Disney Acquires Lucasfilm Ltd.

So, yesterday, a bomb got dropped on us; George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney for over $4 billion dollars. Industrial Light and Magic, Skywalker Sound, LucasArts, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and all other properties owned by Lucasfilm now reside in the House of the Mouse.

What does that mean for us? Right off the bat we can look forward to Star Wars Episodes 7, 8 and 9 beginning in 2015, with the possibility of more films every two to three years. It could mean that The Clone Wars will have a home on one of Disney’s channels and that we can expect Star Wars games to go social and mobile.

Hasbro has an excellent relationship with Disney and with their contract for Star Wars already extended out to 2020, we can expect a long life for the action figures. Other license holders? Not sure, yet, but there are some licensees that compete with Disney, Dark Horse, for example, that will have to be reconciled at some point in the future. It’s possible that we’ll see a pullback initially, and then more product when it comes movie release time.

Kathleen Kennedy, recently promoted by George to Co-Chair of Lucasfilm, will have a job at Disney as President of Lucasfilm. Howard Roffman, who transitioned from President of Lucas Licensing to Senior Advisor will be coming back as Franchise Manager and Rick McCallum, who produced the prequel trilogy, has retired.

Disney will be looking to increase the Star Wars presence in their parks and it would be my hope they’d want to keep future Celebrations in Orlando which would help funnel business to the parks in a cross promotion.

So, what do I think of this? My initial reaction is that I don’t like it. Do I think Disney will somehow ruin Star Wars? No. But having grown up with Star Wars, for good or bad, it’s always been George Lucas’ vision that keeps me interested. Although he should have some input into the future films, they will have a new vision that’s as yet untested.

Still, I can’t help but be a little excited to see what other directors could do with a Star Wars film. Spielberg (even though he’s said he doesn’t want to do more action films)? Whedon? Favreau?  Even though Lucasfilm has it’s own animation segment, could we see a Pixar take on our favorite heroes?  Time will tell.