We knew it was coming and the end of the old Expanded Universe has finally been announced. In a two-part announcement it was revealed that beginning this summer, Lucasfilm with it’s publishing partners will begin a relaunch of the adult fiction line.  The old Expanded Universe is being rebranded as “Star Wars Legends” content which will remain in print and digital forms for fans.

Official Press Release of Relaunch:

DISNEY PUBLISHING WORLDWIDE and RANDOM HOUSE ANNOUNCE

RELAUNCH OF STAR WARS™ ADULT FICTION LINE

 

New Publishing Program to be Part of the Unified Star Wars  Storytelling Future

 

New York, NY – April 25, 2014 – Following today’s announcement of Lucasfilm’s new unified storytelling approach, Disney Publishing Worldwide is proud to announce their first step into that larger world, beginning with Del Rey Books. The publishing program will feature new adult fiction novels set in the beloved galaxy far, far away, and will be closely connected to the cinematic entertainment currently in development at Lucasfilm.

Star Wars  novels consistently rank on the New York Times  Bestseller lists — from the very first tie-in novel, an adaptation of Star Wars: A New Hope released by Del Rey in 1976, to the recently published Star Wars: Kenobi ­– and dozens of titles in between. With over 75 million copies sold worldwide, these books have captured the imaginations and creativity of authors who have enriched the Star Wars experience for fans around the globe.

Going forward, Lucasfilm has begun mapping out the narrative future of Star Wars  storytelling that will appear on film and television and in other media so that all projects will benefit from real-time collaboration and alignment. The future Star Wars  novels from Disney Publishing Worldwide and Del Rey Books will now be part of the official Star Wars  canon as reflected on upcoming TV and movie screens.

“With the establishment of the Lucasfilm Story Group and our even greater focus on unified storytelling, we expect our entire publishing program to be stronger and more meaningful than ever before,” said Jeanne Mosure, senior vice president and group publisher, Disney Publishing Worldwide. “We’re extremely excited to kick off this new strategy with Del Rey Books.”

The first novel to benefit from this deeper collaboration is Star Wars: A New Dawn, by bestselling author John Jackson Miller. Set prior to the events of the forthcoming animated series Star Wars Rebels,  this novel tells the story of how two of the lead characters of the series, Kanan Jarrus and Hera Syndulla, came to cross paths. To tell this important backstory, Miller benefited from contact with series executive producers Dave Filoni, Simon Kinberg and Greg Weisman, who together ensured this tale will be part of the Star Wars canon of storytelling going forward. It is scheduled for hardcover and eBook release on September 2, 2014.

“We’re extremely proud of the hundreds of amazing Star Wars  books we’ve published at Del Rey,” said Scott Shannon, SVP, Publisher, Del Rey and Digital Content, “And now we’re excited to finally be able to call our upcoming novels true canon—a single, cohesive Star Wars storyline—all while keeping the amazing backlist of Star Wars Legends content in print.”

Following Star Wars: A New Dawn, the all-new Star War s fiction line will continue with the following 2014/2015 titles:

STAR WARS: TARKIN

James Luceno

11/4/14

 

STAR WARS: HEIR TO THE JEDI

Kevin Hearne

January 2015

STAR WARS: LORDS OF THE SITH

Paul Kemp

March 2015

In years past, the storylines that would appear in print and on screen were developed separately, resulting in an “Expanded Universe” that differed in ways large and small from the filmmaker’s “canon.” These rich stories provide a treasure trove of characters to fall in love with — and deep worlds to explore and will live on in both physical and digital editions, newly-branded as Star Wars Legends.

For more information and for looks at the covers of all four new titles announced above, please visit the Del Rey Star Wars Books Facebook page at Facebook.com/StarWarsBooks.

For more information on the Star Wars Legends  rebranding and Expanded Universe, go to StarWars.com.

About Disney Publishing Worldwide

Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW) is the world’s largest publisher of children’s books and magazines with over 700 million products sold each year. DPW consists of an extensive worldwide licensing structure as well as vertically integrated publishing imprints, including Disney Book Group in the U.S. and Disney Libri in Italy. DPW publishes a range of children’s magazines globally, as well as Disney kids magazines in the U.S. Disney English is DPW’s English language learning business, which includes Disney English learning centers in China and a worldwide retail-licensing program. DPW’s digital products include bestselling eBook titles as well as original apps. Headquartered in Glendale, California, DPW publishes books, magazines, and digital products in 85 countries in 75 languages. For more information visit www.disneypublishing.com.

About Random House

The Random House Publishing Group had its origins in 1925 when Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, two New Yorkers in their mid-twenties, acquired a line of classics and contemporary American works called The Modern Library from publisher Horace Liveright. The company assumed the name Random House two years later, in 1927, when Cerf and Klopfer decided to publish a few books on the side, “at random.” Their artist friend Rockwell Kent drew his now celebrated logo of a random house, which made its debut in February l927. Among the first titles of the new imprint were limited editions illustrated by Kent of Voltaire’s Candide and Melville’sMoby Dick.

Del Rey Books (http://www.delreybooks.com) was founded in 1977 as an imprint of Ballantine Books, a division of the Random House Publishing Group, under the guidance of the renowned Judy-Lynn del Rey and her husband, Lester del Rey. Del Rey publishes the best of modern fantasy, science fiction, and alternate history.

In addition to the press release looking forward there was also a press release looking back at over 35 years of Expanded Universe content.

For over 35 years, the Expanded Universe has enriched the Star Wars experience for fans seeking to continue the adventure beyond what is seen on the screen. When he created Star Wars, George Lucas built a universe that sparked the imagination, and inspired others to create. He opened up that universe to be a creative space for other people to tell their own tales. This became the Expanded Universe, or EU, of comics, novels, videogames, and more.

While Lucasfilm always strived to keep the stories created for the EU consistent with our film and television content as well as internally consistent, Lucas always made it clear that he was not beholden to the EU. He set the films he created as the canon. This includes the six Star Wars episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. These stories are the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align.

Now, with an exciting future filled with new cinematic installments of Star Wars, all aspects of Star Wars storytelling moving forward will be connected. Under Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy’s direction, the company for the first time ever has formed a story group to oversee and coordinate all Star Wars creative development.

“We have an unprecedented slate of new Star Wars entertainment on the horizon,” said Kennedy. “We’re set to bring Star Wars back to the big screen, and continue the adventure through games, books, comics, and new formats that are just emerging. This future of interconnected storytelling will allow fans to explore this galaxy in deeper ways than ever before.”

In order to give maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience, Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe. While the universe that readers knew is changing, it is not being discarded. Creators of new Star Wars entertainment have full access to the rich content of the Expanded Universe. For example, elements of the EU are included in Star Wars Rebels. The Inquisitor, the Imperial Security Bureau, and Sienar Fleet Systems are story elements in the new animated series, and all these ideas find their origins in roleplaying game material published in the 1980s.

Demand for past tales of the Expanded Universe will keep them in print, presented under the new Legends banner.

On the screen, the first new canon to appear will be Star Wars Rebels. In print, the first new books to come from this creative collaboration include novels from Del Rey Books. First to be announced, John Jackson Miller is writing a novel that precedes the events of Star Wars Rebels and offers insight into a key character’s backstory, with input directly from executive producers Dave Filoni, Simon Kinberg, and Greg Weisman.

And this is just the beginning of a creatively aligned program of Star Wars storytelling created by the collaboration of incredibly talented people united by their love of that galaxy far, far away….

The announcement also included a great retrospective video from creative forces behind the Star Wars franchise discussing the Expanded Universe, now known as Star Wars Legends.

As a fan of the old Expanded Universe I would lie if I wasn’t a little sad to see it end, but I am incredibly excited by the books and authors announced and that the concept of a unified continuity going forward has me extremely excited.

There will be much more discussion of this major announcement in days ahead, but at this point I am still digesting it all.

SOURCES: StarWars.com and Random House