Surprising Star Wars fans around the globe The Walt Disney Company announced Tuesday that is has acquired LucasFilm Ltd. for 4.05 Billion. LucasFilm had been 100% owned by founder George Lucas. Lucas, who arguably made one of the best decisions in Hollywood history in asking 20th Century Fox for the merchandising rights to his Star Wars characters will be able to add a cool 4 Billion to his fortune. Even bigger news announced by Disney is the 2015 release of Star Wars Episode 7. It will be followed by Episodes 8 and 9 which will released in 2017 and 2019 respectively. As Star Wars fans already know, Episodes 7-9 were released in book form several years back. Will Disney turn these fantastic novels into the next film trilogy or will they be starting from scratch? Disney is not showing their cards as of yet nor have they revealed plans for that other small franchise owned by LucasFilm…Indiana Jones.
One other note…Disney can rest easy now as they pulled off quite a feat in not only securing the comic rights through the Marvel acquisition in 2009, but now also have the film rights to everyone favorite quack from outer space…Howard the Duck. It only cost them 8 Billion.
