This may delight or appall Star Wars fans, but J.J. Abrams has turned down the chance to direct the new Star Wars movie out of loyalty to both his ongoing Star Trek reboot, and his love of the original Star Wars trilogy. The Star Trek Into Darkness director revealed he was approached regarding Disney's sequels to their recently acquirement early on in the process, but chose to remain a fan rather than getting involved. Probably because he knows that no matter what he did with it, people will hate him regardless.
In an interview with Empire Magazine he said "There were the very early conversations and I quickly said that because of my loyalty to Star Trek, and also just being a fan [of Star Wars], I wouldn't even want to be involved in the next version of those things. I declined any involvement very early on. I'd rather be in the audience not knowing what was coming, rather than being involved in the minutiae of making them."
Guess we'll just have to keep waiting until someone is brave enough to step up to the ranks of director. Although, let's just be grateful that George Lucas isn't taking the helm. We all saw what happened to the originals once he got his 21st century techno-mitts on them. Can you imagine what he'd do with IMAX and 3D? We'd have 40 foot Wookies drooling on our heads. Actually, that doesn't sound too bad. Meanwhile, Abrams's latest Trek film Star Trek Into Darkness is out May 14th, 2013, and we are still chomping at the bit.