Today in Star Wars reports: Filming has already begun on movie most have already judged

Suggesting that even J.J. Abrams has grown impatient with J.J. Abrams to just announce his Star Wars cast already, filming has reportedly already begun on Episode VII, despite the fact that all the actors are not yet in place and the screenplay wasn’t yet completed even just a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, Disney’s Alan Horn told The Hollywood Reporter, “We’re actually shooting some of it now”—presumably moving ahead on some of the models and locations work, with the knowledge that things such as story and characters can always be added in during post.

Still, Horn says of the cast—despite the silence that has, very coincidentally, only created more chatter—“We have a lot of them,” even as they haven’t yet given us any names beyond R2-D2’s. It’s long been assumed that Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher will return, and of the many promising up-and-comers who have been rumored to trade that endless potential for decades of answering questions about spaceships, only Adam Driver has gotten anywhere close to being confirmed. Though, if we had to guess, Disney is just waiting for May 4 and “Star Wars Day” to introduce them—even if it’s just as a quick aside while announcing a new DVD set.

Besides, “It’s all about the screenplay,” Horn said. “It has to be screenplay, screenplay, screenplay,” he added, repeating the word by way of emphasizing the script’s importance, but also unconsciously evoking the number of drafts it’s gone through. Nevertheless, Horn says Abrams’ and Lawrence Kasdan’s script is now where it needs to be, and with the cast soon to be finalized, we can all look forward to these things being factored into a movie that is already shooting, that most have already made up their mind about, and that is immutably predestined to spawn sequels and spinoffs for decades to come, regardless of any of these details.