According to IESB the president of Lucas Licensing Howard Hoffman is saying that a live action tv series will indeed be coming. The date slated is the Fall of 2006. As we have been reporting George Lucas will have absolutely nothing to do with the series creatively. Lucas in an interview with USA today said

Ultimately, I'm going to probably move it into television and let other people take it.....You know, I've got offshoot novels, I've got offshoot comics. So it's very easy to say, "Well, OK, that's that genre, and I'll find a really talented person to take it and create it." Just like the comic books and the novels are somebody else's way of doing it. I don't mind that. Some of it might turn out to be pretty good. If I get the right people involved, it could be interesting.

This is where it gets really interesting. According to Robert Sanchez at IESB Kevin Smith is in line to take the reigns of the new Star Wars Series, that is to come out 1 year after Revenge of the Sith hits theatres. Here is what Ryan had to say at IESB.

All indications from Skywalker Ranch point to George wanting to find someone to take creative control from his hands. George will remain as an "Executive Producer" but wants to have a creative team including veteran sci-fi writers and directors. The most interesting thing is that George is wanting to hand over the reigns of Star Wars to someone who will respect the films and is actually a fan of the saga. One name keeps popping up during my calls to my "Ranch" associates as a perfect candidate to become "Lord" over Star Wars. According to Lucasfilm insiders George would like someone with writing and directing experience and that already has a connection with the fan base and also be an independent film maker.

So who is this "Fan Boy" that Lucasfilm would like to recruit? Before I drop any names I am sure that plenty of you guys and gals will think that I am absolutely crazy and out of my mind. The first name that I was given was no other than Kevin Smith. "Kevin Smith would be the ideal person to handle a Star Wars TV series", the IESB was told. "He is well recognized with the fandom and he was worked on some capacity with Lucasfilm during a Hasbro commercial a few years back, he is also a very good writer," said the source.

So would Kevin Smith be interested in getting involved in some capacity with Star Wars TV? You normally don't get directors from the big screen go to the small screen but if there is any truth to these speculations we might have the best of Star Wars ahead of us. But as much optimism there is from one side of the Ranch there is also some pessimism.

"I just hope that he [George] doesn't just do the TV series for the money that it will make and end up giving us a weekly kiddie show, he needs to learn from the mistakes from Star Trek and give sci-fi fans a quality show," said the source.