October 31, 2012 by Paul Curtin
Disney’s attempt at their own Star Wars-style saga of films didn’t pan out too well for them earlier this year with John Carter failing at the box office. Since Disney most likely won’t be taking another chance on their John Carter of Mars series, they’ve decided to just go ahead and buy Lucasfilm, which of course will include all the rights to the Star Wars series, allowing them to take the biggest sci-fi franchise of all time to infinity and beyond like their 2006 acquisition of Pixar for $7 billion.
The Walt Disney Company’s purchase of Lucasfilm is going to cost them $4.05 billion in cash and stock. Lucasfilm is currently owned entirely by its chairman and founder, George Lucas, making the filmmaker an even bigger billionaire and making a lot of fanboys happy that the franchise will finally be in somebody else’s hands.
In addition to their acquisition announcement, Disney also announced that Star Wars: Episode VII will be the next film in the Star Wars saga, which will premiere in theaters in 2015, followed by Episodes VII and IX, with long-term plans including a “new Star Wars film every two to three years.” It will be very interesting to see how Episode VII works out with how well Disney has been doing with the Marvel films after that takeover in 2009 for $4.2 billion.
