Star Wars sequel news update: Was Matthew Vaughn just confirmed as the director for Episode VII?

After a bit of a turkey fueled lull in the Star Wars rumour mill, English actor Jason Flemyng, may just have let slip that his longtime friend and frequent collaborator, director Matthew Vaughn, may be the man to bring Star Wars back to the big screen.

To quote that great thespian Keanu Reeves: “Whoa”. Then to quote our very own Matthew Vaughn fanboy, Lourens, when he reads that previous paragraph “OMFGBBQROFLLOLLERSKATES!”

Flemyng was doing some press rounds at the premier of his new film, Seven Psychopaths, when he confirmed that he would be reprising his role in the new X-Men: Days of Future Past. Flemyng of course played the teleporting, demon lookalike Azazel in the Matthew Vaughn written/directed X-Men: First Class. Vaughn though had since handed over the directing reins for the sequel to Bryan Singer, so that he could pursue something else. Vaughn’s other collaborator Mark Millar claims that “something else” to be Secret Service, the espionage flick they’re putting together, but according to Flemyng, when asked about what else might be in Vaughn’s future, the young director is interested in another secretive project.

HeyUGuys (via The Film Stage) captured the moment.

Now to be fair, Flemyng doesn’t out and out say that Vaughn has been given the nod by Disney and Lucasfilm, but rather that he really wants it, which is far cry from the “official” stance we’ve been getting about how Vaughn is too busy with other mystery projects to take this on.

While not my first choice, I really couldn’t fault Disney or Lucasfilm if Vaughn does get the nod. He’s easily proven himself capable of the required visual imagination necessary for Star Wars, does big budget spectacle with aplomb, handled big casts easily and has produced amazing results under immense pressure in the past (he shot First Class in just 6 weeks). Really, the only thing holding him back was that he seemingly took himself out of the running, but could all of that have just been a ruse?

As always though, nothing is set in stone until we hear it out of the mouths of Disney and Lucasfilm themselves.

Last Updated: November 28, 2012