Lucas sells Lucasfilm Ltd and Star Wars franchise for $4 billion...and Ep 7 announced

The really interesting question is how much creative control will stay with LucasFilms/LucasArts (ILM and Skywalker Sound are effects houses for hire and thus irrelevant for the creative side of things) and how much will be moved to Disney corporate HQ. AFAIK, Pixar is still being allowed to run as a seperate entity with minimal creative control from corporate Disney, while Disney's own, corporate-controlled feature film and animation divisions have both been hit or miss for the last decades, producing future classics like Tron: Legacy as well as total bombs.
As long as we don't know how they are going to handle LucasFilm/-Arts, and how much future creative control George Lucas has secured for himself, no one can tell what this means for the creative side of things.

Avengers, by the way, does not count at all as a "Disney" project: It was produced by Marvel Films indenpendently of Disney and "only" distributed by Disney (no matter that Disney took over Marvel during prodution). That's one of the oldest tricks of movie financing: sell distribution rights for a sure-fire hit to another studio - Back in 1938, for example, David O. Selznick handed distribution rights for Gone With The Wind to MGM to secure Clark Gable, who was under exclusive contract to MGM, as the male lead.

Speaking of Marvel, can any comic book geek around here fill me in on how much interference from Disney corporate they have to endure, both on the film and comic side?

Oh, and regarding the commercial side of the deal: If Disney really got the rights for all Lucas properties, trademarks and the back catalogue, $4bn was a bargain. Even without any new special releases, the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies are long-sellers like Dark Side Of The Moon: New generations of people will just keep buying them. Disney will get back $4bn from sales of these two trilogies alone. Maybe not within a year, maybe not within a decade, but in the long run, it's a safe bet.

That being said, Cowboy just jinxed it with the "bad feeling" line.
 
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http://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/12cscg/disney_just_bought_lucasfilm_thoughts/c6u3l86

Interesting stuff - we'll see over time how legit this info is

I sat in on the investor call this morning and took some notes on the Q&A session:

No George Lucas on call. ILM, Skywalker sound and LucasArts all included in deal. Brand compatibility and mutual understanding of iconic characters and protecting/leveraging brand to create value. 2015 Star Wars Episode 7, first feature under Lucas/Disney. Episode 8 and 9 also planned. New Star Wars film should be expected every two to three years. Talking about Pixar and Marvel acquisitions, integrated business structure. CFO says only Disney can create value from Lucas IP (including Indiana Jones and Star Wars) but only care about SW. More breadth and depth of Star Wars content domestically, and using Disney's distribution to take it global. Parks and resorts, games and TV big focus for Disney expansion of LucasArts. Interestingly enough, they valued LucasArts at the same as Marvel, but based the LucasArts valuation on just Star Wars alone, any extra content is a bonus. LucasArts has 17,000 characters to utilize.

Questions from audience:

How does Marvel acquisition compare to LucasArts? Marvel was way better at global distribution and had better licensing and shelfspace.
How much did Marvel acquisition make you? No details announced. Value-creating for shareholders. Share price compared to pro-forma has been positive. Feel equally strong about LucasArts.
Recurring library revenue from LucasArts? Can't reveal breakdown. A quarter of Lucas Films revenue is from their film library, the rest is other licensing deals.
Any other movies from Lucas? Nope, concentration on just Star Wars. Extensive and detailed treatment for the next trilogy. 2015 for Episode 7, 8 and 9 in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
Doubling down on film while home entertainment is going down. What opportunities for parks? Box office own has grown exponentially. All good. Being conservative in this purchase. 4 parks, 2 recently redone, incorporate more Star Wars into parks, build on Asian parks. Star Wars #2 franchise in the world by Forbes. "Sci Fi Fantasy" and "Super Hero" franchises under disney control.
What Star Wars films come in lieu of at Disney? What happens to Marvel? Pixar? Concerns about saturation? Strategy has been 1-2 Marvel films a year, 1 Pixar film a year, 1 Disney animated per year, a couple live action tent poles with 2017 Star Wars being one of those. No huge extra investment in film. Better to invest in sequel to Star Wars than a brand new IP, known quantity, easier ROI.
Annual Consumer Product Licensing - $215M per year, confirm? Confirmed for 2012
Projections for future film $? Erred on conservative side. Considering no SW film since 2005, most revenue calculated from future exploitation of SW film franchise.
Dilutives, single digit EPS and accretives, share buyback in 2 years. Does that include buyback? Single digit drop in EPS caused by dilutives. Accretives are caused by buyback.
All those revenue projections, were they for 2005 when the last movie was made? No, for calendar year 2012.
$2 Billion of stock being issued, $100 Billion outstanding. Why is that only single digit change to EPS? Amortization of intangibles and deferred revenue around licensing. Net income impacts different. Transaction and restructure costs also offset OI.
Do you get ALL characters, unlike Marvel where some characters were precluded? There are very little incumberances. Some distribution incumberances with Fox and previous movies, and Paramount incumberances with Indiana Jones. Fewer incumberances than we had with Marvel.
Congrats! You're risking the wrath of the entire Internet! What are you doing with ILM? Let it remain as is. They do work for multiple studios, no change. Does decent business, every intention of staying in.
How much did 3D revenue differential affect 3D strategy? Can't compare recent movies to old ones. Adjusted actual BO to inflation with international BO today, relative to old ones. Adjusted prominence of 3D to tent pole films and revenue stream. Total value of past three films = $1.5B. 40% of BO comes from 3D releases for tent pole films.
Interactive, social gaming? Lucas seems good, what is strategy around that? Social vs console gaming. Focus more on social and mobile instead of console. Licensing property vs developing. Based on story telling and characters.
Anything personally going on GL and why he's selling out now? (lol) No words in George's mouth. About 4-5 years ago, he started contemplating a form of retiring, he put that in process. Identified Kathleen kennedy to run company. Started discussing with Disney 1.5 years ago. He will serve as consultant, doing consulting now on the basic development for next SW film trilogy starting 2015. He intends to retire.
Indiana Jones - Does Paramount require exit fees? Disney didn't ascribe any values to IJ because of encumberances. Not factored into acquisition.
Acquiring Marvel filled void for boys IP. Disney had princesses and fairies. Does SW further fill that boys IP licensing void. Gives good footprint, never looked at boys vs girls for shelfspace. Just look for great IP. Just happy to build on SW. Want to increase Boys IP for TV more than anything as seen with Disney XD and Marvel shows.
Distribution deal. If Fox has distro rights, how will that change with new deal? No distribution rights for future films. When bought Marvel, Fox still had rights to some future film distribution.
What kind of production costs assumed for new SW films? Too premature.

so it looks like Disney will only focus on the SW property even tho they have control over much much more. Sounds like they will not mess with Indiana Jones because they share rights with Paramount and its not worth the effort. 20th Century Fox still will have their logos plastered over the new feature films and still has distribution rights to the home videos as well, we'll see how that affects release of what all the fans want: an original, unaltered version of the OT on bluray.
 
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I wouldn't even go do Episode 7... The rebels won and the empire is falling, there is 1 jedi left in the whole universe... I would make movies about the Old republic and things only just seen in video games so far like Knights of the Old Republic or the online MMORPG.. that's a much more interesting setting.
 
I wouldn't even go do Episode 7... The rebels won and the empire is falling, there is 1 jedi left in the whole universe... I would make movies about the Old republic and things only just seen in video games so far like Knights of the Old Republic or the online MMORPG.. that's a much more interesting setting.

I can't totally agree. The books and comics that follow the films have some great content that could make for a relatively easy movie adaptation. There's solid stuff on both ends of the timeline. Hell, go wild and adapt SW:Legacy with almost no character crossover, why not.
 
Honestly, I think it's fairly safe to say that nothing truly good would be coming from George Lucas in the future. The fact that Disney is having a go at it, doesn't take away from the original trilogy, or any of the good stuff that Star Wars has given us up untill now.

The way I see it, it's just really exciting that some other, (hopefully) capable people will be allowed to have a go at it. Worst case, we end up with a sucky movie. We've tried that before. Best case, we get a new awesome Star Wars movie.

I'm nothing but positive about all of this.
 
3 good films, 3 shit ones and possibly more shit ones is still better than 3 good films and 3 shit ones. Making shit films later in the franchise doesn't suddenly make the earlier films worse.
 
Look on the bright side, Donald gained a nephew.

Huey, Louie, Duey and Chewie!

:drums:
 
I don't care as long as they KILL THE JAR JAR.
 
After all the movies, it'd be nice to get some modernized versions where stormtroopers are actually feared and can aim.

I've been following the animated clone wars series for awhile and I really like them. What I'd like to see is disney expanding that series into the rest of the episodes. I love how "in-depth" it is, and the animations are great.

In fact, I'd like to see them do a revamp on all the movies. Though they will always be classic, they just feel so dated. The fight between Vader and Obi wan was so god damn pitiful and I hated the actor who did Luke.
 
Yeah that was one of the things I thought about... How would it be if you showed them in order to your kids, for example?
 
"Look kids, time travel!"

The new generation of people, who are used to X360 graphics and CGI on the level of The Avengers, would easily balk at 4,5,6 and could easily dismiss it due to it being 'ugly'. Very few even know what Cassablanca or Gone with the Wind is, and won't even bother because it's so old.

But then the die-hard fans would totally reject making a reboot because they think it'll be ruined.
 
Look on the bright side, Donald gained a nephew.

Huey, Louie, Duey and Chewie!

:drums:

I called my pub quiz team tonight "Huey, Louie, and Chewie".
 
In fact, I'd like to see them do a revamp on all the movies. Though they will always be classic, they just feel so dated. The fight between Vader and Obi wan was so god damn pitiful and I hated the actor who did Luke.

The duel in New Hope certainly is lackluster, but I have no problem in saying that my favorite Star Wars duel is Luke and Vader in RotJ, followed by the duel between the same in ESB. They are powerful, deliberate, and emotional. As a practitioner of eastern and western fencing, I highly appreciate both duels over those in the new trilogy because they lack the ridiculous acrobatics and flashy, unnecessary choreography. I can even appreciate the duel in New Hope because of how strictly it is just Kendo. It's lackluster, but it's real.

I can also tell you kids can appreciate both trilogies. I know a kid (13-ish now) that is a big star wars fan and loves all the movies. There might be a need for them to see the original trilogy first, though.
 
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"Look kids, time travel!"

The new generation of people, who are used to X360 graphics and CGI on the level of The Avengers, would easily balk at 4,5,6 and could easily dismiss it due to it being 'ugly'. Very few even know what Cassablanca or Gone with the Wind is, and won't even bother because it's so old.

But then the die-hard fans would totally reject making a reboot because they think it'll be ruined.

That's completely understandable but I won't deny that I find it difficult to like what ep 4,5,6 were, when I've been watching the animated series for awhile now. Even if it is animated, and arguably a bit childish, it portrays the 'epicness' of large scale battles and Jedi duels waaaayyy better than the dated movies ever will.
 
It will only be available for a period of three weeks before it goes "back into the vault" and you have to wait another 5 years for a chance to buy it. :p

Only thought of one bad thing from seeing a commercial on TV last night...

"Star Wars on Ice".


Stop giving them ideas. :shakefist: :idiot:



Although, if done as a comedy interpretation... :think:


[video=youtube;lHw0-6SqecI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHw0-6SqecI[/video]


Okay, not. :p
 
Sadly no; we were beaten in the last round by a hyperactive little kid going "Yippee!"
 
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