Celebrity Friday: JJ Abrams To Direct Star Wars VII

The celebrity news today that geeks are buzzing about is that J.J. Abrams, the director of the reboot of the Star Trek franchise with  2009's Star Trek movie (and its sequel Star Trek Intro Darkness coming out on May 17, 2013) has apparently been chosen by Disney to direct the next Star Wars film coming out in 2015 following Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm, Ltd for 4 billion dollars last fall.

Deadline Hollywood reports:

Star Trek director J.J. Abrams will be helming the next Star Wars movie. “It’s done deal with J.J.,” a source with knowledge of the situation told Deadline today. Argo director Ben Affleck was also up for the gig, the source says. Despite saying publicly that he didn’t want to direct a new Star Wars, Abrams was courted heavily by producer Kathleen Kennedy to take the job. Expected in 2015, Episode VII will be the first new Star Wars movie since 2005′s Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith. Michael Arndt is writing the script for the first installment of the relaunch of George Lucas’ franchise by Disney.

Many people are unhappy with the choice, notably Alyssa Rosenberg of Think Progress. I think I am agnostic on the choice, but it is definitely unusual to see someone who belongs to both "nerd universes" of Star Wars fandom as well as Star Trek fandom.