It appears that the force is strong between Star Wars' new owners Disney and Michael Arndt, the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind the films Little Miss Sunshine and Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 3 after it has emerged that he is in strong contention to pen the upcoming sequel to the beloved sci-fi series.

Hollywood gossip site Deadline broke the news, with many other sites jumping on board after, that Arndt, who is currently working on bringing the next The Hunger Games film (Catching Fire) to the screen, will be helping to bring Star Wars back to cinemas too. Apparently, the writer was already on board with Lucasfilm to move the franchise forward before George Lucas sold his company's rights to Disney for $4.05 billion last month. With Disney already raring to bring another Star Wars movie to the screen, it seems that they think that Arndt is still the man for the job and he will be sticking with team when it moves into production.

Disney CEO Bob Iger recently gave the word that the franchise would be extending past six episodes as soon as possible, telling the press recently, "We've got a lengthy treatment that comes with this that we feel really good about and the film is in what I'll call early-stage development right now."

The as yet untitled sequel is expected to be released in 2015.