"Star Wars: Episode VII" rumor report

Welcome to our new occasional feature reporting on “Star Wars: Episode 7” rumors. Our first installment deals with stories about Benedict Cumberbatch, John Williams, Simon Pegg, Saoirse Ronan and Daniel Day Lewis.

As a “Stars Wars” fan, the absence of real news (probably mostly due to notoriously secretive director J.J. Abrams) has been a little unnerving in this internet age. The rumor mill has gotten completely out of control. Like, a few weeks ago, a rumor started that Benedict Cumberbatch, who starred as John Harrison in “Star Trek into Darkness” and will soon be featured in, well, nearly everything else, was going to be in “Episode 7.”

As various websites debated the merits of this casting choice, the one thing that stood out was that there was no source behind it. No one had reported it. It seems that everyone just kinda wanted him to be in the movie.

Simon Pegg, geek extraordinaire and writer-star of the recent “The World’s End” had to come out and say “look guys, I’m not going to do it” to stop the rumors about him from flying, in an interview with BBC America.

People have opinions.

So what do we know? Well, the last real, official word from Lucasfilm was in July, during Celebration Europe, that the legendary John Williams would be handling the score. Believe it or not, this was in play, because Abrams usually uses Michael Giacchino, who did the score for “Lost” and “Super 8,” among others.

Still, that was two months ago, and it hardly seems climatic.

So earlier this week, when someone finally said something about it, reactions were grateful, hungry, and then everyone started scrambling to figure out what “Sky News” was (it’s a 24-hour news channel from the UK).

Saoirse Ronan (“Hanna,” “Atonement”) confirmed a rumor that she had auditioned for “Episode 7,” before adding “so has everyone.”

The source of many of the rumors is the website Latino Review, which floated the Cumberbatch rumor, and many others, which have since been discredited. In fact the Latino Review seems to be Rumor Central, and its attitude about its many wild casting and location stories seems to be “prove us wrong” (they still insist Cumberbatch is talking).

Then there are the people who just want to make fans mad, like the consistent rumor that Jar Jar Binks will be the main character in the new film. Debunked.

For instance, Latino Review reported George Lucas and Daniel Day Lewis, of all people, had lunch, and this means something to “Star Wars.” It probably means they enjoy lunch, but several outlets picked it up and asked their readers to comment on it, not taking into account the Latino Review has been running a crazy “Star Wars” rumor story nearly every day.

As for solid resources, starwars.com and lucasfilm.com are the only ones out there.