VIDEO: George Lucas – "Star Wars will have longer life at Disney"
The Mouse House of Disney now owns Yoda, Stormtroopers, Darth Vader and every other thing Star Wars and Indiana Jones related following creator George Lucas’s decision to sell his production company Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion to Disney.
Is that a move from the Dark Side of the Force? No, says Lucas in a video interview you can view above. Sitting alongside new Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, the Star Wars maestro revealed the main intention behind the move (beyond barrels of money, of course) was to protect the future of the Star Wars franchise beyond his lifetime.
“I felt that I really wanted to put the company somewhere in a larger entity which would protect it,” Lucas said in his explanation justifying the sale to Disney.
“When I first made Star Wars, everyone in Hollywood said, ‘Well this is a movie that Disney should have made,'”
As well as protecting the stories already told by Lucas in the Star Wars universe, Disney now have the right to expand upon them with stories of their own, which Lucas has given his blessing to. As “creative consultant” for the franchise, Lucas will retain a measure of influence over the direction of new Star Wars stories and properties, which may or may not include his ideas for Star Wars Episode VII, VIII and IX.
“I have story treatments of VII, VIII and IX,” Lucas said, suggesting that these have now been passed over to Kennedy and Disney.
“I’m doing this so that the films will have a longer life,” Lucas said.
“So that more fans and people can enjoy them in the future. It’s a very big universe that I’ve created and there are a lot of stories in there.”
Click the video above to see George Lucas’s statement in full.
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