Rumour: Matthew Vaughn to direct Star Wars: Episode VII?

Matthew Vaughn is rumoured to be in talks with Lucasfilm to direct Star Wars: Episode VII .

The brand new installment in the space-opera saga is going to be the centre of some pretty intense rumour speculation right up until its May 2015 release, so take this with a handful of salt.

Collider reports that they’re hearing that Vaughn is in talks, and that the new SW was the reason behind the director’s decision to leave the X-Men franchise .

While Vaughn isn’t yet a household name, he has an extremely impressive directing career under his belt, currently standing four-for-four off Layer Cake , Stardust , Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class .

With a confident hand across a variety of genres, it’s easy to imagine Vaughn making an extremely capable candidate - particularly when you look at how he revamped X-Men with retro-swagger, after a duff threequel had stripped the franchise of its cool.

That said, we’re keeping this particular rumour at arm’s length until we hear an official announcement.

Expect plenty more names to be thrown into the ring before we find out who’s landed the top job.

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.