Yet another OG cast member of Star Wars has been (possibly) confirmed for the upcoming, and highly anticipated, Episode 7 -- a shaggy, eight-foot Wookie we all know and love! 

Yahoo! News is reporting that Peter Mayhew -- who played Chewbacca in the first three Star Wars movies, as well as in Revenge of the Sith -- has cancelled his appearance at Comicpalooza in Texas on May 23 due to "filming commitments." As we all know, director JJ Abrams has confirmed that he will begin the principal filming for the next installment of the sci-fi series in May... so is this as good of a commitment as we'll get, given that Abrams is being tight-lipped about the cast?

Well, according to Metro U.K., it just might be... the only thing that Abrams is willing to confirm, at this point, is that there will be "lots of familiar faces" alongside some unknowns. Metro spoke to Lost actor Dominic Monaghan, and he confirmed that Abrams is sticking to the tried and true strategy of casting unknowns, for the ultimate benefit of the film. "We've talked a few times about it and he said 'We're putting together a cast of unknowns -- we want to follow the '77 New Hope cast because obviously Harrison Ford wasn't well known at that point, Mark Hamill wasn't and Carrie Fisher wasn't either. What he said was, we don't want to fall into that mistake of people going 'Oh it's that guy from that thing!' and then you're completely out of the Star Wars universe," said Monaghan. 

J. J. Abrams is attached to direct the film based on a screenplay written by himself and Lawrence Kasdan, who acted as co-writer on The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Originally, Academy Award-winning screenwriter Michael Arndt was attached to pen the screenplay after writing a 40-50 page treatment. Arndt has since dropped out of the production, although it remains unknown whether he will be credited Producers include Kathleen Kennedy and Abrams' long-time collaborator Bryan Burk. Star Wars creator George Lucas will act as creative consultant on Episode VII (and other new Star Wars films). It appears likely that cast members Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher will reprise their roles from Episodes IV, V, and VI.