The main reason Star Wars: Underworld isn’t being made is that the stories are too mature

George Lucas and producer Rick McCallum have periodically teased the epic existence of a Star Wars TV series entitled “Star Wars: Underworld” that would take place on Coruscant and already boasts fifty hours of completed scripts.  Which is kind of crazy awesome.  Too bad it’s probably never going to happen, but not for the reason you might expect.

The main issue lies with the possible rating “Star Wars: Underworld” would receive, as explained in this excerpt from a recent inteview McCallum gave to promote the DVD release of RED TAILS:: “Our biggest problem is that these stories are adult. I mean…these are like Deadwood in space. It so unlike anything you’ve ever associated with George before in relation to Star Wars. These aren’t for kids. I mean, we hope they’ll watch, but it’s not being targeted at 8-to-9 year old boys. The situation we have is that each episode – or if you put two hour long episodes together – is bigger than any film we’ve ever done.  It’s on the Avatar level and we’ll only have about $5-6 million we can spend on each episode.”

To go along with those budgetary concerns: “The episodes are too expensive and…well, we’ve got two things going on. Firstly, we’ve got television as we know it about to implode. You’ve got network TV, which is really where we should be because it has the dollars to pay for this and an audience, but you’re burdened by the fact you only get 42 minutes for an hour because of commercials. And then you’ve got cable, which has the most provocative and daring programming, but has audiences of 1 or 2 million people. They also have a very limited amount of money they can spend without wanting some sort of say or control over the material, which is absolutely repugnant to us in terms of the way we work.”

I’m going to try and say this as gently as I can… WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM?!?!?!? “Deadwood” was one of the best things that ever happened to television, and the younger padawans among us already have some quality programming with “Star Wars: The Clone Wars.”  I give up.  I really don’t think my brain is capable of comprehending this line of logic.  Just put it on HBO or STARZ, use your own mounds of millions, and give us something that would go a long way towards replenishing all of the love lost over these last years.