This rumor is gaining more and more steam. Another Star Wars trilogy? Another movie more could be too much to handle.

At this point, it looks like Lucas is keeping his options open based on the performance of episode 3 in 2005. The Phantom Menace pulled in $431 while Attack of the Clones pulled in a relatively paltry $310. Given the bashing both films have taken, there's a good chance #3, or #6 depending on how you look at it, could flounder faster than The Hulk.

Lucas has mentioned in interviews that he wants to return to making more low budget features like THX-1138 and, everybody's favorite, The Radioland Murders, after the next film is released. Still, walking away from this golden goose could be tough. It took Paramount a 10 Star Trek outings to finally run that sci-fi series into the ground. The last geriatric Trek film made back only half of its budget at the box office.

Given the patience of sci-fi fans and the blind faith of Star Wars devotees, there could be another dozen of these things in the pipeline. If another trilogy is made, they'll be sequels to the original set. The big question here: will Lucas and Mark Hamill be able to set aside their differences for episode 7?