I'm not even gonna comment on the fact that I'm crippled with frustration about not being at the Festival de Cannes right now (missing it for the first time in three years). Oops, I guess I just did. At the end of the day, it's better that I'm in Austin (and will be in New York very soon). We're pretty stacked with things to do stateside for Cinetic Rights Management. Plus, I'm packing boxes, selling my stuff (my car and my furniture are now spoken for!), and spending time with lots of family. That doesn't mean I'm not checking sites and blogs for updates on which films are hits (I'm now dying to see Hunger, Waltz with Bashir, and Tyson) and what sort of "trouble" people are getting into. Apparently, it's raining a lot out there, but a rainy day in Cannes still beats a beautiful day almost anywhere else. Almost.

Anyway, this is one long-winded way of me getting to this interesting Cannes item by Fox's Roger Friedman. After chatting with George Lucas during the Kung Fu Panda after-party in France, Friedman more or less gets the scoop that a fifth Indiana Jones film is definitely a strong possibility and also reveals that Lucas had a hard time getting the animated Star Wars feature, Clone Wars, released by a major studio:

In August, Lucas says, he's releasing an animated 90-minute "Star Wars" movie to theaters via Warner Bros. called "Clone Wars." It will be followed in September by an animated series on the Cartoon Network and TNT.

"No one wanted it," he told me. "Every studio rejected it, including Fox, and I'm very loyal to them. They have right of first refusal. Eventually I brought it to Warners. It's the first time that three components of the studio have acted together. It's very exciting.

"But the story is that everyone said, 'No one gets this. It's just ... 'Star Wars.'' I said, 'That's right, It's just 'Star Wars.' Just like this is ... 'Indiana Jones.'"