Why George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney ?

Didn't he like the studio that he has founded to remain independent from the rest of Hollywood ?

He could just resign from his position as Lucasfilm CEO and allow Kathleen Kennedy to succeed him. Why he even sold the studio to Disney ?

Was Lucasfilm in a bad financial situation at that time ?

 

Maybe he would find it hard not to be involved unless he made a clean break. If he was head of the company people would consider him involved whether he was or not.

 

Given his age (70s) I think he probably wanted to do other things (like independent films) with what time he has left.

 

LFL really was'nt anymore independent then most other privatly-owned production companies - the first two trilogies were distrubted by 20th Century Fox, and ILM has done/been involved in the special effects for a lot of "the rest" of Hollywood; including the Harry Potter, Star Trek and Pirates movies and Iron Man.

Aside from his publicly given reasons? Well, he has four children - the youngest of which is seven now - and when peaple get older they tend to want to devote what time they have to family; my aunt and uncle, who are around his age, just fully retired and moved down to Pennsylvania to live near their youngest son and his family. Not to mention how horribly he was treated by his own fanbase over the PT.

There's also the money factor - it might sound cynical, but money talks and there's not really such a thing as "too much"; I have an older cousin (a nephew of my grandmother) who spent a solid decade or so working behind the cameras for CNN before he eventually left to work for Fox News simply becuase, even though he's a democratic right down to the bone, they offered him more money then CNN was paying him.

Heck, It's not unheard of at all for peaple to eventually sell the companies they founded and built once they reach a certain age irregardless of how sucessful it is and how wealthy they are; heck, Andrew Carnegie sold the company that bore his name to J.P Morgan in 1901, and not only did he defiantly not need the money and he famously spent the remaining years of his life practically giving his now-staggering wealth away.

Not that I know of, but that's more of a reason to sell, not less; it means what your offering is known to be profitable and it means that (unless your horrible with money) your probobly financially sound yourself.

 

This is patently not true at all. After the first movie, Lucas self-financed all the remaining SW movies he made and made a deal with Fox just for the theatrical distribution (the only part where LFL wasn't self-sufficient). Remember, Fox signed away the merchandising rights, so that was additional income for Lucasfilm as well. The fact that ILM was selling its services to other studios/production companies is irrelevant.

 

He was still part of Hollywood* - the suggestion (unless I misread/misinterpreted) seems to be that LFL was independent/stood apart from "the rest" of Hollywood before Lucas sold the company to Disney, but he had already working with Fox to distrubute the older movies (even if Fox did'nt make money off them it was still an example of LFL/Lucas being involved with, and thus part of, Hollywood).

*what even consitutes a part/not a part of "Hollywood" in this case? It seems pretty strightforward to me; if you make big budget films that are distributed by a company that everyone agrees is a major Hollywood studio, and cast at least some big-name actors, then your "part" of Hollywood.

ILM is part of LFL. If the claim is LFL was'nt a big part of Hollywood before the Disney sale, then the fact that it was so closely involved in the production of so many major Hollywood films hardly seems irrelevant (again though, maybe I just misunderstood the intention of the post).

 

Sorry, but your basic premise ("LFL really was'nt anymore independent then most other privatly-owned production companies") is absolutely, spectacularly, and unequivocally false in every possible way. Lucas regained his independence as a filmmaker after the first SW movie and promptly had all LFL operations relocated to Marin County, which is pretty much as far from Hollywood as you can be and still remain in the state of California. He no longer needed to run and scripts, casting or anything else past any studio heads, he had his own filmmaking operation, his own special-effects company, his own post-production facilities, etc. The only thing for which he even needed a studio was for releasing a finished product to cinemas, in exchange for a small percentage of the theatrical revenue. Which is, essentially, hiring the studio to distribute the movie for you - it was a Hollywood studio doing the work for LFL, not George Lucas working for a Hollywood studio.
What distinguishes the Hollywood system, by definition, is that it is run by the studio heads, who ultimately get to decide which movies get made, what the budgets are, etc. Most directors are just hired hands brought in to direct whatever is assigned to them. And Lucas clearly had no desire or need to continue working within that system after 1977, because he could afford to self-finance all SW movies starting with ESB, and make all the decisions about the making of the movies, as well as all the merchandising decisions.
And ultimately, you can't be part of the Hollywood establishment when you've cut pretty much all the ties, when you're based in Northern California, and when you don't need approval from anyone in Hollywood for anything because you're making movies on your own.

 

No offense Tina, but I don't see how it is.

I think you might be misunderstanding me (and I also think you might be taking the term "Hollywood" quite a bit more literal then I am).

You can run an independent studio and still be part of Hollywood. "Hollywood" is just a nebulous slang term that applies to the mainstream US film industry. Saying LFL was'nt always part of Hollywood is like saying Five Guys is'nt part of the American fast food industry.

The point is if he can't not be part of Hollywood if he does business with them regularly.

And Lucas was'nt a studio head?Seems to me that all that changed was the GL went from being just one of many directors to a studio head who did'nt need to answer to anyone, but that does'nt mean he stopped being part of Hollywood; if I quit my job tommorow to open a mom and pop variety store I would'nt stop being part of the retail industry.

There's no organized group of peaple in charge of Hollywood. It's just a term used to refer to a collection of actors, studies/production companies (of which LFL was just one of many). The only difference that I can see (no offense) is now it's owned by anouther bigger Hollywood studio - was Paramount independent from Hollywood before it was bought by Viacom? What about Warner Bros. before Time Warner was formed? Heck, what's the difference between GL before the Disney sale and Walt Disney back in the 50s/60s in this senario? Was Disney independent from Hollywood back then?

Fox distributed the PT as well.

You don't have to literally be based out of an office on Hollywood Boulevard to be part of Hollywood. And I don't recall GL ever cutting all ties with Hollywood - he still worked with Fox to distrubute the PT, he stayed besties with Spielberg and Coppola, he kept working with big-name actors and he ultimatly chose to sell LFL to a major studio that I doubt anyone would dispute is part of Hollywood.

I'm not trying to be difficult Tina, I'm really not, but we must have different definations of what consitutes Hollywood and being part of it, becuase if your doing busness in the Hollywood enviroment regularly and your in-house special effects company has been a staple of the industry for decades then your most definantly "a part" of it.

 

You are confusing being in the movie business with being a part of the Hollywood system, those two aren't the same thing.
Independent filmmakers, wherever they are based, are by definition independent of the Hollywood system. Otherwise, they wouldn't be considered independent.
And owning your own movie production company, completely self-financing your films and taking care of all your own post-production needs is about as independent as it can get.
Your definition of "Hollywood" is nonsensical - it would mean every single independent filmmaker in the East coast and in the entire world would be a part of Hollywood if they have one of their movies picked up for distribution by one of the major studios, clearly this would be insane because then practically every filmmaker in the world would qualify at some point or another.

 

If your reffering to the mainstream US film industry, then yes, they are the same thing; in the United States, if your in the mainstream movie business (which LFL was) then your part of Hollywood, becuase that's what Hollywood means.

By this logic, would'nt Disney itself not be a part of Hollywood? After all, it's independent, is'nt it?

Lucas was'nt an indy filmaker putting things out at Sundance. He was a well-known, established studio head running a major company that produced and filmed blockbuster movies for mass consumption and made biusness deals with companies like Fox and Paramount to distribute them - and honestly I really can't think of any way to discribe films like SW and Indiana Jones other then "Hollywood blockbusters."

Again, how can LFL not be a part of Hollywood when Paramount/20th Fox distruputed it's films and IML did the special effects for everyone and their mother? Is'nt that him working within the system - I.E, being part of it?

It's the definition I've always seen used. Unless your talking about the street or the sign, Hollywood is neither a place nor a thing, it's just a general terms used to discribe the mainstream film industry based out of the United States - just like how Bollywood discribes the mainstream Indian film industry and Lollywood discribes the mainstream film industry of Pakistan (or rather, Lahore).

No it would'nt. There's indy filmakers and then there's production companies that are part of Hollywood but don't answer to anyone becuase their owned by peaple/persons who are top dogs; again, Hollywood is just a general term for the mainstream American film industry and it's not controlled by any organized group, so eventually a person or peaple is/are going to reach a point within it where they don't answer to anyone above them, but that does'nt mean their no longer part of that environment - if I owned the TJX Corporation, rather then just worked for TJ Maxx, I would still be part of the retail industry.

Look at it like this, becuase maybe this will help you understand/visualize my logic and the mindset I'm operating under.

Before
Hollywood
I
LFL and Disney (and countless other production studies)

After
Hollywood
I
Disney (and countless other production studies)
I
LFL
​

That's what changed. LFL got swollowed by a bigger fish, but it was always in the pond

 

Even if we were to go with that definition of Hollywood, it doesn't change the original question that started the thread, imho. That question was whether or not Lucas was unhappy with his own company. I haven't come across any evidence that suggests he was unhappy with it, indeed it gave him a degree of independence in the entertainment industry that hardly anyone - not even Spielberg - has enjoyed, I think.
So, by all available evidence, it would appear Lucas wasn't unhappy with Lucasfilm, per se.

 

Well, yes. And I never disputed that; he was definantly unhappy with the treatment he recieved over the PT, but I don't think he was unhappy with his company or his accomplishments. The simplest explanation is usually the most likely, and the simplest explanation is that the man is almost eighty, has a family and has accomplished enough that he's entitled to step back.

 

George was just tired. But he probably wanted the company to live. Then Iger turned up with a proposal. George probably felt that he would no longer do big movies after the release of Red Tails. So he decided to pass on the legacy of a significant entertainment corporation.

 

SW and Indy were a way of monetizing to fund non-mainstream independent films that Lucas produced for his friends: Kagemusha, Latino, Mishima. Although this is more true of the 80s. But many of the things that Lucas financed in his career would not be produced by the Hollywood people. As most of Lucas' films as a producer did not have the financial potential, they were creatively ambitious.

 

Maybe not unhappy with the company, per se, but he was definitely unhappy with working on Star Wars. In 2012, he said "why would I make any more [SW movies] when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?". So I read the sale to Disney as: the internet hatred for the Prequels had resulted in him becoming disillusioned with the franchise and making big movies that everyone sees, so he handed the company off to people he trusted and retired to his ranch where he could be with his family and apparently make experimental films for his own consumption, away from the aggressive scrutiny of the press and the internet.

I think he maybe regretted the sale initially when Disney didn't follow the treatments that he had written for the sequels (which was perfectly within their rights, but it would have been a bit of a sore subject), but he seems to have made peace with it now, given his praise of Rogue One and The Last Jedi and his set visits to Solo and The Mandalorian.

 

My point is more that it does'nt really make much sense (from were I'm sitting, at least) to act like LFL pre-Disney was somehow "separate" from Hollywood (especially since "Hollywood" is just a general term for the mainstream American film industry anyway) and I don't really see Lucas as having been an outsider to that world (flaws aside, he's arguably one of the most influential and respected filmakers of his generation, and he's been well-connected both personally and professionally within Hollywood since well before he sold Disney to Star Wars)

True, not every director in Hollywood operates a major production company/special effects firm and is wealthy enough to self-finance big-budget passion projects, but the reason Lucas is able to do that is'nt becuase he's an outsider, it's becuase he's a savvy businessman who had the forsight/self-confidence to make good investments in his own world; heck even if we took away everything he was involved with save for just ILM he'd still have been a Hollywood insider, since ILM alone has been involved in so many film productions.

As I recall, he's basically more or less said something to the tune of "yeah, I could have made them [the ST], and peaple who have hated them."

Yikes (but you can't say he does'nt know the fandom)

I'd imagine he had to know that it was entirely possible Disney would opt not to use his treatments, and if he was so importent to him that they did he could have had it been a written condition of the sale.

 

There is literally no other American filmmaker who has endeavored as hard as Lucas did to remain independent of the Hollywood system, you keep peddling a lot of misconceptions even though there is abundant evidence Lucas always wanted to be very much an outsider to the system. This didn't mean he had wanted to exist entirely outside of the American film industry, or that as a businessman he wouldn't have his company do work for Hollywood studios. Those things have nothing to do with his status as an outsider to the Hollywood system.
Just compare him to Steven Spielberg, who also had a huge financial success yet was quite happy to continue working in Hollywood (both in the physical sense as well as being intensely involved with the system established by the Hollywood majors. Yes, he also had his production company at Universal for a long time and yet he didn't feel the need to largely extricate himself from being at the heart of the system.

While someone like Spielberg or even DePalma were happy to be intricately involved in the Hollywood system, other filmmakers like Lucas, Coppola or Scorsese sought a certain distance and the ability to make movies with as little control from Hollywood executives as possible, Lucas may have been the clearest example of being far removed from the heart of that ecosystem but still able to exercise a remarkable degree of entrepreneurship that revolved around the American film industry but at a distance from the studios.

 

It is not a matter of actual belonging, but of working methods. Lucas worked on films that were interesting to him, but not always in commercial potential. In this sense, Lucas is not a Hollywood person.

 

I would agree that he was one of the peaple who endevoured to maintain a certain distance from the core of Hollywood, but all I'm saying is he was still maintained solid personal (his freindships with varius peaple more intimatly involved with the "system" then he) and professional (his willingess to allow other studies to distribute his films, even past the point were he could have done it himself, his frequent contributions to big-budget films - including Jurassic Park and the Star Trek and Pirates films, among others and, of course, the simple fact that he chose to sell LFL to Disney of all peaple when, if independence from Hollywood was such an issue from him, he could have just retired and let Kennedy or someone run the company as it was)

As I may have said before, it might be that some of you here have a much more narrow definition of Hollywood then I do*. For me Lucas/Lucasfilms was Hollywood becuase it was A) was a major production studio making mainstream films, B) it's in-house special effects company was intimatly involved with varius other Hollywood productions and C) the man who owned and ran the company was hardly an outsider to the Hollywood world, given his promiance, high regard and relationships within the field.

*when I say or here "Hollywood" I think of a broad umbrella that covers basically all mainstream film in the United States - basically almost everything that is'nt indy stuff or television/streaming. A "Hollywood film" can be Infinity War yeah, but it can also be Toy Story (hope this helps make things make more sense)

I think this might be were a big part of our disagreement stems from - you say "he was able to exercise a remarkable degree of entrepreneurship that revolved around the American film industry but at a distance from the studios" but I consider pre-Disney LFL to actually be one of those studios, so far from seeing someone distant from it I see someone standing right in the middle.

As for him (and Coppola and Scorsese for that matter, who I would also 100 percent call Hollywood peaple - agian, becuase I think my view of Hollywood is way broader and more nebulous then yours) being able to make movies with limited control from Hollywood executives, well that's pretty easy to do when you run your own studio and there's nobody above you - nobody runs Hollywood as a whole, so if you operate your own studio within it you of course can do whatever the heck you want to.

That's fair, but that kinda ties into my point; IMO he was able to do that becuase he had the means, not becuase he was'nt involved in the system. Quentin Tarantino also works on films that are interesting to him, rather then those that would necessarily be sucessful, but I'd still classify him as a Hollywood guy* and his films as Hollywood films.

*I can hear the pitchforks being sharpened and smell the torches burning.

 

The only problem with trying to establish your own little definition of Hollywood is that I know few people in the industry - including Lucas himself - who would even know what you're talking about, and so just for the record I'm going with the definition that the majority of people in the industry would use, because frankly it's just ridiculous to try to pretend that all of the American film industry represents "Hollywood" (or vice versa)

And Lucas himself described what his problem with Hollywood was way back in 1980 in this Rolling Stone interview:
RS: I guess you really do have reason to hate Hollywood.
Lucas: They’re rather sleazy, unscrupulous people. L.A. is where they make deals, do business in the classic corporate American way, which is screw everybody and do whatever you can to make the biggest profit. They don’t care about people. It is incredible the way they treat filmmakers, because they have no idea what making a movie is about. To them, the deal is the movie. They have no idea of the suffering, the hard work. They’re not filmmakers. I don’t want to have anything to do with them.

But if you want to make movies, don’t you have to?
That’s why I’m trying to build the ranch.

The ranch?
Yeah, I bought 2000 acres in Lucas Valley, California [no relation] – to build a kind of creative-filmmakers’ retreat. The idea for this came out of film school. It was a great environment; a lot of people all very interested in film, exchanging ideas, watching movies, helping each other out. I wondered why we couldn’t have a professional environment like that. When you make a movie, it really is a fifteen-hour-a-day thing, and you don’t have time to do anything else. If you do it year in and year out, you become a complete nonentity. You need an environment that gets people excited about things, and they don’t do that in Hollywood.


That's it, plain and simple. There is a mentality that goes along with working in Hollywood that some people can stand and some people just can't. A filmmaker like Spielberg clearly had no problem being deep within the industry physically and metaphorically, others like Lucas and Coppola literally wanted to be as far away as possible and do things very differently in their own little independent operations, and to a remarkable extent, the were able to, although Coppola despite having Zoetrope films still had to be willing to be a hired hand for some Hollywood projects even after the success of his 1970s masterpieces.

Being able to do things your way and not have to rely on any approval or "green light" from the suits in LA is what being an independent filmmaker is all about, and nobody was more successful at it than Lucas. That didn't mean he wasn't willing to do business deals with Hollywood - he was going into those situations as a businessman and not a filmmaker, and he was pretty darn good as a businessman. But it was for situations that weren't going to put his creative vision for his movies at risk.

 

We must live in alternate realities then, becuase in all the almost thirty years I've been living on this Earth as an American citizen the definition of Hollywood that I'm using has been the definition that everyone uses - literally this thread is the very first time I've ever seen anyone argue that Lucas is not a Hollywood director and the Star Wars movies are'nt mainstream films (and to be completly honest I'm actually very confused by the whole thing, becuase Lucas, LFL and Star Wars check all the boxes I can think of for "Hollywood director," "Hollywood studio" and Hollywood films").

And considering that the first result in Merriam Webster for the term Hollywood is literally just "the American motion-picture industry" it does'nt really seem ridiculous to say that the term Hollywood repersents the mainstream American film industry*; no offense, but it seems like if I'm "pretending" then so is a heck of a lot of other peaple.

*and as the Star Wars movies under Lucas mainstream films made in America by an American filmaker running an American studio, then they would logically be "Hollywood films," no?

It's not really simple, though.

Yes, Lucas said that stuff and he did build the ranch and become wealthy enough to be independent, yet obviously either his contempt was overstated, changed his mind regarding Hollywood or came around, becuase he remained closely tied to that world right up until he sold Disney (and frankly, if he gave that interview in 2005 rather then 1980 I'd call him out for rank hypocrisy, becuase for someone who "does'nt want anything to do with them" he consistently had an awful lot to do with them).

For an analogy Bernie Sanders might like to say he's not part of the mainstream political system in the United States, but that does'nt change the fact that he's been working Washington for the entire span of my lifetime, is well-known and well-connected in DC and consantently aligns with the Democratic Party politics and runs on a Democratic platform. Now, don't get me wrong, I like Sanders quite a bit, but he's as much "not a part of mainstream US politics" as Lucas is "not part of mainstream Hollywood."

Lucas was deep in the industry, I honestly don't see how you can say he was'nt. He owned a Hollywood studio, made Hollywood films (which he partnered with other Hollywood studios to distribute), owned a big-name special effects company that did the effects for countless other Hollywood films, was (and still is) friends or on freindly terms with a fair few Hollywood actors and directors and is not considered an outsider by Hollywood society.

Who are "the suits?" Hollywood is'nt run by an organized group of peaple - there's no committee of uber-producers who meet in a secret lair behind the Hollywood sign who everyone in the 'biz answers too, their are just varius studios (of which my point is that LFL pre-Disney was one of, just on a smaller scale then some others) and powerful producers/casting directors who have the right connections/insider knowledge to be big weelers and dealers.

That's what I'm saying though; it does'nt matter if your working in Hollywood as a businessman, a filmaker, an actor, a gaffer, Tom Cruise's assistent or Spielberg's baseball cap, your still involved with, and thus a part of, Hollywood - my point is that Lucas was involved in Hollywood in a fairly large way (as I said, you could get ride of everything LFL does save for ILM and just from that studio alone he'd be a Hollywood insider), and him selling LFL to Disney was'nt an outsider selling his company to Hollywood, but a Hollywood businessman making a transaction with anouther group of Hollywood businessman.

Walt Disney was wealthy, connected and independent enough that could make films without putting his creative vision for his movies at risk, but I've never seen anyone deny he was'nt a part of Hollywood. How is that any different from Lucas prior to him selling things to Disney? Why would Walt/Disney be classified as part of Hollywood, but Lucas/LFL would not?

 

I don't really know what other way there is to explain this to you. But independent filmmakers are, by definition, not a part of the Hollywood ecosystem, if they were they would all be working in the Southern California area or at the very least getting their marching orders from the Hollywood executives (aka the suits). If that were not so, then a movie like Sidewalk Stories would have to be considered a Hollywood film, and not an independent movie.
Yes, there are people out there who aren't very sophisticated and will equate "Hollywood" with pretty much any movie made or filmed in the United States. To people in the industry, the term Hollywood has always equated not just a geographical location but also a complete different mentality in terms of making and marketing movies that isn't shared with the film industry in the rest of the world.
We could discuss semantics all day long but I'm not sure if that would be particularly productive, so let's just say this in a different way, shall we? George Lucas always hated the ways of doing business that he got to know up close while working in the film industry in Southern California, where he also went to film school. As soon as he was able, he distanced himself as much as possible both from that geographical location as well as from the executives in charge of decision-making who controlled that industry and pretty much all production they financed. He still wanted to be in the film business, but not as practiced by those people headquartered in the Southern California area. He was OK doing business with them, but didn't want to have to rely on them for financing and/or letting them have any control over his creative decisions. He just wanted to be an independent filmmaker with his own filmmaking company that was in no way financially or creatively controlled by those SoCal folks. And he largely succeeded. Once he had no more desire to make films, he didn't have any trouble selling his company to the highest bidder because that was just a business decision.

 

I think one of the root causes (aside from your definition of Hollywood being narrower then mine) is that you seem to also have a broader tern of what consistutes an independent filmaker then I do as well as the facts that (if I'm not mistaken) you seem to distance from LA into the equasion while I do not and seem to view Hollywood as being run by an organization run by a group of specific peaple while I view it as not a thing but just a general, catch-all term for the mainstream film industry in the US - a fairly large umbrella that has more then enough room to encampas Lucasfilm while allowing Lucasfilm to remain more-or-less independent from a lot of what else it encampasses (I.E you seem to view Hollywood as a thing, while I view it more as an idea).

If that was a dig at me then I should probobly clarify that I don't think every film that is made in the United States is a Hollywood film, just every mainstream film made by a mainstream film studio/a mainstream director in the United States, which I consider both LFL and Lucas to be.

Put this way, I would more or less agree with this. I think my points are just that Lucas is not the first or only person to be able to exercise that level of independence (indeed a great many Hollywood film studios do, the difference I suppose is that most of those are'nt run by peaple who are also writers/directors, just corporate CEOs - Bob Chapek and Shari Redstone don't write and direct films, for instance, while Lucas was a very "hands on" studio head, which was both due to desire and becuase the size of his company allowed it) and the simple fact that he regularly did biusness with Hollywood in some way is enough for me to classify him as "part" of Hollywood.

 

Can we just forget about the semantics of this for a little while? Also, there isn't any such thing as "my" definition of anything - I'm simply going by the same defintitions that are used by the industry. I've written about film for a living and have followed the industry trades for even longer than you've been alive, according to what you said earlier.

So, let's just some up some things that are fairly self-evident, shall we?

OK, for most of the time that movies have existed, the Hollywood majors have dominated the American film industry and the majority of movies seen around the world. There is a very concise definition of what constitutes a Hollywood major that separates them from all other film production units.
As a graduate of a film school attended by a lot of folks who ended up working in the film industry, Lucas always sought to have greater creative freedom and independence than he could get working as a hired hand by the Hollywood majors. He absolutely loathed having to deal with most of the film executives running those entities, only occasionally finding someone who was supportive, like Alan Ladd Jr.
He wanted to get away from that, and to a remarkable degree he succeeded. He was able to self-finance all SW movies starting with ESB.
Regardless of your own personal definition, Lucasfilm as an independent company never qualified to be or was considered by the industry to be a Hollywood major. In fact, with the Fox acquisition by Disney only five of them remain in existance today.

 

makes sense to me.