Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm

Source: Walt Disney’s corporate site

Also, tucked into the press release is a mention of “Star Wars Episode VII”. Make of that what you will.

Key Lucas quote:

For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next. It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime.

10 replies on “Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm”

  1. Ha! Beat me on the post!

    Well, Disney has a history of keeping franchise characters alive for extended periods of time. I just hope them buying Lucasfilm (and the alleged plan to have a new Star Wars film every two or three years) doesn’t mean we get overly cutesy characters, excessive merchandising, and character overexposure.

    *cough*

  2. I’m not sure who is more evil, Lucas or Disney. Does Disney constantly rewrite their old movies? Probably not as much as Lucas does. They do release updated versions now and then but mostly just cleaned up and upgraded quality.

    But think of what this could mean… Whedon directing Star Wars. Good? Bad?

    • Whedon directing Star Wars…It’ll never happen, but I just lost ten minutes fantasizing about what that would be like.

      So far, Disney’s “influence” has been pretty good for Marvel. And Disney/LucasFilm team-up made for the super-awesome fan-fulfillment joygasm Star Tours.

  3. If they treat the acquisition like they did Marvel (“keep doing your own creative and we’ll handle marketing”) this could be great. If they farm out the sequels to Pixar, this could be great. If they farm out the sequels to the people responsible for Lion King 33 1/3 or whomever, it could be very, very NOT great. I won’t judge this until I get more details.

    • Jon Lassiter is on record as saying that he’s against the made-for-DVD sequels (though I don’t know how much success he’s had at it).

      And for the record, Lion King 1 1/2 was actually pretty funny (sort of a Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead vibe to it). Lion King 2 was heinous.

  4. Personally still struggling to take in this news.

    This is a HUGE happening.

    I was totally resigned to the fact that I’d never see Episode 7. Now theres a chance the likes of John Lassiter or Josh Whedon could be involved in making that movie. Frankly I am thinking that ep 7 has a great chance of being a good movie and a reasonalble chance of being a great one.

      • The feature films? Probably not.

        But here is some scary Halloween food for thought:
        Direct to DVD Jar Jar Binks movies.

        • I don’t see that as scary. As much as Jar Jar was hated by any older audience members, the really young ones loved him. I’m okay with Jar Jar getting a clearly labelled line of his own products that are distinct from the others, so that his fans can find him and the rest of us can easily avoid him.

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