Disney agreed to buy George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion, pressing Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger’s $15 billion bet on creative franchises by adding “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones,” bloomberg.com reported.
Lucas, 68, the sole owner, will get half in cash and the rest in stock, making him a major investor in the film, theme park and TV company, according to a statement Tuesday from Burbank, California-based Disney. The first of a new trilogy of “Star Wars” films will be released in 2015, Disney said.
The deal furthers Iger’s pursuit of marquee content in an era marked by technology changes, such as $8-a-month video streaming and free game downloads, that disrupted Hollywood’s traditional revenue sources, bloomberg.com also reported. Iger, who paid a combined $11.2 billion for Pixar and Marvel, said memorable characters will be valuable no matter what medium they appear in.
Disney paid $7 billion for animation studio Pixar in 2006 and bought Marvel Entertainment in 2009 for $4.2 billion, adding the creators of “Toy Story,” and “The Avengers” to the company’s library.
[…] Disney Purchases “Star Wars” Company for $4 Billion | | West … Posted in: Business Florida […]