Disney buys LucasFilms for $4.05 billion (1 Viewer)

[joshEH]

Think about what this means if they ever make another Kingdom Hearts game.
THINK ABOUT IT.
For the record: I don't even like Kingdom Hearts. But since that's the one place we could legitimately see an "X-Men vs. Rebel Alliance"-thing happen, I am willing to suspend my prejudice.
What's real interesting here is that Disney was so recently trying to make John Carter into a brand, whiffed hard, and decided to spend mad billions (enabled by, of all things, a Joss Whedon movie) to buy the biggest sci-fi brand there is. It's an escalating series of vicious and extremely clever acquisitions and moves in an environment where a lot of people were previously shitting on the studio for Tron and John Carter.

 

[SilverWook]

Shit, I actually missed that, Matt. "Great minds," and all that, eh?
Funny thing is, Steve Purcell, who created Sam and Max, and who did a lot of Monkey Island art, is now at Pixar, and co-directed Brave. Something like this is not entirely beyond the realms of possibility.
Someone on Metafilter commented: "Sucks to be Dark Horse Comics right now."
MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS: ULTIMATE STAR WARS

Dark Horse has put out a lot of Disney product, (comics and collectibles) in recent years.

 

[SilverWook]

And after many years of denials, the treatments for Episodes 7, 8, 9, magically reappear like Brigadoon.

 

[joshEH]

Fingers crossed for Red Tails 2: Tails Take Manhattan!
I'm now wondering just exactly how much real "consultancy"-power Lucas wields from this moment on. If Disney could have assured fans that Lucas would still be the grand poobah of the Star Wars universe, they would've done so. Instead, he appears to have no real power at all.
(Just look at how they made sure that people clearly knew Pixar's freedom and independence would be protected after THAT deal. No such reassurances here.)
Man, it's a strange world out there. I wish the Disney Parks were in better managerial/financial shape. "Star Wars Land" would have been amazing, circa 1982.

 

[NY2LA]

Anyone want to guess how long it'll take before we see mouse ear hats of R2, 3PO, Chewy, Yoda, and Leia?
And just picture the wookiee and ewok plush! The Cantina Grill in Tomorrowland...

 

[Pete-D]

Was this the GOP October Surprise?
Ugh. We don't need more Star Wars. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, don't get me wrong (even the prequels and The Clone Wars animated series). But this is just ridiculous. Three more planned, with new movies every two to three years after that? No thanks.
This will throw any remaining sense of Star Wars as a film series being in any way "special" out the window once and for all. Sounds like the floodgates have finally been opened for good, and they'll be cranking out sequels and prequels and spin-off movies from now 'till the end of time.
I don't know that I can productively argue this further. I would think Disney's approach to tentpole filmmaking would be clear. There are going to be a million cooks at the pot when it comes to the next Star Wars and Indy movies, and there definitely won't be any rough edges to the characters, or any dark elements inappropriate for 7-year-olds.
(Looking at the big picture, though, this actually is a little freaky. We're approaching the point where all our pop culture will be owned by a single megacorporation.)

Honestly for me the magic and "specialness" of a Star Wars movie went out the window with The Phantom Menace anyway.
There's still a lot of good material and potential storylines to mine, I'm game for more Star Wars if a competent writing staff and director are brought on board.
The property is quite frankly too good to go out on the sour note that was the prequel trilogy IMO.
Besides a new Star Wars every 2-3 years isn't that dissimilar to a new Star Wars ... every 3 years for the other trilogies. It's not like we waited 8 years in between every film for Lucas to perfect every movie in the past.

 

[Radioman970]

Maybe we can finally see a release of the Holiday Special now. How nice would it be to make it a 2 disc treasures tin set.

:tu: That would be a regular thing at my house! Well...it is a regular thing but I'd like that tin set disc case with it that says Disney. Hopefully George didn't write it into the contract that Mickey not tough it... we all want the thing George!

Why do I think Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Billy Dee Williams, Goofy, Micky and Pluto might be reaching out to their personal trainers and plastic surgeons this week?

fixed... heh! Really, I'd love to see Goofy & Pluto inserted in the bar scene. Just give me that!

 

[TravisR]

Ugh. We don't need more Star Wars. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, don't get me wrong (even the prequels and The Clone Wars animated series). But this is just ridiculous. Three more planned, with new movies every two to three years after that? No thanks.

While I'm very interested in seeing what they do with these movies, my only real gripe would be if they are direct sequels because the first 6 movies told the story of Anakin from beginning to end and sequelizing that is totally needless. Since they're calling it Episodes VII, VIII and IX, that seems exactly what they're going to do and I'd much rather see them go 100 or 500 or 5,000 years into the SW future or past and just tell a new tale in the same universe.
I wouldn't even mind seeing them go crazy and give alot of different people a chance to make alot of different types of movies and release, say, two a year. In addition to the standard big budget action movie, they could make a medium-budgeted comedic movie (a la the upcoming Star Wars: Detours TV show) and an animated kids movie and something that is more adult oriented serious sci-fi and an anthology movie, etc. Some of those movies would probably fall flat on their face and having lots of movies would dilute the specialness of the Star Wars movie but I think giving alot of different creators a shot at SW would result in something exceptional work.

 

[Radioman970]

Many many characters in these could easily be spinoffs. Would love a film with just C3PO/R2D2. If could even be CGI. I know..danger of being kid friendly, but that's okay.

 

[Jerry Almeida]

Anyone want to guess how long it'll take before we see mouse ear hats of R2, 3PO, Chewy, Yoda, and Leia?

Most of those have been out for a while. Disney has been hosting Star Wars weekends at MGM/Hollywood Studios for about 15 years.

 

[Steve_Tk]

It can't be worse than the prequels. Excited. Just don't use the same characters in Ep 7. We don't need some re-cast of Han Solo.

 

[Simon Massey]

Just found this out - been offline Now this I did not see coming. I see it as huge potential for some interesting films - Spielberg getting to direct a SW movie ? Hell pretty much every director probably wants to line up and do one. Looking forward to seeing what happens but actually do not think its a good idea to continue with the Luke/Han/Leia storyline. Bring new characters into the universe and mine that instead or explore other areas. That said, Im sure I will be first in line for Episode VII

 

[Jason_V]

Originally Posted by Pete-D /t/324825/disney-buys-lucasfilms-for-4-05-billion/90#post_3995701
Besides a new Star Wars every 2-3 years isn't that dissimilar to a new Star Wars ... every 3 years for the other trilogies. It's not like we waited 8 years in between every film for Lucas to perfect every movie in the past.

Exactly. It would be on roughly the same schedule as Trek and Bond movies. (Again, roughly speaking.)

I think we all should have seen this coming, to be honest, if we weren't so cynical. The original plan for SW in 3D was one a year for 6 years. Episodes II and III were pushed up to next year not all that long ago. I of course thought it was because Episode I didn't do as well as expected, but it makes sense now. Get the 3D movies out of the way for a big splash in 2015 with the new movie.

 

[SamT]

http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2012/10/30/the-long-winding-and-shapeshifting-trail-to-episodes-vii-viii-ix/

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I can only see better things coming from this.
This franchise could do great things again if others were allowed in play in that toy box of history and characters.

Others have been allowed to already -- it's called the Clone Wars TV show, and it's superior to the prequel movies (which I don't hate).

 

[Aaron Silverman]

So is there going to be a Star Wars Cantina at WDW sometime soon?

There's already a significant Star Wars presence in WDW at Disney Hollywood Studios, including "Star Wars Weekends" events in the spring. It would be cool if this led to even more, though! A cantina is a great idea.
[VIDEO]http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_YFHx240Kc[/VIDEO]

 

[Tony J Case]

I wonder what this means for Dark Horse. Since Disney owns Marvel, I cant see Dark Horse keeping the license past when their current contracts expire - and that's a damn shame. I've really liked (for the most part) they stuff they've done.
Also, the best part about the news? Watching the fanboy meltdown, all this rage about Lucas. If someone offered me four and a half BILLION dollars, I would stampede on my own goddamned mother reaching for the contracts.

I haven't even read the article yet (I'm hoping there's no prohibition against releasing the OOT in the future in high definition), but I have to ask:
Was I the only one who read this thread's headline and had to check if it wasn't April 1?

My first thought exactly. I was all "It's too damn early for April First!"

Lucas and Kennedy stated in one of the interview videos that they've developed a treatment with other writers for Episodes 7, 8 and 9 as the third trilogy. They indicated that there are limitless possibilities for additional films in the Star Wars Universe after that, but it's trilogy that is coming next.

That treatment process should be:
1) Call Timothy Zhan
2) Cut him a Big Fat Check
3) Cast Admiral Thrawn
4) ???
5) Profit!

Dark Horse has put out a lot of Disney product, (comics and collectibles) in recent years.

On the other hand, we already have precedence. A couple of years ago, BAM! comics was doing a really awesome Darkwing Duck comic (and a couple of the other Disney Afternoon titles, but I only ever followed DW). As soon as Disney bought Marvel, the title was instantly killed. I'm imagining that something very similar will happen here as soon as they are contractually able.

 

[Tony J Case]

Whoops - double post

 

[Tony J Case]

Damnit! Server burp!

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

I think Alfonso Cuaron should take a stab, along with Speilberg and Peter Jackson, as my picks for direcors of the next 3 episodes.