Steven Spielberg Says No to Directing ‘Star Wars: Episode 7′

When the news of a 'Star Wars: Episode 7' broke, Steven Spielberg's name immediately began being bandied about as a potential director because of his ties to both new Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy (once Spielberg's secretary who would later produce many of his most successful movies) and former Lucasfilm head George Lucas. But the problem is nobody asked Spielberg himself if he'd be interested. It turns out...not so much.

Spielberg is out promoting 'Lincoln' and was asked on the red carpet if he'd be up for directing 'Star Wars: Episode 7' and he had a rather blunt answer. "No. No." Access Hollywood even adds exclamation points onto his no's as if he were emphatic about his disinterest.

Asked to elaborate, Spielberg said:

It’s not my genre. It’s my best friend George’s genre.

To be fair, it is kinda your genre, Spielberg. You are, after all, next directing a movie called 'Robopocalypse' about robots that try to take over the world, so let's not pretend that the adventures of Luke Skywalker are so above you.

It's nice to see that Lucas and Spielberg (seen above in 1977 on the set of 'Star Wars') are still BFFs through the years and through all of Lucas' middling with the Indiana Jones films and we're sure that friendliness led to Spielberg just being polite about genres: he probably really just doesn't want to direct a 'Star Wars' film. And really, why should he? He's Steven Spielberg, he creates franchises, he doesn't step in when the original creator feels like retiring.

So back to the drawing board for your 'Star Wars: Episode 7' directors. Has anyone called Duncan Jones yet?