more

Any fan of "Star Wars" will immediately recognize the Lars Homestead, where Luke Skywalker grew up. But they may not realize that the sets used to film those scenes in the 1970s were left essentially untouched after George Lucas and his crew departed Tunisia.

Thanks to Laughing Squid, I stumbled across the beautiful and haunting photographs by visual artist Ra di Martino, who visited the location in Chott el Gharsa, Tunisia, where Lucas filmed those scenes, and captured their decrepit state years later.

Of course, there are a lot of people who want to keep the Lars Homestead … Read more

If Starfleet Academy has a Marketing 101 class, these commercials must surely be on the syllabus.

Twice in recent days, Earth's ad agencies have dispatched officers of the "Star Trek" franchise on missions not to seek out new worlds, but to sell new products.

First came a video clip from PC maker Acer using clips from the imminent "Star Trek Into Darkness," docking soon in a movie theater near you, to pump up the excitement for its new flagship Aspire R7.

Then Audi flew into view with a two-minute Spock vs. Spock spiel for its … Read more

Disney and Electronic Arts said today that the two entertainment giants have signed an exclusive deal under which EA will begin developing and publishing a series of new "Star Wars" video games.

In a release, Disney and EA said that the new "Star Wars" games will be created for "a core gaming audience," and that they will be developed for "all interactive platforms and the most popular game genres."

However, while the deal was termed "exclusive," the announcement noted that Disney will still maintain the right to develop other new … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--What I'm about to tell you is 100 percent true, no matter how much you will want to tell me I'm full of it: there are American adults who have never seen "Star Wars."

The 1977 George Lucas film is a timeless global phenomenon and may be one of the most embedded of all our cultural artifacts. It spawned an empire that Disney ended up buying for $4 billion, in large part because of the passion and commitment of its worldwide audience. But still some people, even those who watch other movies, and are part of mainstream society, managed to make it to 2013 without ever seeing it.

For one group of "Star Wars" newbies, though, their lifelong exclusion from one of the biggest clubs on Earth is over. … Read more

Hang onto your fur -- there's going to be a new "Star Wars" film in cinemas every summer. "Episode VII" will arrive in 2015, with "VIII" and "IX" following in two-year intervals.

The years in between (2016, 2018, and maybe 2020) will see spin-off movies, Disney boss Alan Horn told cinema owners at CinemaCon. These could focus on key characters such as Han Solo, Boba Fett, and Yoda.

Having paid $4 billion for its new set of action figures, Disney is desperate to start playing with them. This new release strategy … Read more