Alan Horn, Chairman of The Walt Disney Company, reports casting for Star Wars: Episode VII "is nearly complete" and will be announced "very shortly."  Horn also noted that though second unit work has indeed begun in Abu Dhabi, which is evidently filling in for the desert planet Tatooine (see "'Episode VII' Returns to Tatooine" and "Geek Film News Round-Up"), but that principal photography on the new Star Wars film, which is set to debut in theaters on December 18th, 2015, has yet to begin.
 
Horn also told Bloomberg News: "We actually don’t even have the completed budget yet, but these large, tentpole kinds of movies, are on the expensive side, they are in the neighborhood of $175-200 million, that kind of a number.  Some are more, some are less.  We need to give the audience, essentially, a full meal in return for their affection and devotion and love for these properties."
 
Actually Disney will be lucky if the studio can keep production costs on Episode VII down to $200 million.  Fox’s X-Men: Days of Future Past cost that much, and many big tentpoles have ended up with costs well beyond the $200 mark.