Speculation Trying to clear up some misconception about Episode VII being a 100% Disney movie.

I've been posting day in and out about this, so I figured I'd make a thread as people seem to be confused as to what this means.

I was a lurker here during the anticipation of Revenge of the Sith, I just joined when I saw the Season 5 trailer for The Clone Wars that showed the Sidious vs Maul battle. I see some of the same names creeping up again, but my memory is foggy as I was quite young. Good to be apart of this one!

Well, I'll start off by saying I'm in college and I've been taking business classes (I'm taking a 12 credit hour load). I feel incredibly old now, I was 11 years old when Revenge of the Sith came out, I will be 21 when Episode VII comes out. Anyways, I've learned quite a bit about economics and how it works, and how, specifically, a cooperation work.

When you merge a company as popular as LFL with another popular company, you don't just phase out the company. While it can happen with lesser companies, it doesn't happen with two multi-billion companies that often. LFL was sold out for 4 billion dollars, that means though that they're getting money to make this movie, and will it won't be managed by LucasFilm. As we have been bringing up, Pixar and Marvel Studios were also sold out for billions to Disney (2006 and 2009 respectively), you will notice that the quality of their movies haven't decreased or increased. Truth be told, The Avengers was the first completely from start of production to release a Disney/Marvel Studio development. Disney gave Marvels' The Avengers a handsoff approach, that is they allowed Joss Whedon and co. to make, direct, and shoot the movie.

If you had watched the Avengers, you would have noticed in the beginning it opens up with the same, classic, Marvel logo for Spider-Man, Iron Man, etc. I haven't seen the Avengers long enough to remember if there's a Disney logo in front of it, but if there's one to Episode 7, it won't be the 'fairy tale' opening that we all associate Disney with. Tron for example, is a prime example of this.


True, I will sorely miss the Fox Fanfare opening a lot, I've come to associate that with Star Wars. Whenever my parents start a movie up, and the classic *bum bum, bum bum, bummbabumbum* comes up, my heart immediately jumps to STAR WARS. But, I can let that go.

If you take a close look at the trends for the last few years, it's been obvious that they've been trying to rake in some cash for a new movie. Now you may be thinking 'wait a minute, didn't Episode I-III rake in billions of dollars of cash?', well that all spreads out throughout the company, and you will find in the end that there is very little to be spent on production of further movies. Taxes have to be paid, salaries have to be given, actors need to be paid, extremely expensive equipment needs to be paid for, all of that comes into paying off everyone who worked on the movies. You'd be surprised how quickly billions of dollars can go in a few years (cough, Government bailouts, cough). Truth be told, the Star Wars prequel movies made much less than we think they did for LFL. That's why the Live Action series has been on hold, and the Clone Wars animated series is the way it is, it is simply way too expensive to make new Star Wars movies. The recession hit in 2008, that had an impact on them I am certain. This is were my personal speculation comes in, I believe it is it's clear that around 2010, they came up with the idea "hey, lets make enough money to make a new Star Wars movie", this was rumored and spread around. LucasFilm quicky denied this, but it's entirely possible in my opinion that it was so.
http://furiousfanboys.com/2010/10/star-wars-sequel-trilogy-due-in-2019/ (Published in October 2010)

That's why we've been seeing the Blu-Ray releases, and the 3D re-releases in theaters, it appears they were planning, or perhaps had slowly started to make, Episode VII's script and develop it for a release in the late 2010s, probably 2017-2019. The Blu-Rays were controversial, but they made a decent amount of money. However, the 3D re-release of Phantom Menace fell flat, and they've had to push Episode II and Episodes III re-releases to October 2013, so they can make as much money as possible. Red Tails also didn't do great, which is even worse news. Those will more than likely be cancelled. Selling to Disney would be the only option to keep the company alive, IMO.

Selling to Disney allows for LucasFilm to have enough money to produce and develop a new Star Wars movie, 3 or more. However, the assumption is that Disney will write, produce, etc the new Star Wars movie. Episode VII will be treated with the same reverence as Pixar films and Marvel movies are by Disney, a handsoff approach.

Disney isn't stupid, despite being responsible for the abomination of some of the most worthless shows (Hanna Montana, Wizarding Hills, etc), they know how big of a deal this is. Loyal, hardcore Star Wars fans produce a huge amount of the money for these movies. Why else would they be popular? They'll give us what we want, a real Star Wars film. They're a cooperation first before everything, and you have to think of what you're going to percent to your target audience. Disney knows how to do that. When they say "family entertainment", they're meaning it will appeal to everyone, men, women, children. They're going to make sure that LFL produces a good Star Wars.

So relax, Disney isn't going to ruin Star Wars, if anything it may be responsible for the salvation of the Star Wars franchise. You're just going to have to adjust to the changes, because times are tough and this is the result.

Sit back and watch, the next 3 years will be very interesting.

LOVED the TRON opening. Loved TRON.
Disney should be able to do well, if they do their research. They did great with reviving the TRON franchise (well, TRON fans got happy. Disney made way less $ than they expected). If Disney does their research, they should be able to make something great.

It sounds like Lucas still has input.

He's a consultant, he helped with the script. But for all intents and purposes, he's retired from the franchise. They'll try to be as close to Lucas's vision as possible, but the dialogue, casting and such is going to come from someone else in LFL.

Lucas will have an important role, as he IS the creator, the visionary. But if he really hates something that Disney really loves, he will be unable to stop it.

Here's a little credit to my post, Mark Hamil was approached for Episode 7, 8, and 9 last August, so it's been in the works since at least then.
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/10/31/mark-hamill-star-wars-episode-vii-disney/

In Hollywood terms consultant means that Disney loves George a lot, and they'll call him when they need him. In all truth I doubt much of his treatment for 7,8, and 9 will survive. I have faith Disney will let Kathleen Kennedy and LFL to do their thing, but they won't risk having this become another PT. Yes the PT made money, yes it has it's share of fans, and yes it sold lots of toys. HOWEVER, the popular majority has been the loudest,and the popular majority didn't see the PT in a fair light. This is their first big swing coming out of this buy out, they can't risk having the same mistakes happen again. This isn't like with Marvel, where the movies were all pretty much critically and commercially successful.

If you think we the fans are worrying about the ST being good, I'm sure Disney is just as worried. They know they have money here, but they need to get a home run.

In other words, we'll probably never see Jar Jar Binks again.

Did the majority actually hate the prequels? The hard-core and loud did. In statistics, this is called voluntary response bias.

KED, you're 18 and you feel really old? Yikes.

Anyway, I was somewhat ambivalent about this whole thing yesterday, but today I find myself feeling really excited. My hope is that Disney shows respect for the Star Wars universe while at the same time taking it in new and exciting directions. For me, a lot will depend on who ends up writing the movies and who directs. In terms of the business side of things, Disney (in my opinion) is going to be really careful in terms of protecting their investment - meaning they will go with proven quantities in terms of who winds up taking the lead in writing, producing, and directing.

Yup! I've been lurking here through my teenage years. I feel old because I can't believe Revenge of the Sith was 7 years ago, and now I'm an adult instead of a little kid, and it will be 10 when the new one comes out, so I'll be in my 20s! Just like the rest of the PT kids.

Will not risk getting in a debate of the popularity or lack their of of the PT. So I'll just say that Disney will not risk the ST being another PT, because of the popular opinion(which is it) that it sucked.

They will make buttloads of money no matter what. This is why Adam Sandler keeps producing films, even though they get panned.

LordPalpatine on twitter did an experiment a while back, to find out the true popularity of the Star Wars movies.
http://lordpalpatine.tumblr.com/post/22006833339/starwarsmoviepopularity

Obviously not perfect scientific research, but I think it's a pretty good indication.

I think Jack and Jill made like 6 bucks at the box office so you might wanna use a better example.

Interesting that ROTS has almost as much as ANH in that twitter poll

If they are going to go hands off with LFL, let's hope LFL hires a different writer and director so that we don't end up with another PT.

Guessing that's probably a goal.

Well GL officially retired so he's definitely out. There are rumours going around that LFL have been hearing writers pitches for a few months. It wouldn't surprise me if they tried hiring a "Joss Whedon" type figure. Big fanboy director who's passionate about the saga (without simply trying to be Lucas in ANH etc). Or alternately a "studio director" capable hand who'll obey his creative overlords at LFL. Both ways can work, depending on the story they go with.

I almost don't even want to say Joss Whedon's name for fear of jinxing it.

Hamill wasn't 'approached' about the Sequel Trilogy; he, George, and Carrie met for lunch, and during their conversation, George told them that the long-rumored Sequel Trilogy was moving forward. Absolutely nothing was discussed concerning possible roles in said trilogy for either Mark or Carrie; it was simply a chance for George to 'bring them into the inner circle', as it were, of people who knew about what was happening with the SW universe.