"Star Wars" and the rights to display them: who owns what. Star Wars. Franchise analysis Disney bought the rights to Star Wars

Robert Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, spent one weekend last October watching all six Star Wars films. Of course, he had seen them before, but this time he took notes. Disney was in secret negotiations to buy Lucasfilm, the company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas, and Iger had to be extra careful in his preparations.

The films refreshed Iger's memories of Luke Skywalker, a Jedi Knight who must endure trials, and his antagonist Darth Vader, the Sith Lord who (30-year-old spoiler alert) ends up being his father. From these films, Iger wanted to know whether Lucasfilm had enough comparable material - or intellectual property - in reserve for future Star Wars releases. Any more or less serious fan knows that there were always supposed to be nine of them. But how might Disney evaluate market value fictional galaxy? What, for example, was the size of its population?

As it turned out, Lucas had already done the cataloging. His company maintained a database called the Holocron, named after the crystalline shape of the Force-powered cube. The real-world Holocron includes 17,000 characters from the Star Wars universe, inhabiting thousands of planets over a time span of more than 20,000 years. Studying all this would take Disney quite a lot of time, so Lucas offered the company a guide, Pablo Hidalgo. Hidalgo, a founding member of the Star Wars Fan Association, is now a brand communications manager at Lucasfilm. “The Holocron can be overwhelming at first,” says Hidalgo, who has a thing for getting the word out right: how to pronounce “Wookiee” correctly or how to accurately list who met Yoda during his retreat in the swamps of Dagobah.

Secret talks eventually led to Disney's $4 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm announced in October, with Star Wars heroes and villains joining the company of iconic characters such as Iron Man, Buzz Lightyear and Mickey Mouse. Disney has sent already easily excited Star Wars fans into complete ecstasy by unveiling plans to release the long-promised final trilogy starting in 2015. Fan enthusiasm peaked in January when JJ Abrams, director of the successful 2009 reboot of Star Trek, agreed to work on the first film [of the new trilogy]. “It’s a dream come true,” exulted Jason Swank, host of the weekly podcast RebelForce Radio.

The deal fits perfectly with Iger's plans for Disney. He wants to secure the company's future - both creatively and competitively - in a time when consumers are overly jaded thanks to the rapid growth of cable television networks and the ubiquity of the Internet. “The world is less forgiving now than it has ever been,” he says. “To succeed, you have to do something truly great.” Part of Iger's strategy is to acquire companies that could be called "mini-Disney" such as Pixar and Marvel. They provide a supply of iconic characters that can act as engines for the rest of Disney's business, from movies and TV shows to theme parks, toys and more. Lucas's aspirations were not so ambitious. At 68, he was ready to retire and leave behind the fantasy world he had created - but he didn't want anyone to desecrate it.

"I've never been that money-obsessed," says Lucas. "I'm more of a movie-obsessed person, and the main reason I made money was to prevent anyone from taking control of my films." Lucas is on the phone, reluctantly giving an interview about the sale of Lucasfilm. He tells famous story that he never aspired to be rich and powerful. He just wanted to make experimental films - like THX-1138 - about a fantasy world where sex is outlawed, people are forced to take drugs, and brutal androids strictly enforce the rules.

Lucas had a bad experience with the THX-1138. Warner Bros. literally tore the film out of his hands and cut it considerably before releasing it in 1971. Universal did the same with Lucas's next film, American Graffiti, which he shot in his hometown of Modesto, California. True, unlike THX-1138, American Graffiti was a success.

Lucas, mindful of how the studios treated his previous films, decided to take a different approach in his next project, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. He turned down a $500,000 salary to direct his own film, asking instead for $50,000 and the rights to all the sequels. Episode IV, which was released in 1977, and the two films that followed it, including re-releases, grossed a total of $1.8 billion. After this first trilogy, Lucas was rich enough to do only what he liked. He could, for example, produce director Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, an arthouse production with music by Philip Glass, which grossed only 500 thousand. Or make a television series about the early years of Indiana Jones, the daredevil archaeologist he created together with Steven Spielberg. Unlike Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was conceived as a historical excursion: in one episode, young Indiana meets Sidney Bishé, a talented saxophonist from New Orleans, and learns to play jazz.

In the early 1990s, Lucas pitched the idea for the series to Iger, who rose from reading cable weather to become chairman of ABC. They met at Skywalker Ranch, a 6,100-acre estate located in Marin County, California. Iger was hesitant, but Indiana Jones was one of the most popular movie characters of all time. “I really wanted to work with this [material],” says Iger. “And then, it was Lucas.” Iger greenlit the series and kept it running on ABC for two seasons, although it was never able to gain an audience or develop into something cohesive artistically. “It was difficult,” Lucas says of Chronicles. “But he [Iger] was very understanding about it.”

In 1999, Lucas released Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace. In total, all three films of the second trilogy earned about $2.5 billion at the box office, but many fans considered them a failure. They were especially displeased by the clumsy Jar Jar Binks from the planet Naboo, a creature with a terrible Jamaican accent who became the object of ridicule in the animated series South Park and The Simpsons.

The criticism reached Lucas. He felt how difficult it was to talk about creativity when people called you an idiot. “Before the advent of the Internet, everything was fine,” he says. “But now, with the advent of the Internet, [people] have become more bile, and relationships are moving to a more personal level. And you ask yourself, 'Why do I need this?'" At the same time, Lucas rejected the idea of ​​entrusting his universe to anyone else. “I think he felt like he was a prisoner of Star Wars, and that feeling only grew stronger over the years,” says Dale Pollock, author of Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas.

Meanwhile, Iger continued his career at ABC. After Disney bought the network in 1996, Iger became the formal successor to Disney Chairman Michael Eischer. For almost ten years, Iger remained in the shadow of his influential mentor. But in 2005 the company found itself in a difficult situation. The once-prolific animation department had not produced a hit for several years, and the intractable Eischer had scared off many shareholders. Disney's board of directors asked Iger to take control. Before this, everyone assessed him rather skeptically, and even in his own magazine he was described as “ordinary and predictable,” and no one assumed that he had the ability to think strategically.

Iger, however, had a very clear vision of the situation. He understood that Disney's success was based on the exploitation of popular characters. This was a strategy pioneered by Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse and the fairy tale heroines of the Brothers Grimm, Snow White and Cinderella. Later, Disney used the same method to turn The Lion King, its hit cartoon, into a regular Broadway show. Pirates of the Caribbean, a theme park adventure, was continued in several films and subsequent accompanying books and video games.

Iger accelerated this process with several acquisitions. The first was the purchase of the animation studio Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 billion. Iger personally negotiated with Steve Jobs, who was the president of Pixar at the time. Under the terms of the deal, Iger retained the entire creative team, led by John Lasseter, and allowed them to continue operations at his headquarters in San Francisco, reducing disruption to a minimum. “Steve and I spent more time agreeing on social issues and less time on financial issues,” says Iger. “He believed that supporting Pixar's internal culture was a key component of their creative success. He was right".

With the deal, Disney gained a new source for producing movie hits, and Jobs became a member of the company's board and its largest shareholder. Iger recalls that from time to time he would call and say: “Hey Bob, I saw the movie you released yesterday - it sucks.” Still, the Disney CEO believes there were "more positives than negatives" to having Jobs as a friend and consultant.

In 2009, Iger led a similar deal for Disney to purchase Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion. And again, Iger retained all the previous management of this company: general director Marvel Isaac Perlmutter and Marvel Studio head Kevin Feige. He believed that Disney would benefit from their excellent knowledge of the superhero film genre. And, although the purchase of Marvel was not followed by the joining of such stars as Jobs or Lucas, the acquisition paid off handsomely. Last year, Disney released The Avengers, the first Marvel film it distributed and marketed. The film grossed $1.5 billion worldwide, becoming the third highest-grossing film in history. "The success has exceeded expectations," said Jessica Cohen, a media analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

While Disney has mastered lucrative filmmaking with Pixar and Marvel, it has just as successfully used its franchise to promote other businesses. In June, he opened Carsland, an attraction based on the hit Pixar film that revived the moribund Disney California Adventure park in Anaheim. Today, Iger is considering creating a Marvel theme park in California and abroad. ABC is developing S.H.I.E.L.D., a primetime television series about the counterintelligence agency of the same name from The Avengers.

But not everything Disney did was successful. Last year's "John Carter" failed miserably at the box office, and similar failures will inevitably occur in the future. That's the movie business. But a large number of its reliance on popular characters from Disney franchises, coupled with non-core businesses like ESPN, has turned it into something unique in Hollywood's up-and-down economy: a diversified company showing steady growth. The company's net income and operating profits have risen steadily over the past three years, and the value of its assets has doubled since Iger became CEO in March 2005. In addition, the success that accompanied the purchase of Pixar and Marvel encouraged Iger to search for new “mini-Disneys.” Lucasfilm topped the list.

In May 2011, Iger flew to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida for the opening of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, a revamped Star Wars attraction that gave visitors the illusion of traveling through space to visit such planets like Tatooine. Lucas took a keen interest in the attraction and personally checked the progress of construction every two weeks for several years.

On the morning of Star Tours' opening, Iger invited Lucas to breakfast at the Hollywood Brown Derby, one of Disney World's restaurants. For this occasion it was closed to visitors, and the two men could talk quietly. Iger, fresh from his daily workout, ordered a yogurt parfait. Lucas was tempted by one of the big omelettes they serve at Brown Derby. They exchanged pleasantries. Iger then asked if Lucas would ever consider selling his company.

Lucas replied that he had recently celebrated his 67th birthday and was beginning to seriously think about retiring. So perhaps this will be followed by a sale of the company. “I’m not ready to discuss this now,” he told Iger. “But when I’m ready, I’ll be happy to talk.”

Iger did his best to hide his excitement and told him, “Call me when you decide.” After that, both had to pick up lightsabers and stage a comic battle, thereby opening the attraction. They stood on stage next to an actor dressed as Darth Vader in front of several hundred Star Wars fans who warmly greeted them. Iger was impressed with Lucas' skills. “He was very skilled with that lightsaber,” Iger recalls. “He was much more skilled at that than I was.”

Lucas has always kept a close eye on how Disney manages Pixar - which he continues to refer to as "my company." He founded it as Lucasfilm Computer Division in 1979 and sold it to Jobs six years later. He called Disney's decision to stay out of Pixar's business "brilliant." He believed that if he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, he would still be able to retain some influence over his fictional universe. Much depended on who would lead Lucasfilm after he left.

He invited Kathleen Kennedy to have dinner with him in New York. She was one of the founders of Amblin Entertainment, which produced numerous hits including Jurassic Park and Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. She was also Lucas's close friend for over two decades. “I guess you heard that I'm serious about retiring,” Lucas told her.

“Actually, no,” she answered.

Lucas asked if she would be interested in an offer to head Lucasfilm. Kennedy was probably taken aback by the news - but, fortunately, agreed to accept the offer. “When Katie said yes, we started talking about relaunching the entire franchise,” he says. “I was going to leave, so I said, 'So I'm going to have to reinvigorate the company. new life, so she can function without me, and we need to do something to create interest in her." Then I said, 'Okay, let's make these films.'"

To begin work on the script for Episode VII, Lucas and Kennedy hired screenwriter Michael Arndt, who had won an Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine. They managed to get Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote the scripts for Return of the Jedi and The Empire Strikes Back, as a consultant. Lucas began negotiations with actors from the classic trilogy - such as Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford - about their participation in the [new] films. In June 2012, he called Iger.

During the five-month negotiations that followed, Lucas kept repeating that the work on the next Star Wars trilogy would be best handled by his loyal Lucasfilm employees. “I had a team of very, very talented people who had been with the company for many, many years and really understood how to market Star Wars and how to handle licensing and how to make movies,” Lucas explains. “I said, ‘In my opinion, I think it would be wise to keep some part of it the same. We need several people to manage the property; you know who was appointed to do this, and we are confident that we did everything right."

Iger understood Lucas' concerns. "George told me once that when he died they would say, 'George Lucas, creator of Star Wars,'" he says. However, he wanted to make sure that Lucas, who was accustomed to controlling every aspect of Star Wars, from set design to the contents of lunch boxes, understood that Disney, not Lucasfilm, would have the final say on any future films. “We had to come to the understanding that if we were to acquire a company, despite the many hours of friendly conversations and willingness to cooperate, we would be the final decision maker on all matters,” says Alan Horn, chairman of the board. Walt Disney Studios.

Lucas agreed - in theory. In fact, the thought of losing control [of the company] weighed heavily on him. According to Kennedy, every week before she flew to Los Angeles, she asked Lucas how he was feeling. At times he seemed unfazed. Sometimes not. "I'm sure from time to time he asked himself if he was really ready to leave and became confused."

At first, Lucas didn't show [Disney] the rough sketches for the next three Star Wars films. When company executives asked to see them, he assured them that the scripts would be great and said they would just have to trust him. “Eventually I had to say, ‘Look, I know what I’m doing. Buying my stories is part of what the deal was all about. I did this for 40 years, and quite successfully,” says Lucas. “I could have said, ‘Well, okay, I’ll just sell the company to someone else.’”

Once Lucas received written assurances from Disney about the general aspects of the deal, he agreed to show drafts of the scripts - but insisted that only Iger, Horn and Kevin Mayer, Disney's executive vice president in charge of corporate strategy, read them. "We promised, says Iger. “We had to sign the agreement.”

When Iger was finally able to get to the drafts, he rejoiced. “We thought they had a lot of potential from a literary point of view,” he says.

In late October, Iger invited Lucas to fly to Deaney's headquarters in Burbank to sign documents. He thought Lucas looked sad. “When he put his pen to the piece of paper, I didn’t notice any hesitation in him,” says Iger. “But I did notice that he was overwhelmed with emotion. He said 'goodbye'."

But Eiger himself flew as if on wings. The day after signing the agreement, he entertained his family for Halloween. "I was Darth Vader," he says.

“I felt a ripple in the Force - like millions of fans were in shock at once,” tweeted one boy shocked by the news. This was the general mood that day. Fans also saw what happened after Disney bought Pixar and Marvel, and many believed that the company could be trusted with R2-D2 and Princess Leia. "The way they handled the Marvel legacy allowed them to gain credibility with a lot of fans," says Swank, co-host of Rebel Force Radio.

Iger's agreement to keep Lucasfilm intact, with Kennedy at the helm, bore fruit almost immediately. Even before the deal was officially registered in early December, Kennedy approached J. J. Abrams' agent with a proposal: would he like to direct Episode VII. “The answer came very quickly: 'No, I don't think I want to do this,'” says Kennedy. “He threw himself into finishing [Star Trek Into Darkness, the sequel to his first Star Trek]. He felt that he would not be interested in exploring such similar territories.”

Kennedy persisted. Along with Arndt and Kasdan, she visited Abrams in Santa Monica, at the headquarters of his production company Bad Robot. “When we finished, a couple of hours later, he changed his mind 180 degrees,” she says.

“Being part of the next Star Wars experience is more exciting than I can put into words,” Abrams says.

In January, Lucas announced his engagement to Mellody Hobson, an investment manager from Chicago, and he spent most of his time in her hometown. However, despite this, he attended meetings where the plot of the new film was discussed, and gave his verdict on the physical laws and other attributes of the Star Wars universe. “Mostly I said, ‘You can’t do that. You have to do this,” says Lucas. “Or: “These cars don’t have wheels. They use anti-gravity to move.” There are a million little details. For example, I could say: “He doesn't have the ability to do this” or “He has to do it.” I know all this stuff."

Iger is now busy preparing a mechanism that will begin to produce Star Wars-branded toys, related theme parks and anything else that Disney deems suitable for exploiting the franchise. He says he expects to increase sales of Star Wars-branded merchandise worldwide, and that ABC and Lucasfilm are discussing a television series. At the same time, Iger explains that he doesn't want to do anything right now that could distract attention from the upcoming films. "I don't want to over-commercialize or make too much of a fuss about them," he says. "My job is to keep that from happening."

Buying Lucasfilm may be Iger's last big deal at Disney. He plans to step down as CEO in 2015, although he will remain chairman for another year after that. Merrill Lynch's Cohen predicts that Disney won't make any major deals in the interim. "I think this will be a period of reaping the benefits of the deals that Bob has already done," she says.

Iger appears to be doing just that. In his office there is a table covered with Disney crafts and two lightsabers. “People have been sending me a lot of these things,” he grins, picking up one of the swords and waving it at an imaginary opponent: “I’m getting better and better.”

George Lucas had been planning to retire for a long time. own company. He stated that he had been preparing for this step for the past four years and had been postponing the sale until he found others.

LucasFilm has always remained profitable company, which received its main income from the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and everything that was associated with them: books, toys, television series, attractions and much more. But attempts to go beyond the universes invented in the 70s and 80s for Lucasfilm ended unsuccessfully. The latest project in cinema was a military action film, which Lucasfilm not only financed (budget of about $50 million), but also took upon itself the entire advertising campaign. The project did not pay off, and it also added fuel to the fire in the relationship between Lucas and the Twenteen Century Fox studio, which was formally the distributor of the film and also formally treated its distribution responsibilities. However, the reasons that LucasFilm left not for Fox, but for Disney are completely different.

George Lucas on the reasons for selling the company:

Rumors about the sale of the Lucasfilm group of companies appeared a long time ago, but real preparations for this began with the arrival of Kathleen Kennedy. Moreover, the price tag that was supposed to be set was initially much higher than announced.

NBC Universal also has its own problems today: not only did Universal Pictures, which it controls, overspend on its 2012 projects (including Snow White and the Huntsman, which failed at the box office and was on the verge of breaking even), but also one of the studio’s main financial partners - investment fund Elliott Management - .

The most obvious partner for Lucasfilm would be News Corp, whose film company Twenteen Century Fox has always been a distribution partner for Lucas's projects, but in today's situation it could not afford such expenses.

Message from Disney CEO Bob Iger:

Indeed, today The Walt Disney Company is perhaps the only major American player with cash and a desire to develop in all available areas of the entertainment industry. IN last years the company actively acquired large businesses and competitors, including Pixar and Marvel. The purchase of LucasFilm is a logical continuation of the initiated policy, especially since the “mouse corporation” still had no real competitors in this matter. Surely this circumstance played a role in the issues of setting the price for Lucas’s company: it is officially reported that Disney withdrew the amount of $4.05 billion based on the value of Lucasfilm shares on the stock exchange. But in a different situation the amount would be higher.

Upon completion of the transaction, Lucas will receive $2 billion and 40 million shares of The Walt Disney Company and will become its second largest private investor with a stake of 2.2%.

The most high-profile deal in recent years in the world of the film industry has been announced in Hollywood: Disney Corporation has acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. Founded in 1971 by director and producer George Lucas, the company owns the rights to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and its divisions include famous company visual effects production house Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), recording studio Skywalker Sound and video game developer LucasArts. The deal has already been approved by both Lucas and the Disney board of directors.

Disney paid $4.05 billion for Lucas's legacy, and at the same time received the rights to shoot sequels to popular films: the seventh episode of Star Wars will be released in 2015.

George Lucas said that the sale of the company is a continuation of his plans to finally retire. Let us remind you that this year the director and producer promised to refuse to film full-length blockbusters after the reception that critics and colleagues gave his film “Red Tails”.

“Over the past 35 years, I have had the pleasure of seeing Star Wars move from one generation to the next. Now the time has come for me to pass them on to the next generation of directors. I always believed that Star Wars would outlive me, and it was important for me to create the conditions for this myself,” the publication quotes Lucas as saying. Variety .

Following the release of Star Wars: Episode VII, which is currently in early development, Disney intends to produce one full-length film from this universe every two to three years.

But Lucas didn’t limit himself to just movies: the entire franchise included many related products: toys, souvenirs, novelizations of films and just books telling the story of a “far, far away galaxy,” animated series and the sale of rights to characters. For example, one of the latest deals was a contract with Rovio to use images from Star Wars in the popular game Angry Birds. Over the years, this approach has allowed Lucasfilm to earn more than $20 billion, and Lucas has become the richest director in the world - his personal fortune is estimated at $3.5 billion.

The franchise is expected to bring in $215 million this year.

Disney has worked with Lucasfilm since 1987, when the first Star Wars attraction opened at Disneyland (now in Orlando, Paris and Tokyo). Companies have also combined Mickey Mouse with Lucas characters in a variety of products. In addition, Disney has a license for an Indiana Jones attraction and is working on a Star Wars live-action series.

At first, the corporation will focus on expanding the production of toys and expanding the Star Wars theme park at Disneyland. Disney management promises that all Lucasfilm obligations will be fulfilled.

This also applies to the future continuation of Indiana Jones - Lucasfilm was preparing it together with the Paramount film company, with which Disney has an agreement on the distribution of films in the Marvel universe. The president of Lucasfilm will be , who co-led the company with Lucas before the sale; she will also serve as a producer on all future Star Wars and other films for the studio. are going to be hired as a consultant when filming films.

What do Desperate Housewives, Wes Anderson's The Keeping Up With Tenenbaums, and ESPN have in common? Surprisingly, they all belong to The Walt Disney Company, the largest media conglomerate in the world. There are only six such media giants in the world - Comcast, Time Warner, News Corp, Sony and Viacom - and their business structure is largely similar. Each of them has its own film studios, television channels, recording studios, publishing houses, stores and theme parks. The degree of concentration of media resources is further enhanced by the fact that all companies belonging to the “Big Six” also constantly interact with each other. Disney could make a movie that would be distributed by Comcast, with Time Warner owning the rights to some of the characters in the movie.

It would be a mistake to believe that conglomerates are buying up their mini-competitors solely in order to make their clones out of them. It's just the opposite modern mergers and acquisitions in the entertainment industry often do not lead to fundamental changes domestic policy"eaten" companies. They usually continue to do what they were doing only with more resources on hand. This maintains the illusion of wide choice in the market, and conglomerates benefit from the diversity of their holdings.

The era of Bob Iger

The Disney Company is considered the most aggressive buyer in this industry in recent years. Since 2006, the conglomerate has bought several companies that were famous for their unique individual style - Pixar, Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm. Millions of fans watched in horror, expecting Disney to ruin everything it had bought and take away the humor, violence and true romance from their favorite works. In reality, everything turned out to be not so bad.

Disney's total profits in 2014 were $7.5 billion. The company owes much of its current success to the fact that in 2005, the then little-known Bob Iger took over as CEO. The management genius began his career as a weather forecaster on the ABC channel, then became the head of this channel, and after the ABC takeover, he received the post of vice president of Disney. The company at that moment was experiencing the second crisis in its history (the first occurred after the death of Walt Disney). Under the direction of Michael Eisner, she released one failed film after another - “Pearl Harbor”, “Hercules”, “Atlantis: The Lost World”. Even the successful Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy came out against Eisner's will. As a result, the board of directors decided to replace the head of the company. Iger, who replaced him, explained his strategy this way: if Disney has a problem with creativity and creating new profitable characters, then it needs to buy them from other companies.

Walt Disney
Bob Iger

Despite the failures in cartoon production, the company he entrusted was still very rich - it made a profit through its television channels, stores and theme parks, which welcomed more than 120 million guests annually. The foundation of this structure, which tirelessly supports the company in difficult times, was laid by Walt Disney. It is believed that Walt was the first Hollywood producer to understand that television was the future. The production of full-length cartoons required a lot of money. Even a successful theatrical release did not allow his studio to truly get on its feet. Disney looked for other sources of income - and in 1937 he came up with Disneyland. To find money to build a huge park, Disney entered into an ingenious agreement with the ABC channel. They had to invest in the construction of the park, and he had to host a weekly program on the channel, showing his cartoons to children. The program that children loved was called Disneyland; it naturally advertised the park under construction and made the Disney company synonymous with American animation.

Even now, amusement parks generate 20% of the company's profits. The problem is that when children come to the park, they want to see not only Disney princesses and Mickey Mouse, but also Nemo the fish and Iron Man. Disney's creative monopoly on beloved characters ended in the era of computer animation. But, having money, Bob Iger quickly turned this minus into a giant plus.

How Disney tamed Pixar

It's funny, but the future founder of Pixar, Ed Catmull, showed his first 3D animation program to Disney employees back in 1973, where he interned. He was then told that there was nothing in common between computers and animation and that until his program could draw believable bubbles, they were absolutely not interested in it. With these words they expressed the opinion of the entire film industry, which remained so until May 25, 1977. On this day, the first Star Wars was released. Unlike others, George Lucas was open to new tools in the field of visual and sound effects with great attention, as a result of which he opened a computer division in his company and hired Catmull to manage it. After some time, they were joined by animator John Lasseter, who was fired from Disney for being too bold in his views on the future of animation. The people at Lucasfilm's computer division didn't get along well with Lucas.

Some might think that Disney made a mistake by paying a whole lot
7.5 billion for Pixar, but the numbers they say the opposite

They wanted to create cartoons, and he was interested in their developments only to the extent that they could improve the picture of an ordinary film. When Lucas divorced his wife in 1983 and lost most of his fortune in a divorce settlement, he needed to somehow streamline his business and decided to get rid of the computer division. For several years he looked for a buyer, who eventually became Steve Jobs, who had recently been fired from Apple. He invested in new company 54 million dollars. This is how Pixar was born.

In its early years, Pixar produced a few short animated films, one of which won an Oscar, and a couple of commercials, but made no profit. Three times Steve Jobs tried to resell the company to someone else, such as Microsoft and Alias, but each time he abandoned the deal at the last moment. Things weren't going well until Disney came on the scene. They offered to invest in the creation of a full-length Pixar cartoon, and in return receive distribution rights. Disney also wanted to get the rights to Pixar technologies, but Jobs rejected this offer, saying that he was not going to reveal production secrets. After the resounding success of Pixar's first feature film, Toy Story, Disney CEO Michael Eisner realized with horror that with my own hands created a great competitor for himself. The relationship between Eisner and Jobs became very strained.

"History of toys"
"Monsters university"
"Cars"
Frozen

Everything changed when Eisner was replaced by Iger, who began to actively establish relations with Jobs. Unlike Eisner, he did not intend to fight their company, he wanted to help them and convinced the creators of Pixar that after the takeover he promised to preserve the spirit and values ​​of their company. This resulted in a deal worth $7.4 billion. But Microsoft once offered Jobs only $90 million for Pixar. The agreement with Disney stipulated Pixar's right to maintain the creative principles of its work, which Jobs considered the basis of their success. Once fired from the Disney studio, John Lasseter returned to the studio as its director.

One can have different assessments of what happened next. Pixar began making cartoons faster, and they all brought in greater profits. Thus, “Monsters University” cannot be called a failure, because it collected $800 million at the box office, but everyone understands that according to the Hamburg score it turned out to be quite weak. Pixar plans to release sequels to Cars, Toy Story, and The Incredibles in the near future, and this emphasis on sequels is a little concerning. At the same time, Disney's native studio grew before our eyes, becoming on par with modern studios. Frozen became the most profitable cartoon in the history of cinema, and the recently released City of Heroes was clearly very successful.

Some might think that Disney made a mistake by paying as much as 7.5 billion for Pixar, but the numbers say otherwise. According to the results for 2013, they received 7 billion thanks to the merchandising of goods based on Toy Story alone. This does not include revenue from rentals of the third series, sales of discs, books and games for Wii, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS, which brought in another 2 billion. This figure can be multiplied by 10 - the number of cartoons created by Pixar (excluding sequels).

Superheroes wholesale

The first Marvel comics appeared back in 1937. Since then, the company has been resold several times - and always fell into the hands of some strange people. In 1968, the founder sold it to Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation, which had a mail-order drug division as well as a printed products division that included Marvel comics published Ladies' Home Journal. In 1986, they came into the possession of New World Entertainment, which produced B-grade television films. Three years later, they were resold to the MacAndrews & Forbes holding company, which also included the cosmetics company Revlon. In 1996, Marvel declared bankruptcy. The owners of the toy production company Toy Biz, Avi Arad and Ike Perlmutter, decided to save the drowning brand. The two turned Marvel's business around so successfully that ten years later Disney paid $4.6 billion for it.

Disney and its princesses have always been considered more "company for girls", and characters you might like boys, they have traditionally there was very little

What did Avi and Ike come up with then? First, they started selling licenses to use popular Marvel characters. They were bought by television and film studios, manufacturers of clothing, goods for schoolchildren and toys. In total, several thousand licenses were sold. The entrepreneurs decided to place a special emphasis on films and games. The idea was for the Marvel superheroes to go beyond their typical teenage audience and become household names. This is how films about Spider-Man, X-Men and Captain America were born.

At the same time, Marvel began publishing comics again, found new distribution channels for them, and re-wrote their old stories for a young audience. By 2010, they had increased their share of the comic book market to 50%. In 2005, Marvel, having collected 500 million investments, began own production films. Since the rights to use the most popular heroes belonged to other studios, they focused on lesser-known heroes - Iron Man, Thor, Hulk. Films made in collaboration with other studios heated up the market, the public was waiting for new adventures of Marvel heroes, so the new films were a success.

"Spider-Man"
"X-Men"
"Captain America"

Bob Iger was attracted to Marvel not only by the number of potentially profitable heroes, but also by the fact that the most devoted fans of the company's work were teenage boys. Disney, with its princesses, has always been considered more of a “girls' company,” and they traditionally had very few heroes that boys could like. The owners of Marvel agreed to the deal relatively easily, since both were more businessmen than creators. Each of them had several successfully sold companies under their belts, and Marvel was just one of them. That the acquisition was worth its $4 billion was proven by the incredible success of The Avengers, which grossed more than $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office and became one of the top three highest-grossing films in cinema history.

How George Lucas Sold Star Wars

In 2011, George Lucas helped develop a Star Wars attraction at Disneyland. At the opening ceremony, Paul Iger asked him if he was thinking about selling the company, and he hit the nail on the head. Lucas was 67 years old at that time, and he began to think about retirement. After the cold reception of the second Star Wars trilogy, he completely stopped wanting to make new films. The question of who should leave the company came to a head. Lucas told Iger that since his grave would have "Star Wars creator" written on it, it was less a question of money for him and more a question of preserving his legacy. He was scared to imagine that someone could take away the Universe he created and start doing whatever they wanted with it. In principle, he trusted Iger, because he saw how delicately he behaved in relation to another “his former company” - Pixar.

Lucas decided to sell the company on the condition that they would make another trilogy based on his script and retain his chosen CEO and some of the employees. He also wanted to have a say in how his brand was used. Iger insisted that while Lucas' opinions would be taken into account, Disney would have the final say. Negotiations went on for six months, Lucas doubted and was nervous, and when the agreement was eventually signed, Iger, in his words, felt like Darth Vader. He bought Lucas's company for $4 billion. On the day the deal was announced, someone tweeted: “I felt a disturbance in the Force, like millions of geeks screaming in horror at once.”

When Iger was first thinking about buying Lucasfilm, he reviewed all six series and wrote down characters for which his company could acquire the rights. Only later did he learn about the existence of the Holocron, a database of the Star Wars Universe, which contains information about 17 thousand characters. Each one is now owned by Disney.

Star Wars has been part of Disney's ever-expanding media empire for several years now, but Disney isn't the only company getting a piece of the pie. Ever since Lucasfilm acquired the House of Mouse in 2012, questions have often arisen about who owns what. Specifically, Paramount will continue to receive royalties from future Indiana Jones films, even though those films are distributed by Disney. Film rights can be a very confusing matter and are rarely as simple as they seem at first glance.

The galaxy far, far away is no exception, and so we're going to clear up the details. In this article, we'll take a closer look at not only the distribution of films for rental or home viewing, but also television rights - a topic that's been in the news recently as Disney prepares to launch its own streaming service.

George Lucas was a maverick director who preferred not to work with studios, so he made his films himself and looked for a distributor for them. Fox (20th Century Fox - Nexu's note) was the only studio willing to give Star Wars a chance - a decision that paid off handsomely within a few years. The first six films were released under their umbrella and reaped a bountiful harvest in the form of box office revenue and home releases - including several special editions for various platforms. Most people welcomed Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm, but Fox was undoubtedly upset that Star Wars was being abandoned.

However, after the deal, all rights to Star Wars were not immediately transferred to Disney. While the House of Mouse clearly owns everything post-merger (since The Force Awakens), it will have to wait before it can get its hands on anything produced in the pre-Disney era. Fox holds the rights to The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and the entire prequel trilogy through May 2020. Additionally, since Fox was Lucas's partner on the 1977 classic Star Wars, he will have the rights to A New Hope until the end of time, which could cause Disney some issues with the Blu-ray release. collection of the “complete Skywalker saga” after the release of Episode IX. It is worth noting that Disney is working in this direction, and in the near future everything may change.

As you know, the shareholders of both companies agreed to an unprecedented merger, and Disney is now trying to acquire the media assets of Fox. Since the news was released, much of the discussion has focused on integrating the X-Men and Fantastic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the deal will have implications for Star Wars as well. Disney's purchase of Fox means the House of Mouse will have the coveted rights to A New Hope and will own the intellectual property for all Star Wars films. This may not be exactly what was meant when Disney and Fox tried to come to an agreement over the rights to A New Hope, but the problem is solved, one way or another.

However, with regards to the oft-discussed (but never officially) Blu-ray release of the theatrical version of the classic trilogy, nothing is likely to change. Lucasfilm has been frequently called upon to do this, but there is no indication that they are going to change their mind on the matter. The 2011 versions (and all the changes that came with them) are considered the official canon of the franchise, and Kathleen Kennedy intends to leave Lucas' films alone to concentrate on building the future of Star Wars. Perhaps one day everything will change, but for now viewers will have to be content with what they have. Disney could profit greatly from the revenue that such a package would bring in, but it's already doing well on the strength of the new films it's releasing.

Star Wars and television rights

Many fans have their own copies of the films in Blu-ray collections, but television networks are nonetheless eager to acquire the rights to broadcast films from the popular franchise. If we talk about the first six Star Wars films, the rights to show them on TV are now owned by Turner - this means broadcast on TNT and TBS. The deal runs until 2024, which is why Disney is now trying to acquire the rights from Turner. However, it won't be easy. Based on the information available, Turner wants a decent amount of compensation, including both money and software. Negotiations have not yet progressed much, and there are no signs that anything will change.

Star Wars films released after Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm are not covered by Turner's rights, but negotiations must be negotiated with Netflix, since the House of Mouse struck a deal with the streaming giant in 2016. At the time of this writing, Rogue One and The Last Jedi are available for viewing (on Netflix - Nexu). Since the agreement covers all films from the Disney era, there is every reason to believe that Solo will one day come to Netflix - perhaps after its digital versions are released this fall. However, this practice will soon come to an end.

Disney is set to launch its own streaming service, which will include classic films and television series, as well as a new Star Wars series from Jon Favreau. Of course, Disney will pull out a large number of popular titles from its vast bins to fill the broadcast network, but at first there will be a clear lack of Star Wars content. Bob Iger has officially announced that there will be no Star Wars films released before 2019 at launch. This means that JJ Abrams' Episode IX (which will likely arrive digitally in Spring 2020) will be the first film in the franchise on a Disney streaming channel. Likewise, all subsequent Star Wars films - the Rian Johnson trilogy, the Benioff and Weiss series - will be available on this service.

The agreement between Disney and Netflix (which covers films released up to 2018) expires at the end of 2019, and Disney clearly has no plans to renew it. In all likelihood, all of their Star Wars films will then move to their own streaming channel. This channel will become a universal showcase not only for Lucasfilm, but also for other Disney subsidiaries such as Pixar and Marvel. This is a major blow to Netflix, which essentially didn't get a real chance to benefit from its deal with Disney. Of course, Disney's service doesn't aim to be a Netflix killer, but there's no doubt that it will diminish Netflix's former appeal. Netflix has its own quirks that will keep it interesting for subscribers, but some of those subscribers may well opt for Disney.

The time will come when Disney will have a whole stack of its own Star Wars series in its hands, but for now it has to share the pie with others. The current rights situation isn't all that complicated, but it's always a good idea to know who owns what when it comes to a franchise.

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