The proposed live-action “Star Wars” TV series has been in development for years now, and Den of Geek recently spoke with Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum who spoke about the tone, the project’s current status, and the economic realities.

As of now, “we have spent three and a half years on and there are 50 hours totally scripted… Well, they’re all second draft scripts and it would probably take a year of prep before shooting would start, but that’s because they’re all very complex” he says.

A big concern is the content which will NOT be targeted at the kids – “These stories are adult. I mean… these are like Deadwood in space. [It’s] so unlike anything you’ve ever associated with George before in relation to Star Wars. These aren’t for kids. I mean, we hope they’ll watch, but it’s not being targeted at 8-to-9 year old boys.”

The main factor holding it back? Cost. “The situation we have is that each episode – or if you put two hour long episodes together – is bigger than any film we’ve ever done. It’s on the Avatar level and we’ll only have about $5-6 million we can spend on each episode” he says.