Lucasfilm To Be Purchased by the House of Mouse

[DustoMan]

Breaking -

Almost like it was April Fools day, The Walt Disney Company has announced that it is going to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd from George Lucas in a cash and stock transaction valued at $4.05 billion. Part of the deal will include a 7th Star Wars film in 2015 with more expected to continue in the future.

Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Lucasfilm, a leader in entertainment, innovation and technology, including its massively popular and "evergreen" Star Wars franchise and its operating businesses in live action film production, consumer products, animation, visual effects, and audio post production. Disney will also acquire the substantial portfolio of cutting-edge entertainment technologies that have kept audiences enthralled for many years. Lucasfilm, headquartered in San Francisco, operates under the names Lucasfilm Ltd., LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic, and Skywalker Sound, and the present intent is for Lucasfilm employees to remain in their current locations.

Press release here: http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-news/press-releases/2012/10/disney-acquire-lucasfilm-ltd

Conference call starting in a few minutes.

 

[navychop]

Wow. I didn't see that coming. I thought old George LIVED for running that company. Wonder what he'll do now.

 

[Teehar]

Oh no the mouse has all the cheese now.

 

[DustoMan]

Listening to the call: They said the plan is to put out a new Star Wars film every two to three years. Meaning beyond 7-8-9.

When you step back and think about it. This is a cash cow that Disney plans on using to dig themselves out of some missteps outside of the success of Marvel and Pixar. Their original properties have not done well.

 

[Teehar]

Listening to the call: They said the plan is to put out a new Star Wars film every two to three years. Meaning beyond 7-8-9.

Sounds good in theory but,how many decent Star Wars films can be made?

 

[DustoMan]

Sounds good in theory but,how many decent Star Wars films can be made?

If they can get the right people... probably quite a few. 7-8-9 have been in Lucas' head since the beginning. And really some of the best things that are Star Wars are things that Lucas didn't have direct control over where there's been room to take some risks in storytelling and flesh out some things. (The Clone Wars animated series for example.) It's a really rich universe. Hell they can just adapt some of the better novels to the big screen.

 

[navychop]

Oh no the mouse has all the cheese now.

Ain't it the truth. Too darned much cheese controlled by one mouse.

 

[DustoMan]

Still listening to the call: Much like them putting Marvel properties on Disney XD, they see great potential in putting Star Wars properties there. Maybe we will also finally get that long rumored Star Wars TV series that has a season or two basically written, but Lucas didn't have the energy to do.

The call is over. Much talk about projections and financials.. obviously. They also made mentioned a little bit about some preexisting deals between Lucasfilm and film companies that preclude them from fully take advantage of the moneys they could take in by putting out films. 20th Century Fox in the case of Star Wars and Paramount in the case of Indiana Jones. The next Star Wars film in 2015 would be a combined Fox/Disney joint, while the deal for Indiana Jones kept them from making any real valuation on the property. While they do like the IP, they couldn't put down it's value to paper. That said, it's no where nearly as complex as the preexisting deals with Marvel characters that they have to deal with.

 

[DustoMan]

Wow. I didn't see that coming. I thought old George LIVED for running that company. Wonder what he'll do now.

So that was brought up on the call and Iger said that about five years ago, Lucas was starting to think about retiring and started to put things in place at the company so that he could start pursuing it. And it was a year ago that Iger and him talked about the possibility of doing a deal.

 

[dfergie]

Just saw this... wow!

 

[mike123abc]

I think it could be a good thing. I would like to see more Star Wars movies, even if they become like Star Trek movies where you just have to evaluate each movie as is verses the continuity of the Star Wars universe. Perhaps every other movie or every third movie would be a good movie, but at least the movies would be made verses never having another Star Wars movie again.

 

[KE4EST]

Just saw this... wow!

Me too, wow is right!

 

[angiodan]

Hell they can just adapt some of the better novels to the big screen.

Make Zahn's Heir to the Empire Triology for 7, 8 and 9, and you'd have a great start. Love to see Grand Admiral Thrawn on the big screen!

 

[dangue]

Make Zahn's Heir to the Empire Triology for 7, 8 and 9, and you'd have a great start. Love to see Grand Admiral Thrawn on the big screen!

Except they'd have to recast all the characters. I'm not sure how well that would work given the iconic nature of Luke, Leia and Han. Those books were also amazingly complex (a good thing), it'd be tough sledding adapting them into reasonable length movies.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[Kraven]

Awesome news! Problem w/ Lucas is he' changes his tune depending on which way the wind blows. In the early 80s he stated he had an 9 episode arc for SW.
Then in 83 he said "that's it". News of the prequels in 95 because the technology is available for his vision and afterwards stated he never said there would be 9 movies, SW was always based on the 'rise, fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker'. When asked if there would be more, or if another filmaker could resume the sotry, GL said, "nah, its my thing". Interesting though in the late 90s, Mark Hamill claimed he was approched by Lucas to resume the role of a 60 year old Skywalker in 2015...

Anywho, its been stated Episode 7 will follow luke, Leia, Han and company after the events of ROTJ.....Any speculations on the possible story? The Timothy Zahn Heir to the Empire trilogy wont work because of the age, and considering Darth Vader has always been associated w/ SW... am going to jump up the deep end and state we might see an Anakin clone (H. Christensen is still very young)

For those who might know, w/ all these SW books out, one the conditions set by Lucas was never to touch Luke Skywalkers kids.. so..

Can't wait.

Cheers, K

 

[Ramy]

This was a shock to me too. Happy to see more movies. They can't be as bad as the prequel trilogy turned out to be can they?

 

[king3pj]

I'm all for giving someone else a shot at Star Wars. Maybe someone new can revive the franchise.

 

[Peter Parker]

This was a shock to me too. Happy to see more movies. They can't be as bad as the prequel trilogy turned out to be can they?

oh yes they can. It is always possible to go further downhill.

 

[Kraven]

Disney did do us all a favour as this deal now prevents Lucas from doing a sequel to Howard the Duck

Cheers, K

 

[navychop]

"Son of Luke"