Sci-fi director JJ Abrams will head up the seventh Star Wars film, Lucasfilm owner Walt Disney Co has said. Star Wars creator George Lucas said he was the "ideal choice" to direct the movie - due out in 2015 - adding "the legacy couldn't be in better hands". It will be scripted by Oscar-winning writer Michael Arndt. Abrams, who co-created Lost and directed the Star Trek reboot, said he was "more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid". In October, Disney announced it had bought Lucasfilm for $4.05bn (£2.5bn) and was committed to three new films. Former Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who will produce the films, said Abrams was "the perfect director to helm this". "Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise - he understands the essence of the Star Wars experience," she said in a statement.