Disney buys Lucasfilm. Star Wars VII is on the way.

Ath

Ath

Pokémon Master
Errrr....I wasn't expecting this?

Disney has just confirmed that it has agreed to acquire George Lucas‘ Lucasfilm Ltd, and that includes rights to the Star Wars franchise that will now continue on. The companies have targeted a 2015 release for Star Wars: Episode 7, with Episode 8 and Episode 9 to follow as the the long-term plan is to release a new feature every two or three years. “The last Star Wars movie release was 2005’s Revenge Of The Sith – and we believe there’s substantial pent-up demand”, Disney said. The deal also includes rights to the Indiana Jones franchise.
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The possibilities for ̶m̶e̶r̶c̶i̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶e̶x̶p̶l̶o̶i̶t̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶m̶e̶r̶c̶h̶a̶n̶d̶i̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ new ideas are massive. Star Wars in Kingdom Hearts, Iron Man teaming up with Yoda, Monkey Island taking the rightful place of Pirates of the Caribbean as a big franchise?

...then there's the little matter of Star Wars VII, VIII and IX.
 
Ok, there's one Gif I have right now that is totally appropriate for this;

TXAjn.gif
 
Ath said:
Star Wars in Kingdom Hearts, Iron Man teaming up with Yoda, Monkey Island taking the rightful place of Pirates of the Caribbean as a big franchise?

...then there's the little matter of Star Wars VII, VIII and IX.
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No seriously, this is horrifying news.
 
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I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, certainly when I was a kid I loved the original films and had toys and stuff, absolutely hated the prequels, regardless of what they had to do with Star Wars they're just bad films. However, I'm actually very interested by this news. Lucas not involved? It's well documented that the reasons why The Empire Strikes Back is so good is because Lucas had little involvement with it and the prequels are evidence of what his hands on involvement results in. This is a chance to create big new sci-fi epics with some of the great talent out there, a name that immediately sprung to mind upon reading the news this morning was Neil Blomkamp (District 9). I don't care if it doesn't involve the Skywalkers, Han, etc. new characters with no links to the original gives everything a fresh start. People might not like the idea of The House of Mouse owning this, but I'll be honest and say Disney know how to handle a product (mostly). I don't think anyone can argue with what they've done with Marvel, which is surely of similar scale to Star Wars/Lucas Film, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them take a similar approach in that they mainly let Marvel handle through their own studio but will provide some input. I think they'll set up a Lucas Film branch essentially and use some of the existing staff as well as hiring some experienced production talent to throw in. The only thing I think there is to worry about it is if you wanted Star Wars to stay dead well too bad, cause it's never going away now, in fact it's going to be everywhere even more, somehow. And there's always the worry they'll go too family friendly and we'll get things like Return of The Jedi/Phantom Menace, but again I'd look at Marvel and say that they've got a decent balance in there as supporting evidence for this.
 
In my opinion, this is probably going to go the same way as when Disney bought Marvel; People lose their **** at first, Disney reassure us that it's going to be awesome but in the end, business as usual. Now that I think about it, why do I keep having this sense of deja vu every time I go into any thread on any forum discussing anything about Star Wars?

EDIT: Also 20thCenturyBoy, have you stopped bolding things? Have you lost your coolness all of a sudden?
 
Sparrowsabre7 said:
Disney buying Lucasfilm, I have no problem with.
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Really? Because this actually bothers me more than what they might do to the Lucasfilm properties. Do we want choice in what we watch / read / hear or do we want to be dictated to? I can't see any way continued media consolidation (or consolidation in any other industry, for that matter) can possibly be a good thing.

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Ol' George was pretty good at milking Star Wars for everything it was worth, but Disney's Star Wars? I can only foresee it being like a whole new level of Hell. Unlike with Marvel, they know younger kids love Star Wars, so I can't see them doing anything but pandering further to that demographic. I don't think they have the balls to put anything more mature (or y'know, appealing for the story and the universe rather than the gimmickry and merchandising opportunities) on screen. Ah well, I still have my EU novels and comics. I can look back and remember a time before Star Wars Episode XXVI, a 3D interactive adventure in which hologramatic recreations of a young Mark Hamill and Hayden Christiansen fight the X-Men with the help of Jedi master Kermit.
 
theirsbailiff said:
EDIT: Also 20thCenturyBoy, have you stopped bolding things? Have you lost your coolness all of a sudden?
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Indeed I have not, good squire theirsbailiff. I was simply using the quick reply at the time of typing.
 
From what I understand Star Wars was the only thing they were interested in, even Indiana Jones wasn't a consideration......doesn't bode well for any of the none Star Wars stuff seeing the light of day again, which includes all the LucasArts games.
 
ayase said:
Sparrowsabre7 said:
Disney buying Lucasfilm, I have no problem with.
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Really? Because this actually bothers me more than what they might do to the Lucasfilm properties. Do we want choice in what we watch / read / hear or do we want to be dictated to? I can't see any way continued media consolidation (or consolidation in any other industry, for that matter) can possibly be a good thing.
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You do have a choice in what you watch - if you don't want to see the latest Star Wars film with Darth Gonzo then don't watch it.
 
megalomaniac said:
From what I understand Star Wars was the only thing they were interested in, even Indiana Jones wasn't a consideration......doesn't bode well for any of the none Star Wars stuff seeing the light of day again, which includes all the LucasArts games.
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Disney are happy to have Indiana Jones, the thing about the deal is that it was done after they calculated the potential worth of Star Wars alone, they decided they would make enough money to be worth the outlay and bought Lucas out of everything because he was ready to cash his chips in on everything. Indiana, LucasArts, etc. are all bonuses for Disney. Whilst Indiana Jones is a successful movie franchise, Star Wars is a HUGE merchandising franchise which is much more lucrative and attractive to Disney. They would like to do a new Indiana Jones, but similar to when they bought over Marvel, Paramount still hold the distribution rights so in order to get another film made they'd have to compensate Paramount. It's roughly 8% of the gross of each of those first Dinsey/Marvel movies that Disney had to give to Paramount, which is no small change! Disney don't want to be giving up that kind of money again and would rather wait for Paramount's rights to expire and then likely reboot the series with new, young cast. It's not impossible that Disney could buy out Paramount again (not sure how keen Paramount would be on giving up another character though), but for the near future it's improbable. Apparently Spielberg had been throwing a bit of cold water on Indiana 5 recently anyway.
 
mangaman74 said:
You do have a choice in what you watch - if you don't want to see the latest Star Wars film with Darth Gonzo then don't watch it.
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Oh certainly, I'm always the first person to say that if you don't like seeing something then you should stop looking at it. But I would quite like the things I enjoy to continue being produced in the way I like them. Media consolidation creates less choice in the sort of things which are actually produced and therefore available to watch, and the purchase of one company by another happens with only two things in mind - and those aren't art or creativity, but money and control. The whole issue of media control is a bit of a political hot button for me in general though, I think the media needs to undergo some serious trust-busting. IMO companies like Newscorp, Disney and Viacom should be being broken up because they're already too big, they certainly shouldn't be allowed to get bigger.
 
There are some rumours going around that Disney's "1952" could actually be Star Wars Episode 7

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/59411

Plot Summary: Damon Lindelof, best known for his work on "LOST," has signed on to both write and produce a mysterious project called 1952. Little is known about the project and 1952 is said to likely be just a working title. What has been revealed is that the film is a big-budget sci-fi project and is designed to expand beyond a single feature into a multi-tiered franchise.
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I'd read that report on AICN, all it is is someone in their forums just having a theory and one of their "reporters" deciding it was newsworthy. It's a real stretch of a theory too, they claim 1952 is just a cover title for Episode VII and that part of the evidence for this is Mark Hammil was born in 1951...That's not even the same year :? .

Whilst Brad Bird would be an interesting choice for Director, Damon Lindelof shouldn't be allowed near anything like this (as evidenced by Lost and Prometheus).
 
What interests me more though is this "designed to expand beyond a single feature into a multi-tiered franchise". But there are alot of speculations out there at the moment but fortunately we will have some news regarding what they plan to do in the near future.
 
Cloud Strife said:
What interests me more though is this "designed to expand beyond a single feature into a multi-tiered franchise".
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In all honesty this is no indication of it being Star Wars, simple fact is that every studio now, especially Disney, is looking for tentpole franchises it can merchandise the hell out of. Making box office money simply isn't enough anymore.

Anyway, here's some more "mysterious leaked source" rumours.

Luke Skywalker is a primary focus, as are many of the original trilogy cast (Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, C3PO and R2D2). Disney also realised that George Lucas and STAR WARS are one and the same, so George will certainly have a voice on any angle taken, in fact I believe it's one of many stipulations. However he will no longer have creative control,

I don't believe the empire was completely destroyed by the end of Return of the Jedi.

Mark Hamill is a certainty.

There are two trilogies planned, all following an original overview by Lucas, which was always planned as a multi generational saga. Movies 10 - 12 are from my understanding about the offspring of the Skywalkers, set many years later with the surviving cast playing much older versions of themselves and featuring a female protagonist named Skywalker.

The movies from what I understand will adopt the Harry Potter model, and will be aggressively brought to the forefront of popular entertainment once again with consistent installments.

Rewritten from previously secret drafts from way back during the making of the original trilogy. The main problem was the age of the cast, and the tone of the story. You will see a tone more in line with the original trilogy, and specifically featuring that cast

Live action TV show - The scripts already written will be absorbed in some way into a TV format. Basically they are 45 minute long feature films. With concepts that are very ambitious and the fact that it focuses on characters that are not known and are completely different to what people may have in mind about a STARWARS TV show.

Disney are “all over” restoring the original trilogy.


This mysterious source also lists the names of some directors that were being “bandied about” – Steven Spielberg, Neill Blomkamp, Alfonso Cuaron, Matthew Vaughn, Darren Aronofsky and Joss Whedon.

Read more at http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/ ... rupup50.99
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ConanThe3rd said:
Then we might see a decent domestic release of One Piece in our time?
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I believe that might be on the cards anyway. I think, don't hold me to this, but I think that Manga's DBZ release is a potential forerunner to a One Piece release. So if you want One Piece buy DBZ and show Toei that there's a market here for their stuff...
 
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