Photo: LucasFilm

It feels like a day doesn’t go by without some quote, rumor, or speculation that Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and Harrison Ford will return for the next set of Star Wars movies. Earlier this week, Fisher said “yes,” only to have her publicist say it was just a joke. But now the latest word comes from arguably the most reliable source: George Lucas. In Bloomberg Businessweek, in a long piece about Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm, the man himself let this slip: “We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison — or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation.” He quickly realized his misstep: “Maybe I’m not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them.” Then, trying to cover up: “I won’t say whether the negotiations were successful or not.” Nice try, George. There’s no way in this galaxy or one far, far away that those three would just shrug their shoulders and pass on this.