Walt Disney Acquires Star Wars (LucasFilm Ltd) - Star Wars Episode 7 Announced!

The Walt Disney Company has just  agreed to acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. in a stock and cash transaction. Lucasfilm, as most people know, is actually owned solely by George Lucas, who founded the company back when studios still made mistakes that big. The estimated deal is worth just over $4 billion, half of which is a cash deal.

Obviously, this deal includes the Star Wars franchise, and Disney acquires ownership of Lucasfilm in its entirety. That means they get the ownership and rights to live action film production, consumer products, animation, visual effects, and audio post production (yes, they actually get Industrial Light & Magic [ILM] as well). Disney has no plans to consolidate or move any of the current employees of any of these divisions - at least not yet.

And Star Wars Episode 7 is already in the works.

Yes. It's not a joke.

Kathleen Kennedy, who will be President of Lucasfilm, will serve as executive producer on new Star Wars feature films, with George Lucas serving as creative consultant. Star Wars Episode 7 is targeted for release in 2015, with more feature films expected to continue the Star Wars saga and grow the franchise well into the future.

Expect Star Wars content to be even more integrated into Disney theme parks in Anaheim, Orlando, Paris and Tokyo.

To give you an idea of how big this deal is, the $4 billion dollar price tag is approximately the value of all of the Star Wars feature films gross receipts, worldwide, to-date! 

Disney now owns Star Wars/Lucasfilm, Pixar and Marvel. In case you think this deal may not go through, the Boards of Directors of both Disney and Lucasfilm have approved the transaction.

Epic deal, or epic fail?