George Lucas has sold Lucasfilm to Disney, for a cool $4.05 billion dollars, with the promise of a new Star Wars trilogy, set after Return of the Jedi, to begin in 2015. Place your bets on who will direct Episode VII. I'm backing JJ Abrams.
This is an unprecedented move for a studio that owns PIXAR (founded at Lucasfilm) and Marvel! However, the Mouse House has struggled to establish its own successful sci-fi IP: Mars Needs Moms and John Carter have fallen short of commercial expectations and lost Disney millions of dollars in the process.
What implications (if any) does this have for Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars titles? Marvel was instrumental in the success of Star Wars in 1977 and I'd be surprised if the franchise doesn't return to the fold with immediate effect.
In the wake of Avengers Assemble. Will we see Avengers vs. Jedi (AvJ)?
Opinion is split pretty much 50/50 with regards to this acquisition, fans deploring the move who worry that the beloved franchise will be milked and 'ruined' by the studio who brought you things like John Carter, and those who are ecstatic - another outing at the cinema, new stories, from the studio who brought us Avengers Assemble, Toy Story and The Lion King.
ReplyDeleteI'm still trying to process the news, I've seen it, it just hasn't sunk in yet. When it does sink in, I'll be very much in the 'YAHOO!' camp. I mean, more Star Wars, in the cinema, for the first time. I get to take my son to see a new Star Wars film in the cinema.
The biggest upset for me is going to mean another discussion around viewing order ;-)
The acquisition also includes ILM, Skywalker Sound and Lucasarts (and I presume all historic rights therein). Could we see another X-Wing/Tie Fighter game? Maybe some new work on the Monkey Islands or Day of the Tentacle/Full Throttle IPs?
Lets not forget that Lucasarts brought us Rebel Assault, possibly one of the worst games ever.
A lot of the fans disliked the prequels, by the time ROTS was released, I'd forgotten all about the bad feeling from episodes 1-2 and I can now view both trilogies as separate entities and as part of a bigger story. I enjoy watching them all, but of course I have my favourites (Empire followed by Sith).
With an endless collection of EU novels, the possibilities are endless. We've seen an older, digitised Skywalker (voiced by Hamill) in the Jedi Knight games taking on the role of the master, leading on new recruits. Imagine what would happen if Disney created the Grand Admiral Thrawn Trilogy?
So much for Jaws 19. Bring on 2015, hoverboards and Star Wars VII
Dark Forces remains one of my all time favourite video games and I played it, religiously, on my Macintosh Performa 5200! Perhaps the FPS franchise will be rebooted?
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