George Lucas Comments on Why He Sold Star Wars to Disney: “We Could See the Problems”

George Lucas sold Lucasfilm, which included the Star Wars franchise, to The Walt Disney Company on October 30, 2012. The deal was valued at approximately $4.05 billion, making it one of the largest entertainment acquisitions in history. As part of the acquisition, Disney gained ownership of all existing Star Wars films, characters, and related intellectual property rights.

This sale also paved the way for Disney to produce new Star Wars content, including movies, television series, theme park attractions, and merchandise.

No matter how you personally feel about the sale, it’s no secret that it’s one of the most famous and most lucrative entertainment transfers in history, and now almost 12 years after the sale was complete Lucas opened up on why he decided to sell Star Wars and retire – and it’s really simple, he knew that streaming would be a threat and was unsure on how to adapt:

Streaming is really powerful, and it’s great, it’s really upped the movie business because the theatrical movie business… we could see the problems, and it was not good. So everybody was looking to save it, but nobody knew streaming would. And that’s when Netflix took off, and at that point, I said, ‘I don’t know what this is gonna be, there’s gonna be a giant transition in the business, I don’t know that much about it,’ and I sold the company, and I retired.

Lucas is not the only one who recognized what kind of a threat streaming could be, in fact, plenty of execs, filmmakers and actors alike blame various streaming services for the decline in movie profits. Despite movies having budgets higher than ever, it doesn’t translate well to box office numbers. The COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed the industry for several years, and people still did not return to cinemas en masse like in pre-COVID times.

Still, Lucas previously claimed that Disney is the only company that can properly safeguard Star Wars and continue its legacy. In a different recent interview, he stated that he likes the current direction of Star Wars as the projects have lots of talent, great ideas, and production.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

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