JAK Films, Inc.

I just read this in the news section of this site:

Next month, George Lucas Books, an imprint of JAK Films, Inc. (Lucas's motion picture company), will release its first title, Cinema By the Bay by Sheerly Avni.

I've never heard of JAK Films Inc. before!? Whatever happened to Lucasfilm? Is this some new company that Lucas has established dedicated to movie production? If so - then why? He has always used Lucasfilm before...

And what is George Lucas Books? It's always been called Lucas Books before!
[image=http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/starwars/art/logo_lucasbooks.gif]

This is all very confusing!

 

I don't know about George Lucas Books (maybe a simple mess-up on the source's part) but I can tell you about JAK Films.

When a movie is made, a separate company is formed for the express purpose of making that movie. The main reason for that is liability.

Let's say that someone wanted to sue over something in the Star Wars prequels -- perhaps someone felt they were being plaigarized, or if there was an accident and a cast or crew member was hurt/killed, or if there was a dispute about money. They would not be able to sue Lucasfilm and go after Lucas' untold millions, they would have to sue JAK Films, which only had the money to make the movie.

This happens all the time to protect movie studios and producers. For example, while Kevin Smith's production company is View Askew Productions, and that's what you see on the poster and stuff, a separate one-time-only company was formed for each of his flicks - "Plenary Indulgence" for "Dogma", "Too Askew" for "Chasing Amy", etc. But sometimes the one-time-use production company is as simple as just "(the name of the movie), LLC".



I don't know why Lucasfilm used one company to make all three movies, although I suppose a lot of it had to do with the fact that the prequels were made virtually back-to-back and all sort of at once, with lots of the same people etc.



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

Adam is right on the money. To Adam you listen.

And as a sidenote, JAK Films was named with the initials of each of
Lucas's kids:

J for Jett
A for Amanda
K for Katie

JAK Films

 

I am aware that it's normal to create a new company for each movie one makes, Lucas did this for the original SW trilogy as well.
What surprises me is that this temporary company is referred to as Lucas' motion picture company. I mean, it would still be normal to refer to Lucasfilm on such occasions.

 

Well there are 2 possibilities. One is that it's a mistake, they actually meant Lucasfilm but somehow they got confused and used JAK in the news announcement. The other (less likely IMHO) is that they extended the JAK company to handle this publications (which would be weird as it's not exactly a Star Wars book).

 

Bingo.

The original trilogy was produced under the company Star Wars Corperation.