Christmas is over. The silver balls have been packed away. It’s time to start dragging out more pointless Star Wars gossip.

Shortly before the festive season kicked off, actor Jason Flemyng, striding the red carpet, seemed to have let slip that his friend Matthew Vaughan was set to direct the seventh film in the cycle. Nothing has emerged to definitively contradict that story. But other directors continue to tell stories of approaches by Disney, the project’s new supervisors.

Guillermo del Toro is the latest film-maker to have turned down the opportunity. “We got one phone call to my agent saying, ‘Is Guillermo interested?’” the director said. “And basically I have so much stuff already of my own, and I’m pursuing stuff that I’m generating already.”

Having spent two years of his life failing to make The Hobbit before handing the reins back to Peter Jackson, del Toro can be forgiven for treating such an offer with some caution.