Note: Variety.com appears to be down as of this writing, so we’re introducing a new “trade” today: The Guardian.

• George Lucas says he’s finally begun work on his long-rumored live-action Star Wars TV series. Lucas is adamant that the series will go beyond the tortured Skywalker clan to focus on peripheral characters from the film series, which doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem with the fans: at 6:30 on my local news this morning, this story was punctuated with a shot of the sun triumphantly rising over Manhattan set, to Darth Vader’s theme song. Production assistants at WNBC will apparently take whatever Star Wars extension they can get.
• From the “Yes, The Hollywood Executive Actually Said That” File: Steven Zeitchik of The Hollywood Reporter says Tyler Perry’s box office victory last weekend (his third in three years, after 2005’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman and 2006’s Madea’s Family Reunion) has “heartened the growing number of studios looking to crack the market for black films.” He quotes Sony Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper:”There’s probably not one new story to tell that hasn’t been told about white people. But there are so many stories that haven’t been told yet about people with brown and black faces.”
• Warner Brothers will tack a seven-minute Batman short in front of IMAX prints of the Will Smith vampire film I Am Legend. The short will cover the origin story of the Joker, to be played in Christopher Nolan’s next Batman flick by Heath Ledger.