Empire recently sat down with director JJ Abrams and asked him why he turned down Disney's offer to helm Star Wars Episode VII. The director, who will be releasing Star Trek Into Darkness later next year couldn't be convinced...
There were the very early conversations and I quickly said that because of my loyalty to Star Trek, and also just being a fan (of Star Wars), I wouldn't even want to be involved in the next version of those things.
I declined any involvement very early on. I'd rather be in the audience not knowing what was coming, rather than being involved in the minutiae of making them.
Cop out? Who knows but it would seem that the list of directors available to help the upcoming sequels is growing ever shorter. Someone who has been ridiculously quiet for a while now about his next film who everyone seems to be leaving out is Christopher Nolan, and while that's a snowballs chance in hell that he would even consider it...I'd be interested to find out if he was on the short list Disney is contacting about revamping the franchise. Me personally? I like the idea of Jon Favreau.