ST What could George Lucas do legally if they changed his outlines?

He won't have to do anything legally. GL will just sit back and enjoy the fan nerd rage lol


Sent from my R2 unit

 

We don't know what the actual language was in the agreement, nor do we know how in depth the treatments where, but if they were part of the deal, I'm sure the contract was written with clauses that ensure that neither side would want to do anything outside the agreement.

At the same time, I do not believe for a second that Disney would have made the move if they did not like the treatments enough to keep them intact.

I also dont believe that whatever changes were made by Abrams and Kasdan to Arndt's draft would be changes to GL's treatments, but rather changes to the way the story of those treatments were told.

Legal recourse? I'm sure he would have some, but equally sure he wont need them.

 

Such clauses cost money. A lot of money. In a multi-billion dollar deal, a clause like that can easily cost hundreds of millions. In other words, if Disney was willing to pay $4 billion for complete control, they may only pay $3.8 billion if they have to adhere to certain restrictions.

From everything we've heard about this deal, Disney owns Star Wars lock, stock and barrel - not to mention that (as others have pointed out) they wouldn't spend billions of dollar for partial control. The overwhelming evidence supports the notion that legally, Lucas has zero control whatsoever.

You're misinterpreting what he is saying.

Suppose Lucas had an entire outline for Episodes 7, 8 and 9. If Disney bought all of Star Wars, but the deal did not include that outline, then they cannot use it. What Lucas is saying is "yeah, they bought all my stories as part of the deal." Nowhere in that statement does it state or even imply that Disney is legally obligated to use those treatments. They simply have the option to do so.

+1 +1 +1. I have little doubt that in this context, "broad outlines of the deal" means "we're giving you roughly $4 billion in cash and stock in exchange for all of Star Wars."

Once that was agreed to in principle, Lucas felt comfortable turning over his treatments while the law-talkin' fellas with all their fancy book-learnin' dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's.

 

no he made a lot of money to move on with his life and then gave that money to charity.

 

I am sure he will be credited as an Executive Producer on the film. Same reason Steven Spielberg or other directors are credited for the same when they give any ounce of input into a TV series or film (if they request the credit).

 

Yeah, Lucas is definitely going to get an Executive Producer credit on Ep. 7 just for the poster alone (none of this "Executive Consultant" nonsense Roddenbery got on the ST 2-6 flicks) but he'll be one among many EPs, unlike the OT/PT which had Lucas as the sole EP for each flick.

 

Here's what I believe has taken place:

Lucas wrote broad broad outlines for the ST which were turned into full treatments by Arndt, who then did several drafts of the Ep7 screenplay. Abrams disagreed with the emphasis of Arndt's drafts and Kasdan was brought on to rework the screenplay to shift the focus somewhat. Nothing indicates that the fundamental story has changed from Lucas' outline, but it may have been expanded differently to the direction of Arndt's work.

But Lucas is done with SW. He has "passed on what he has learned". He's a gracious guy, and I think he recognises that the filmmaking process means that movies transform when going from broad outlines to images on the screen. Not only would he have no recourse, he wouldn't want one.

 

Knowing his backstory with Star Wars, I doubt it.

George: "Okay, JJ, here's what you need to do to maximize your profits: Be toy friendly as possible"

 

I would be amazingly surprised if the ST scripts bear any more than a passing resemblance to Lucas's original treatments. I'd think it'd be nearly impossible to get people like Ardnt and Abrams aboard and then tell them the exact movie they need to make. And the idea that Disney bought Star Wars with the fine print that said "But you have to make my EXACT movies as the sequel trilogy" is ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous. You really think Disney, who has the best lawyers in the entire entertainment industry, would pigeonhole themselves like that? No way.

In the end, though, no one will really know. Unless Lucas complains loudly or something, but I seriously doubt that given that he's never seemed all that interested in a sequel trilogy anyway. Especially compared to the PT. There is a reason he made sure to ban novels/comics in the prequel era, but was fine with a plethora of sequel books.

 

Hmmm . . . there's nothing like a side swipe at the PT.

Wow. Talk about insulting. It's really that important to you to demean Lucas' contribution to the saga, let alone admit that he originally created the whole thing in the first place; because you didn't like the PT or the SE, or both. Fanboys.

 

The simple fact that there will be even more movies beyond 7-9 shows that there's no way Disney will be sticking closely to all of Lucas's visions. Just not realistic. With 7-9 in particular though, I'm sure they will feel a loyalty to George to bring some of his vision to life, but it's not legally binding.

 

Lucas never said that there wouldn't ever be films, much less stories in general outside of what he was going to do. All that had mattered was the main storyline in the films. The number of films have fluctuated over the years, as well as how much involvement he was going to have. But he was clear that there was a lot of stories to tell beyond what he wanted to tell. Hence all the statements about the EU.

 

Mind you...

May 2008 edition of Total Film magazine:

TOTAL FILM: "The Star Wars universe has expanded far beyond the movies. How much leeway do the game makers and novel writers have?"
LUCAS: "They have their own kind of world. There's three pillars of Star Wars. I'll probably get in trouble for this but it's OK! There's three pillars: the father, the son and the holy ghost. I'm the father, Howard Roffman [president of Lucas Licensing] is the son and the holy ghost is the fans, this kind of ethereal world of people coming up with all kinds of different ideas and histories. Now these three different pillars don't always match, but the movies and TV shows are all under my control and they are consistent within themselves. Howard tries to be consistent but sometimes he goes off on tangents and it's hard to hold him back. He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there's the TV show and then there's all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn't have anything to do with each other. So I said, "OK, go ahead." In the early days I told them that they couldn't do anything about how Darth Vader was born, for obvious reasons, but otherwise I pretty much let them do whatever they wanted. They created this whole amazing universe that goes on for millions of years!"
TOTAL FILM: "Are you happy for new Star Wars tales to be told after you're gone?"
LUCAS: "I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX. That's because there isn't any story. I mean, I never thought of anything. And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married..."​

 

...And then Disney's check cleared.

 

That 2008 statement doesn't contradict anything with what I said. Besides, that was before he started to get more involved in the cartoon and ideas for the ST started cropping up. All Disney did was light a fire under him.

 

It was just that this:

LUCAS: "I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX.

seemed to me a bit of a contradiction.

 

If you only focus on that part of the statement, that is true. But I was referring to earlier on when he said that he had intended for the story to go beyond his involvement. This was back when there were nine to twelve films and he was only going to be involved with a few of them and then let others tell the story. The part where I said his involvement and the number of films has changed over the years reflects what he did with the PT, saying that he wasn't going to make more films beyond then and then coming back with the ST outlines. Hence I said, "The number of films have fluctuated over the years, as well as how much involvement he was going to have. But he was clear that there was a lot of stories to tell beyond what he wanted to tell."

 

The problems with the PT were not down to the story, the story of Star Wars is great & has shown Lucas is arguably the greatest storyteller of his time.
His problem lies in dialogue & direction, neither of which he is involved in now.
His story supposedly convinced Abrams to agree to do the movie, I doubt it would be redone extensively if that was the case

 

Lol. Just a bit.

 

Fair enough.

 

How much control does Stan Lee have over the recent Marvel movies? Pretty sure once George signed that dotted line it gives Disney fairly broad outlines to do with as they please. Now part of the reason they paid that price for SW was under the assumption that the Lucas outlines were part of the deal, but if JJ Abrams doesn't like something (ie: focusing on the Skywalker/Solo kids and making the older characters secondary), I think he has pretty broad freedom to change it too. I don't think Abrams would've come on to the project if he didn't have that, because he did initially say no to Kathleen Kennedy.

 

Here's an excerpt which leads me to believe that some aspect of the overall arc is contractual.

At first Lucas wouldn’t even turn over his rough sketches of the next three Star Wars films. When Disney executives asked to see them, he assured them they would be great and said they should just trust him. “Ultimately you have to say, ‘Look, I know what I’m doing. Buying my stories is part of what the deal is.’ I’ve worked at this for 40 years, and I’ve been pretty successful,” Lucas says. “I mean, I could have said, ‘Fine, well, I’ll just sell the company to somebody else.’ ”

Once Lucas got assurances from Disney in writing about the broad outlines of the deal, he agreed to turn over the treatments—but insisted they could only be read by Iger, Horn, and Kevin Mayer, Disney’s executive vice president for corporate strategy. “We promised,” says Iger. “We had to sign an agreement.”

http://www.businessweek.com/article...ught-lucasfilm-and-its-plans-for-star-wars#p4

 

Buying those treatments were part of the deal but nothing says that using them was mandated. There really is no way they would spend all that money without complete creative control. I mean, what happens if they wan t to go one way and Lucas wants them to go another? Lawsuits arise and productions get delayed for years and years and years.

 

What could George Lucas do legally if they changed his outlines?


Nada, nothing....