Disney Buys LucasFilm For $4.05 Billion
via DISNEY TO ACQUIRE LUCASFILM LTD. | The Walt Disney Company.
Burbank, CA and San Francisco, CA, October 30, 2012 – Continuing its strategy of delivering exceptional creative content to audiences around the world, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) has agreed to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. in a stock and cash transaction. Lucasfilm is 100% owned by Lucasfilm Chairman and Founder, George Lucas.
Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney stock on October 26, 2012, the transaction value is $4.05 billion, with Disney paying approximately half of the consideration in cash and issuing approximately 40 million shares at closing. The final consideration will be subject to customary post-closing balance sheet adjustments.
“Lucasfilm reflects the extraordinary passion, vision, and storytelling of its founder, George Lucas,” said Robert A. Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. “This transaction combines a world-class portfolio of content including Star Wars, one of the greatest family entertainment franchises of all time, with Disney’s unique and unparalleled creativity across multiple platforms, businesses, and markets to generate sustained growth and drive significant long-term value.”
“For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next,” said George Lucas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucasfilm. “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. I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come. Disney’s reach and experience give Lucasfilm the opportunity to blaze new trails in film, television, interactive media, theme parks, live entertainment, and consumer products.”
This is fantastic news! Disney purchasing Lucasfilm is akin to buying a drunk driver’s corvette before he smashes it up again. It looks like Mr. Lucas’s Wild Ride has now concluded.
Related at PJ Lifestyle:
REFUGEE ON PLANET HOTH –THIS JEDI, NOT HAPPY. NOW INSTEAD OF THE FOUNDER AND GENIUS WORKING THE SAGA WE WILL HAVE THE PROTOTYPICAL BUNCH OF CRAZIES FROM THE HOLLYWOOD DUMPSTER IN CHARGE, WON’T TAKE THEM LONG TO WRECK THIS!
GEORGE, RESPECTFULLY YOU SHOULD HAVE CHECKED YOUR “6″ BEFORE YOU DID THIS!
You mean to tell me you actually like the prequels?! You thought the special editions were improvements on the original trilogy? Any genius George Lucas once had as a filmmaker he shifted over to being a businessman.
Lucas sells out! Whatta shock!
Sounds like the House of Mouse put a rush order on that new SW episode; 3 years ain’t a lotta time, given how Lucas usually likes to putter on a new project. =^[.]^=
Good riddance you turkey-necked hack. Maybe Jar Jar will disappear and never come back! This means that we might actually get the original trilogy on Blu-Ray WITHOUT the extra added special effects and other nonsense. I will NEVER buy Star Wars with “special edition” special effects. i currently have the de-specialized editions that I had to download online.
As far as a new movie is concerned in 2015, it could scarcely be worse than the prequels.
Oh, you’re one of those “Han shot first” types, eh?
Me too.
Wow. That is huge. I must admit I thought this was a hoax when I read about it earlier today. My mind was numb from a 16 hour blackout thanks to Hurricane Sandy.
I look at it this way. The disgruntled fanboys can either continue to curse Lucas, or if you’re like me (who doesn’t cringe when the prequels are mentioned) you can see this as a good thing.
Maybe some new blood is what the Star Wars universe needs. New writers, new directors, new creative people who grew up with the films and want to be in on the reboot.
Heck, it worked for Star Trek when The Next Generation series brought the franchise back to TV and spawned three more series and a new movie franchise.
Don’t dig the grave just yet.
Yes! At last my prayers have been answered and Princess Leia can take her rightful place among her fellow princesses.
FAMILY GUY: BLUE HARVEST and SOMETHING, SOMETHING, SOMETHING DARKSIDE were sheer genius and showed what people who loved STAR WARS could do with it. I still laugh just thinking about Han and Chewie (Peter and Brian) trying to retrieve “a great couch” from the trash compactor.
Disney never would have allowed those parodies. Thank God it happened when it did.
Disney’s acquisition of Star Wars, okay technically Lucasfilm (but
really, how interested are they in Howard the Duck), has been on their
to do list for at least fifteen years.
Disney has an all consuming corporate identity. IBM and Mitsubishi can
only stand in awe, of the devotion that the lowest Sanitation Cast
Member at Disney Parks feels about how well he performs his job. To
say nothing about the upper echelons manning the ramparts of Fort
Mickey.
Pretty much the first thing on their minds every morning is, WWWD. And
Walt loved Science Fiction. Absolutely loved it. Disney has been
desperate for a science fiction franchise for years. 20,000 Leagues
Under the Sea…big success. Everything else? Well…
The Flubber movies turned a modest profit, so did the Witch Mountain movies.
But the rest is a march of failure. Tron, Black Hole, The Rocketeer
(it has the 1991 version of Jennifer Connelly, so go see it anyway),
Flight of the Navigator, Stepsister from Planet Weird, the rest aren’t
even worth mentioning.
Then came the last eighteen months, Tron Legacy (in terms of boxoffice
take, no question, it was), Mars Needs Moms (domestic gross 21
million, production costs 150 million, so not roaring success either)
and topping out this trifecta of box office dynamite. John Carter…
which, ur…’Under Performed,’ and got the head of production fired.
Okay time for Plan B
Plan B was James Cameron’s Pandora. Which means dealing with James
Cameron. What fun!
But very necessary, Disney needs a Science Fiction franchise. They
can’t really do without one. Disney’s all consuming corporate
identity demands it. And there some secondary reasons. Merchandising
is not a minor thing at Disney, they can hype, build it and move it,
like nobody else.
Then there is there is Disney World.
Animal Kingdom at Disney World can only run for half a day, everyday
because the Cast Members are animals and can’t perform longer than
that. Unlike a standard zoo, Animal Kingdom has designed everything to
make the animals perform without any real coercion. The Komodo
Dragons have heated rocks they lay on. The tigers take it in shifts,
each shift over marking the other shifts territory. It works
brilliantly and it’s a real problem for Disney World. One they can’t
do much about. Unless you aren’t using real animals. Cameron’s
Pandora filled the bill nicely. They had him touring Animal Kingdom
at Disney World, planning Pandora on Earth. Barsoom would have worked
better but, sadly…
However there was plan C. Disney Parks has developed a strong
relationship with Star Wars fans. Not George Lucas, the fans themseleves. The real driving force behind the success of Star Wars.
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/parks/hollywood-studios/special-events/star-wars-weekend/
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/parks/hollywood-studios/entertainment/star-wars-jedi-training-academy/
Now however for the paltry sum of four billion, all of Disney’s
problems are solved. And they don’t have to deal with James Cameron.
Whatever franchise Disney develops it’ll be undeniably aimed at the juvenile market. Loot at the Top 10 grossing films the last few years. SF literature has been heading that way for years anyway. The famed “Snowcrash,” from back in ’92, is nothing more than an upjumped Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He’s a deliverator, of pizzas, and with twin Samurai swords. Great.
Young Han Solo, and his first encounter with Chewbacca? Would they dare? Winning the Millennium Falcon gambling? How about with the entire case of Twilight?
In the heyday of the SF pulps, Astounding and the Magazine of Fantasy and SF were never so juvenile as is what fantasy and SF has become. I’m hard pressed to find new fantasy releases that don’t seem like they were written by the same author and SF seems a played out fun factory of liberal political correctness, repetition when not pandering to a comiccom-type crowd.
Disney pays $4 Billion… for Star Wars?! I was never a fan. Disney earlier paid $7 Billion for Pixar, but they at least made great movies. (“The Incredibles” and “Up” remain my favorite to date, but I haven’t seen “Brave” yet.)
Lucas? His best works were “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with Spielberg, and the Young Indiana Jones series.
I just read where Star Wars has sold $25 billion in merchandise- so far. It is apparently the number-one selling toy brand for boys six out of the last seven years. This is what Disney is after. And cool rides at Disney World, of course.
Just wondering who they think is absolutely dying to see another 3 Star Wars movies, especially after the last three.
From a marekting standpoint, I guess the acquisition will be a boon to Disney, however.
That is seriously cool news! Way to Go!
I have kids- they love the Anakin series. They really love the Clone Wars- my kid wants, with all his heart, a real clone uniform. Disney can figure out how to make one in his size, at a reasonable price- b/c=, Butterick’s astronaut costume in fabric store costume vinyl is not good enough for the young trooper. An adult one costs $1,000.
And, they can sell license costume patterns to Simplicity, like they do with all the other princess costumes. It will be way cooler to make a reasonable “Mace Windu” and “Padme Amidala” costume, rather than a “galactic princess” knock-off.
And, wow. Disney+ Lucas- that’s, like, every great kid franchise, all in one place.