“Walt Disney Co has agreed to buy filmmaker George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd and the ‘Star Wars’ franchise for $4.05 billion in cash and stock, a blockbuster deal that adds one of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history to Disney’s lineup,” Lisa Richwine and Ronald Grover report for Reuters.
“Disney said there would be a new series of ‘Star Wars’ feature films as part of the deal, with the first movie expected in 2015,” Richwine and Grover report. “Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger, in prepared remarks for analysts, said the plan was to release a new movie in the series every two to three years thereafter.”
Richwine and Grover report, “Lucas, a Hollywood icon known for exercising control over the most minute details of the fictional universe he created, will remain as a creative consultant. ‘It`s now time for me to pass ‘Star Wars’ on to a new generation of filmmakers,’ he said in a statement.”
MacDailyNews Note: Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, is the largest individual holder of Disney shares.
Richwine and Grover report, “This deal marks the third time in less than seven years that Disney has signed a massive deal to take over a beloved studio or character portfolio, part of its strategy to acquire brands that can be stretched across TV, movies, theme parks and the Internet. In early 2006, Disney struck a deal to acquire ‘Toy Story’ creator Pixar, and in the summer of 2009 it bought the comic book powerhouse Marvel Entertainment.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Thank God for beards or George Lucas would have no discernible chin.
Oh, come on, you were thinking it, too.
The good news is that any future “Star Wars” movies can’t be much worse than the last three.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
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If they replace Leia’s hair with mickey ears…
Gold bikini + Mickey ears and I’m in.
May the Mouse be with you.
just my $0.02
2.2% at 4.05 billion? Chewie!!
It was cash and stock, so his 2.2% is not worth $4.05 B
It was half in cash and then 40 million shares of Disney.
A New Hope?
Maybe… Pixar and Lucasfilm are re-united under the very LARGE Disney roof.
Steve Jobs to Luke : Luke, I am your owner.
Please Apple, buy Disney!
Goofy shot first!
By his dog Pluro?
Make the Darth Bane trilogy into movies, if nothing else it can be an apology for 1,2 & 3.
I REALLY hope Disney uses some of their talent from the Marvel Comics side of the house to do the writing and directing for Episodes 7 – 9.
That would be great! Let’s hope they don’t use the JOHN CARTER talent instead!
Ok. John Carter wasn’t that bad.
Agreed. It was a good movie and it seems like the book of John Carter was the inspiration for Star Wars, Stat Trek and other SiFi. I had never heard of John Carter before and that was one of the problems. From what I heard Disney made minimal marketing since they believed every one already knew who John Carter was. It was an extremely expensive movie to produce, $400 million but no one would have coma ones about that if it took in like $600 million. After the “economic” flop that was John Carter everyone started attacking the movie which I think was wrong. I am happy Disney took the step and produced the movie.
Do I smell a Star Wars Theme Park coming?
Yep
It will be interesting to see which direction Disney goes first — back to the Old Republic days (pre Episodes 1-3), or continuing on with a galaxy not so long, long ago with Episode 7 and after.
You almost have to go 7,8,9 before Mark Hamill is TOO old. Bad enough Harrison is already like 75.
Time for a new cast and direction. Harrison Ford reprising Hans Solo would be as painful as William Shatner and Leonard Lemoy reprising Kirk and Spock.
Way back when (after 1 [aka Episode 4] came out), the plan was to do 12 movies. Lucas spoke publicly about this plan several times. Then after 2 [aka Episode 5] came out and Lucas saw that doing 12 would be a major grind, the plan was to do nine movies. Do 4, 5 & 6 then while the actors age naturally, do 1, 2 & 3 (the prequels). Finally, do 7, 8 & 9 with the original, now older, actors heavily in 7 and less and less through 8 & 9.
Clearly that never happened.
Maybe Disney will bring the original 12 back with the order
A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (using the current numbering for Episodes 1 through 6) with 7, 8 & 9 being done first. Maybe in A we see a young Yoda?
Even if you go completely new cast, Luke (Hamill) is the last known surviving Jedi. You need more than a 5 minute cameo to give you the push into the new direction. Either way, summer 2015 is not so far away that we wont be hearing rumors by next summer.
We’ll be watching your career with great interest!
Boy! This can’t hurt Apple. Disney has been on board with Apple’s movie/television desires. This makes that cooperation that much more important. I’m not saying that this will make the Apple iTV happen but it will get it a little bit closer. And I for one believe that it will happen. And not that far in the future. The studios and cable operators are going to be a difficult challenge for Apple but I just think that it will come to fruition. And I think it will happen in 2013.
As sue as daylight Apple an Disney will dance and soon
You can say that again.
As sure as daylight, Apple an Disney will dance and soon.
Third time is a charm, go for it.
Despite people often malign Lucas for questionable SW Episode 1,2,3 series, the guy still has historic significance any way.
His work led not only to SW, Indiana Jones and other franchises, but also led to creation of Pixar, THX, Industrial Light and Magic, and many more smaller companies.
I wonder whast SW Episode VII is going to about since Lucas is said to be only creative adviser of this film.
Marvel used to publish the original Star Wars comic books…
Now the circle is complete. Take over of the world is now in place.
Please don’t let Lucas direct any of the future sw movies.
I don’t believe he has any intention of directing any further SW films.
More importantly, don’t let him write any of them.
This is a large stretch to tie to Apple. I really don’t want these stories when I am looking for Apple news on an Apple news site.
You can skip over it, you know.
Is this story relevant to you?
Sure. Many Apple/Mac users are also geeks. Many geeks are scifi fans, Star Wars fans, and because of Steve Jobs and Apple, Pixar fans. Since Pixar is now a subsidiary of Disney, Disney also holds special interest to Apple/Mac fans.
Add to that the iTunes and Apple TV connection, and goings-on of this magnitude in the film and broadcast industries are very relevant and interesting to much of the crowd on this site.
If you need more evidence, this story has garnered 65 comments, while the story posted a bit earlier about Ballmer calling Apple a ‘low-volume player’ attracted 74 comments.
I’ll say it again: You [i]can[/i] simply choose to skip over the stories that don’t interest you.
Are you sure that I can skip these types of stories? How can I do that? Is there some kind of magical software to keep my finger from clicking a story if it is not really about Apple?
Yes, you can use the truly magical “software” between your ears to skip the “not really about Apple” stories. 😉
How can you know before you click that the story isn’t about Apple? Maybe you can use that same magical software?
Well, the first big clue is the title of the story: “Disney buys George Lucas’s Lucasfilm and ‘Star Wars’ franchise for $4.05 billion”.
Notice the key terms ‘Disney’, ‘George Lucas’, ‘Lucasfilm’, and ‘Star Wars’. Notice also that ‘Tim Cook’, ‘iPad’, ‘Mac’ or ‘Apple’ are nowhere to be found. Those would be your first clues.
If all that eludes you, and you click anyway, then after you scan over the story in five seconds and see little or no Apple-specific relevance, you can click the “back” button and resume trolling. Based on this exchange, it’s clear you’re not worried about wasting a few minutes of your time, so clearly a few seconds would be of no concern.
And if they post chocolate chip cookie recipes? Could the link to Apple be that Tim Cook’s name is nearly the same or that he or others at Apple like cookies too?
Beauty
Yes, there are those of us who see Disney as a possible partner, or a possible acquisition for Apple. SJ was Disney’s largest single stockholder. So yes, it is very relevant to Apple.
But it IS the geek news of the year.
+1
Isn’t there a ‘geek’ site somewhere else? Couldn’t MacDailyNews be about Mac’s and Apple?
couldn’t you just SHUT THE FUCK UP?
I second that motion … and Sheldon makes it three.
Once again, you show your superior language skills and class.
Steve shot first.
1,974 😀
Star Wars themed Disney Cruise!
Someone in the thread suggests the possible STAR WARS theme park idea is cool. I’d like to see it happens.
they buy Pixar, they buy Marvel, now this…
The Empire Grows..
and dares the little rebellious studios…
from another franchise : “Resistance is futile… “
Now if Apple would just buy Disney and get all of it. Lucas Film, Pixar, Buena Vista, Touchstone, ABC, ESPN, the whole Disney library. I always thought there was an outside chance that SJ was trying to amass enough money to swing it. It would make Apple TV suddenly a non-hobby.
Oh they can buy it. Anytime they want to.
At $88.13B market cap it would take too much of Apple’s cash horde right now. It would take another several billion dollars to make all that content available somehow. I always thought the trigger point, if they were going to do it, would be when they had twice Disney’s market cap in cash, roughly $200B or so.
NT
Steve was so I guess now she is.
Disney North
Lucas Film Digital Arts campus is in the San Francisco Presidio a block away from the Disney Family Museum that includes the 26 Academy Awards won by Disney. With Pixar just across the Bay in Emeryville, Disney’s Northern California presence is substantial.
Great News! I was concerned we’d never see another Star Wars movie as long as George Lucas had a say in it. George seamed set against the idea of ever creating anymore Star Wars movie.
Disney can’t do any worse than Lucas did with the last three. I’m sure we’ll have an Ewok-only version.
Frogblast the vent core !!
I think they should just leave it as is. But that is just my opinion.
Given the relationship with Apple, I wonder what will become of that “Droid” trademark license deal…