'Little Miss Sunshine' writer to pen new 'Star Wars' film

All we need now is a director and some actors.

(Credit: Lucasfilm)

It looks like the next "Star Wars" movie might get completed faster than it took to construct the second Death Star.

Disney and Lucasfilm have chosen Michael Arndt to write the screenplay for "Star Wars: Episode VII," the long-awaited follow-up to the 1983 epic "Return of the Jedi."

For those unfamiliar with Arndt, he won an Academy Award for penning "Little Miss Sunshine" and then earned a nomination for "Toy Story 3." In the years that followed, Arndt picked up screenwriting duties for the upcoming films "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," "Oblivion," and an untitled Pixar movie.

Coincidentally (or maybe not so much), it appears Arndt often used the story arc of the original "Star Wars" movie as an inspirational teaching tool when speaking to aspiring writers. According to Vulture, several years ago Arndt spoke publicly about how G... [Read more]