Steven Spielberg Won't Do Star Wars

Lincoln took the spotlight at a rainy premiere Thursday night, closing out AFI Fest 2012. But whispers of Star Wars made their way to the red carpet. Steve Spielberg, however, took the speculation head-on, saying he won't direct any future Star Wars installments.

The long-time colleague and friend of George Lucas gave an emphatic negative about possibly taking on directing the planned Episode 7, set for 2015.

"No, no!" he told Access Hollywood at the Lincoln event. "It's not my genre. It's my best friend George's genre."

Furthermore, he said he's no longer interested in action-pics (though he has signed on for Sci-Fi thriller Robopocalypse post-Lincoln).

"I knew I could do the action in my sleep at this point in my career," he said. "In my life, the action doesn't hold any … it doesn't attract me any more," he said recently on 60 Minutes.

Star Wars will return, courtesy of the sale of Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company for $4.05 billion, which promptly said it will launch a new installment in the huge franchise in 2015, and that a Star Wars 8 and 9 are also on-tap.

But just how much Lucas will oversee the next Star Wars movies is still a matter of speculation. He said in the official statement about Lucasfilms' sale that it's "... Now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I've always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime."

He also said recently at a post-sale event that he'd like to do "little personal films" going forward, and that he's turning the ship over to another long-time collaborator.

"I've turned it over to a wonderful producer, Kathy Kennedy, and I've known her for years," he said. "She's more than capable of taking it and making it better than I did." He added, "It's very sad. It's 40 years of work and it's been my life, but I'm ready to move on to bigger and better things."

[Source: Access Hollywood]