Disney Buys Lucasfilm for $4.05 Billion

By Nathan Young on October 30, 2012

Update: By the way this is my 1,000th post on Geek Alabama! I am happy to be at this point on Geek Alabama!

Here is a video showing George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy discuss the future of Star Wars movies.

Today Disney Broke the news that they are buying Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion dollars! Lucasfilm’s holdings including special effects house Industrial Light and Magic and Skywalker Sound, and their game development arm, Lucasarts. The whole deal will be overseen by Kathleen Kennedy, who’s the co-chairperson of Lucasarts and will join Disney as president of Lucasfilm. Disney has already partnered with Star Wars in their parks and this comes as no surprise! Here is a photo from 2010 showing George Lucas posing with Disney characters in Star Wars gear!

From Disney

Here is a picture of George Lucas and Disney CEO Bob Iger signing the deal on paper!

From Disney.

The biggest part of this deal that is leaving many fans heads scratching is the plans to produce Star Wars Episode 7 in 2015. Yes Disney will now make Star Wars Episode 7 and it will be released in 2015. There are also plans to release a new film every two to three years, according to the Walt Disney Company. It is way too early in the game to tell what Episode 7 will be about. But I suspect it would be in the time period after Episode 6 ended. Also; this is in addition to new “Star Wars” properties including the in-development game 1313 and the animated series from Seth Green and Matt Senreich, “Star Wars: Detours”. So if you are a fan of Star Wars you will have a lot of Jedi action heading your way in a few years!

On a conference call, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that in addition to Episode 7, Episodes 8 and 9 are also in the works. The goal, Iger said, was to “release a new Star Wars feature film every two to three years.” And that might make some Star Wars fans angry. George Lucas said there would be no more Star Wars movies after Episode 6. And let’s be honest; sometimes its best for a franchise to end before the stories get too bland. We will have to see if Disney will continue the excellence from Lucasfilm. I suspect they will!

Read the press release from Walt Disney at: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/blog/disney-acquire-lucasfilm.

If you enjoyed the Robot Chicken Star Wars specials you better enjoy them while they last. Here is one of my favorites called take your daughter to work day!