The Carrie Fisher Mind-F#ck Continues as George Lucas Denies Her Denial

Businessweek just published an interesting article that went through all the details and nuances that led to Disney buying Lucasfilm. And coming off seemingly bitter for some reason, George Lucas is quoted describing the deals made with the original three main actors from the original trilogy:

Asked whether members of the original Star Wars cast will appear in Episode VII and if he called them before the deal closed to keep them informed, Lucas says, "We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison-or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, ‘Look, this is what's going on.' " He pauses. "Maybe I'm not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them." Then he adds: "I won't say whether the negotiations were successful or not."

Even though just this morning, Carrie Fisher's reps waved off her assertion that she was confirmed to be returning as Princess Leia as nothing but a joke, it seems like she'd already long been in near-confirmed talks to come back. The same goes for Harrison Ford, whose supposed return was only confirmed about three weeks ago, even though it seems like he was ready to come on board back in 2012. And let's not even forget about Mark Hamill's back-and-forth confirmation (although like most things to do with Mark Hamill, you probably did anyway).

I think, at the end of the day, what the problem is is that Disney had big plans to make an announcement about Mark, Carrie and Harrison and the three officially returning as their iconic characters after 30 years, but people have loose lips and so a really half-assed game of retract and deny has gone out. I would probably expect an official announcement to be made coming off the heels of the Businessweek article which is probably not what Disney wanted, but hey, screw 'em.