Star Wars: Episode VII

Here is the story of Disney CEO Bob Iger and his quest to acquire Lucasfilm. Long story short, Lucas wanted to retire and leave his company under the control of someone who would let the company maintain its' creative culture. Disney seemed like a good match considering how they handled the acquisition of Pixar and he handed the reigns to his friend, producer Kathleen Kennedy. Lucas didn't care much for money, creative freedom was his goal and he wanted to maintain an ability to oversee and consult the series.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/article...ught-lucasfilm-and-its-plans-for-star-wars#p1

After reading this again, it seems things didn't work out like he had envisioned so his recent comments about The Force Awakens aren't surprising.

 

I know the heads at Fox were quite peeved at the deal. I believe at the time someone expressed that they wished Fox had been given a chance at a deal.

 

Apple isn't a film studio, though. For a buyer to properly leverage the Star Wars franchise, they'd have to be:

A) A film studio
B) Awash in cash (to finance the production and marketing of hellishly expensive Star Wars films)
C) Expert marketers (to give the expensive films the kind of push they'd need)
D) Experienced with massive merchandising operations (to take full advantage of all the Star Wars-themed toys and other crap that generated so much revenue for Lucasfilm)

Disney is pretty much the only studio for which the Star Wars property was a good fit. I suppose Sony or Fox or possibly even Universal could have bought it, but it would have been more of a defensive move - to keep Disney from getting their hands on it. None of those operations could make particularly effective use of the franchise, though.

Sony isn't all that experienced with merchandising, beyond videogames, so they'd have a hard time recouping their investment. It doesn't help that Sony is kind of a basket case these days, and would be strained to afford the purchase price plus financing and marketing the films.

Fox could certainly afford it all, and has the history with Star Wars, but has no deep experience with merchandising on that scale, and might even find the marketing a bit of a challenge. They'd be hard pressed to unlock the full potential of the franchise, so blowing more than $4 billion on it would only be worth it to them to keep it out of Disney's hands. Remember, $4 billion would finance A LOT of major motion pictures (something like 16 major summer blockbuster attempts).

Universal has the theme parks, so they'd have an extra channel thru which to recoup some of their investment. They also have some merchandising experience (they've got the Minions, after all, and Jurassic Park). Comcast has deep pockets, and could certainly market the crap out of Star Wars if they wanted to, although some of their efforts might be a little hamfisted.

Warner is the biggest studio in Hollywood and could afford Star Wars, but sci-fi isn't really their thing if you look at their portfolio - it's mostly fantasy (Harry Potter) and comic book movies (Superman, Batman). They are a marketing powerhouse and do a lot of merchandising, but somehow Star Wars just doesn't feel at all like a Warner property, and I'm not particularly surprised it didn't end up with Warner.

Paramount can't even make effective use of their Star Trek franchise, so that puts them out of contention. Besides, they're smaller than the other players.

Disney has it all, though. They're the global merchandising giant, they've got the extensive theme park network, they can market better than any film studio, they're awash in cash and can finance pretty much anything, and for the past 20 years or so they have an excellent track record (unlike their competitors) - most of their films are pretty darn good. There isn't another studio that could come close to unlocking the full potential worth of the Star Wars franchise, which is why they were willing to shell out $4 billion for Lucasfilm in the first place. I doubt anybody else in Hollywood would have paid more than $3 billion for it.

 

Note that's an estimate from an analyst. It means nothing -- it's not the contract.

Disney is demanding a bigger piece of the gross revenues from theaters, but that has nothing to do with what they're paying actors and creative people. Your facts are skewed. My observation is that the typical deal hinges on time and money, and after X number of weeks, the theater keeps more money. The first week, it's not unusual for the studio to keep 90% of the money. 100% is very unusual; 60% doesn't happen. It may start off at 90%, then go to 80% the second week, 60% the third week, or it may even change depending on how high the sales are or how many theaters are running the film and how many shows happen per day. Premium theaters like IMAX get a different split because of the costs involved, and theater owners may or may not have to split the extra charges from 3D or premium seats. Government regulations make this deal different in different countries. This is not a simple business.

It's well known that the reason why Star Wars has yet to open in China is that the government there asked for a different split than normal, giving them a bigger piece of the pie. Disney balked, so the movie is opening up there more than 3 weeks late (this coming Saturday).

Here's a good rundown of how the exhibitor/distributor split usually works, and how it's changed over time:

http://www.themovieblog.com/2007/ec...e-the-money-goes-and-why-it-costs-us-so-much/

I think once the box office grosses go over a billion dollars, everybody relaxes and I think everybody makes more money: the studio, the actors, the creative talent, and the theaters. So the thing to remember is that there's a sliding scale involved, usually tied to performance incentives, and there is no "one size fits all" formula for every country and every venue.

 

The general rumor was that Lucas had had preliminary talks with several companies, but he felt that Lucasfilm was in better hands with Disney than anybody else because they were already running Marvel, the Muppets, and Pixar very successfully. I think he was keenly aware of the theme park appeal for Star Wars; there was talk in the 1980s of a "Lucas Land" or a "Star Wars" land that never got off the ground, but I thought it was a great idea. Maybe now, something like this could happen somewhere. Disney is the only company I can think of that has huge success with merchandising, with franchises, with films, with TV, and with theme parks; most other studios can handle 2 or 3 of those things, but not all of them.

Don't forget that Lucas' options included simply retiring and letting all of Lucasfilms' rights just lay fallow. But then, it would've eventually been up to his descendants (his wife and four adopted children) to decide how to carve up the Lucasfilm empire. At least by selling out to Disney, he solved the problem and made sure the movie ideas and characters will go on for at least another 20 years or so.

BTW, it's interesting to note that when Walt Disney's son-in-law Ron Miller was running the studio in 1975, he was one of many executives who turned down Lucas' script for Star Wars (as did Paramount and Universal). When Miller saw the finished film in summer '77, he was aghast because he realized that Star Wars would have been exactly the kind of huge hit that could have revitalized Walt Disney Productions. But I don't think the movie we would've gotten under those circumstances would have been the movie that George ultimately made. I just don't think it was ever meant to be. As it was, it was a miracle that Alan Ladd Jr. at Fox bought the movie in the first place.

 

Unfortunately for Lucas, the guys at Disney are better filmmakers than he's been in decades. I think they correctly assessed his post-sale advice and pretty much told him to piss off. Which has worked out extremely well for Disney and for the franchise - TFA is certainly better than any of the awful prequels produced by Lucas...

Wasn't Lucasfilm's relationship with Fox always pretty strained?

I think Fox would have ruined Star Wars if Lucas had sold it to them. Warner would have at least tried to make good films - don't know if they'd have succeeded. I think Disney will keep Lucasfilm just independent enough for it to have its own voice (TFA doesn't really look or feel much like a "Disney film" for example - in fact it feels more like the original Star Wars films than any of the prequels did).

 

I don't know where I read it, but somewhere on the net Kathy Kennedy told the story of the day Lucas came to Disney to sign all the documents giving Disney the rights to Lucasfilm. Her description of the events were that there were about 8 lawyers in the room and dozens and dozens and dozens of contracts that were each hundreds of pages thick. They actually had to break for lunch in the middle of signing all the documents, as I recall.

I think if Lucas wanted to remain an active consultant for all the decisions being made for new Lucasfilm characters, films, TV shows, and merchandising, he could've easily written that into the contract. I think he knew when he was walking away, he was really walking away. But I don't know for sure, since I haven't read the contract. I do think George is a very smart man who's inherently suspicious of Hollywood, and he knew up front the whole thing boiled down to a money deal, no matter what was said.

I'd say that the Marvel films, the Muppets, Pixar, and now Lucasfilm all have their separate "voices" and don't look or sound like anything else Disney makes. What's interesting is that the Marvel licensed (but not controlled) films at Fox are doing so poorly, which tells you it's not just the brand name or the characters -- it's all in the execution. I think Disney has reduced the Marvel success story to a working formula, but the question remains how long this formula will succeed.

 

Perhaps, at this point we may never know what the original story for VII was supposed to be. I believe that any story which was well done and competent would've fared just as well at the box office, such was the demand for a good Star Wars film. I really like VII, but it doesn't score too many points for originality. I recall that when VII was still in the writing stage, Abrams and Kasdan took over the writing from Michael Arnt saying that they wanted to go in a different direction. Lucas has lately stated that he was pushing for a wholly original story while Disney wanted to go retro and give more nods to the fans. He then got squeezed out of the creative process.

At this point, my only fear is the franchise getting tainted from oversaturation.

 

What is odd, Disney stock in November was $112, now it has been down to $106, thank god I did not buy it.

 

Here's some major clues as to original screenwriter Michael Arndt's script from three years ago -- the Star Wars VII script that was scrapped...

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayl...kens-a-much-larger-role-for-redacted-20151220

http://io9.gizmodo.com/michael-arndts-scrapped-star-wars-story-was-about-luke-1499732754

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Why-Disney-Changed-Star-Wars-Writers-Last-Minute-71356.html

I wouldn't be surprised to see some of these rejected ideas resurface in future versions of the film. One interesting tidbit is that Luke Skywalker originally had a much bigger role in the film, but the studio was worried that he would grab too much attention away from the new characters. I suspect this kind of plotline will happen in the next installment.

The stock is going down because ESPN is tanking, not because the film studio or the theme parks are doing badly -- quite the opposite.

 

I really like that i09 article, it adds some fire to some of the theories I have about VII.

 

A big chunk of Disneyland is closing down so The Mouse can add in Star Wars attractions, so this is coming. But if the series is successful enough I don't know if a little Star Wars section of the park is gonna be enough to satisfy demand. I think they should grab some land in the Bay Area and open a Star Wars attraction up here - the local geeks would keep it swimming in dollars.

Except the story we got - which focuses quite a bit on the older characters - sounds a lot like the original story that was supposedly being written back when Lucas still owned the franchise.

My suspicion is that - as overpacked with action and ideas as TFA already is - the original script was even more of an unfocused mess. It might have been a somewhat more original mess, but as we saw with the prequels, originality isn't everything.

Yeah, I was gonna say - the cable landscape is imploding and ESPN has been an absolute cash cow for Disney. In a way it's a really, really good thing for Disney shareholders that the mouse grabbed Star Wars and made a big success of it when it did, because otherwise their growth prospects would be incredibly bleak over the coming half-decade. As it is, I suspect Star Wars will be enough to keep The Mouse treading water, at least, while the cable landscape readjusts.

 

Even more bizarre, Fox was saving its pennies in '77 to pump marketing muscle into the sci-fi film they were sure was going to be a huge box office success - their production of Damnation Alley!!!


(For anyone who hasn't seen it, the film is a maggot-infested rancid cinematic turd - one that cost almost twice as much to produce as Star Wars, and that looks like it was shot by a group of high schoolers using their lunch money for the budget.)

 

I guess Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Mother Jones should consult you before they make and decisions or print any data.

You just got to win, don't ya?

 

At the risk of getting my head tore off, I enjoyed it in 3D, but I like 3D a lot.

 

Show me where any of the industry trades refute my data. These are very standard studio/exhibitor splits, and they go back a long time. The point is that it's not just a simple straight 60% -- if anything, Disney got at least 90% for the first week. But it's not a straightforward area because there's a lot of wriggle room for the theaters. If you want to know more about it, the book George Lucas's Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey will put this in perspective, at least in understanding what a box office gross really means, how much the studio really gets to keep, and how profits are defined. It's interesting how exhibition has changed from the 1960s to the 1970s to the 1980s and through the present, both in terms of money but also technology.

I think the success of Star Wars will put Disney in a very advantageous position to compel theaters to give them even greater percentages for future releases. The other things they demand in contracts involve the size of theaters, the number of theaters, the number of daily showings, and whether or not discounts are permitted. What I'm waiting for are for the studios to ask for a certain percentage of the concessions, with the theater owners have dug in their heels and refused to do so far. That plus the release window for home video are very contentious arguments between studios and theaters these days.

I didn't think it was terrible in Imax 3D, but it didn't add a lot to it. My impression is that J.J. Abrams is not a 3D fan, and I think he had to be compelled to let the movie go through dimensionalizing because Disney knew they'd be able to squeeze another 10-20% from 3D screenings. Imax alone has generated another $100,000,000, which is unprecedented.

http://variety.com/2016/film/box-office/star-wars-the-force-awakens-imax-records-1201670785/

 

The insiders who read Lucas' outlines said that the later Star Wars episodes got a lot darker and more bleak, more serious and tragic, and I think Disney wanted to avoid all that and go in a much lighter, more optimistic direction. I also think the idea was to tell stories with new characters who were basically under 30, and relegate the previous characters (Luke, Leia, Han, even R2D2 and C3P0) to the background.

From a strictly commercial point of view, I think they also felt there was more money to be made with new characters that would generate new toys, new dolls, new posters, and all that other stuff. What's interesting to me is why they still had to give Steven Arndt story credit even though very little of his story was used -- no Starkiller Base, no new robot, but two different children to deal with.

 

The Vanity Fair preview piece about the movie said Lucas's outline focused on younger characters than Finn and Rey, like teenagers, and the studio was worried about negative fan reaction to that.

And it was cast-aside screenwriter Michael Arndt who said that his main trouble trying to write the script was that whenever he brought Luke into it his instinct was to focus on Luke rather than the young characters.

 

Finally got to see the thing for myself on New Years Eve...I enjoyed it; my wife wasn't too crazy about it though (she thought it was too fast paced- "Hard to get a handle on what's going on" was her complaint). IMO BB8 steals the show!

Better than the prequels, not quite as good as 4, 5 and 6. Lotta humour, lotta action. Episode 8 will kick major butt.

 

All the Fox X-Men movies did well. The last one made almost $750 million worldwide. Heck, even the 2005 "Fantastic Four" did pretty well, as did both Wolverine movies.

Only a couple of Fox's Marvel movies have outright bombed. Most have broken even or made money...

 

$6 drop....the end of the world?

 

Saw the film last week and loved it. Although I thought the whole Starkiller bit was silly.

 

Well, I was mainly speaking of the recent Fantastic Four, which was a huge bomb. All the X-Men movies have done well, but I think everybody involved has agreed this is the last year for the ongoing cast. I think even Hugh Jackman is ready to move on from Wolverine. I'm very curious to see how the Deadpool movie will do, partly because it comes from Fox and partly because it's rated R. I know there's a lot of animosity between Fox and Disney over certain copyrighted works, particularly the word "mutant" (which Fox claims they own), which has created dialogue and story issues with Disney's Marvel movies & TV shows. Heck, most of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is devoted to mutants... only they can't say the word "mutants." My joke was, Disney should've paid Fox $100 million just for the rights to use the Fox Fanfare at the start of their Star Wars movies (without the logo), along with just the word "mutant." No such luck.

 

You take all the fun out of it dude, and you can't tell when someone doesn't want your opinion any more..........let it go, put me on ignore....

 

He's not giving you his opinion - he's explaining how studios and theater chains split the revenues of the films being shown (and also, if you dig back in the thread, how much the various parties involved get paid per-film and how they get paid).