George Lucas Displays On Promoting Star Wars To Disney 13 Years In the past

George Lucas has candidly addressed giving up inventive management of the Star Wars franchise after promoting it to Disney 13 years in the past. Having crafted six industry-altering Star Wars motion pictures between the late Nineteen Seventies and the early 2000s, George Lucas bought the rights to the Star Wars model for a whopping $4 billion in 2012.

Since then, the response to Disney’s interpretation of Star Wars, which incorporates animated collection, a theatrical sequel trilogy, quite a few Disney+ live-action exhibits, and a sweeping transmedia publishing initiative, has been decidedly blended. Whereas some productions, such because the Emmy-winning Andor, have been well-received, others, like Solo: A Star Wars Story, have been criticized for diluting the franchise’s cultural standing amid ballooning budgets.

Even so, Disney’s controversial dealing with of Star Wars has not modified Lucas’s causes for promoting or how he considered his position inside the franchise afterward. In a brand new function for The Wall Road Journal, by which Lucas and his spouse, famous enterprise govt Mellody Hobson, talk about their ambitions for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Artwork, the Star Wars mastermind was requested if he’d “let go of his intuition to handle [Star Wars].”

Lucas‘s response was easy: “Disney took it over they usually gave it their imaginative and prescient. That’s what occurs. After all I’ve moved previous it. I imply, I’ve obtained a life. I’m constructing a museum. A museum is more durable than making motion pictures.”

In 2024, on the Cannes Movie Competition, Lucas defined his motive for promoting Star Wars to Disney. Having acknowledged the upcoming influence of streaming on the theatrical {industry}, Lucas felt that it was time for him to retire and concentrate on different pursuits.

“Streaming is basically highly effective, and it is nice, it is actually upped the film enterprise as a result of the theatrical film enterprise… we might see the issues, and it was not good. So everyone was wanting to put it aside, however no one knew streaming would,” Lucas informed French outlet Brut on the time.

“And that is when Netflix took off, and at that time, I stated, ‘I do not know what that is gonna be, there’s gonna be a large transition within the enterprise, I do not know that a lot about it,’ and I bought the corporate, and I retired,” Lucas continued.

Given the controversy and on-line chatter surrounding Disney’s Star Wars output, it is simple to neglect that Lucas’s personal prequel motion pictures have been extremely criticized on the time of their launch — and for years afterward. The vitriol endured by the forged, the crew, and Lucas, particularly within the wake of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, was simply as charged as what Star Wars is experiencing right this moment.

It is solely not too long ago that the general public has begun to re-evaluate Lucas’s and everybody else’s work on the Star Wars prequel trilogy, helped partially by Disney’s exploration of that period of the Star Wars timeline. Now, although, George Lucas is targeted on a fair larger purpose.

The Lucas Museum, as a result of open in 2026, has a easy mission: to point out “how narrative artwork influences societies—shaping beliefs, speaking values, inspiring creativeness, and creating communities. We empower individuals to interact with artworks by means of the compelling tales they inform.” Given George Lucas’s position in Hollywood and Star Wars historical past, his want to protect and share visible artwork is wholly comprehensible, a pure continuation of the director’s iconic legacy.