“The long term contract I had to sign says I’ll be making these movies ’til the end of time…”
-Weird Al Yankovic, “Yoda” (1985)
If you follow entertainment news (to which, if we weren’t in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane and a presidential election, I would ask, “Is there any other kind?”), you are probably aware that about a month ago, George Lucas and The Walt Disney Company’s Chairman and CEO Bob Iger announced that Disney is acquiring Lucasfilm in a deal worth $4.03 billion, and that the studio would be making a new trilogy of movies set in the aftermath of Return of the Jedi, not to mention many more future movies within other corners of the massive Star Wars galaxy. And if you only casually follow such news, it might seem that the level of attention garnered by this announcement was a bit over the top. For pretty much three weeks afterwards, barely a day went by without new articles on the topic popping up on the pages of entertainment websites, many of the pieces purely speculation about who should direct the new movies, or commentary on what the movies should and should not do, etc. It’s been a bit much. But then again, to those of us who care about things like this, it is pretty huge news. And even though it’s taken me this long to get all my thoughts down and, like most of my posts, this one arrives too late and too long for anyone to actually care, I’m going to proceed anyway, for my own sake. Hell, South Park managed to build an episode around the news weeks before before I could finish this post.
Where to begin? I guess earlier this year, when it was announced that A-list producer Kathleen Kennedy was joining Lucasfilm, serving as Co-Chairman alongside founder George Lucas as he transitioned away from running the company. That was huge news on its own. Yes, I’d be happy to explain why. For those unfamiliar with Kathleen Kennedy’s CV, she is one of Hollywood’s most successful and prolific movie producers. She and husband Frank Marshall have a long history with George Lucas, going back to Raiders of the Lost Ark, on which she was credited as “Associate to Steven Spielberg.” Just a couple of years later, she was a full-fledged producer on E.T., earning her first Oscar nomination. For most of the 1980s, Kennedy and Marshall were Spielberg’s right hands, serving as in-house producers at the director’s production company Amblin Entertainment. Spielberg and Amblin’s involvement with the next two Indiana Jones movies, not to mention the close friendship between Lucas and Spielberg, naturally put Kennedy in Lucas’ inner circle too.
In the 90s, the husband-and-wife team left Amblin and struck out on their own, forming The Kennedy/Marshall Company. Well…”struck out” may be the wrong phrase to use, since they continued to hit home runs. And they remained in close partnership with Spielberg, with Kennedy producing most of his movies, including War of the Worlds, Munich, War Horse and Lincoln. She’s also produced such films as The Sixth Sense, Seabiscuit, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (earning Oscar nominations for all), The Bridges of Madison County and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (the latter giving her some art film cred amidst a mostly Hollywood-based career).
Clearly, Kennedy is an active producer. Which made her such a surprising choice to take over Lucasfilm. Kathleen Kennedy makes movies. That’s what she does. And that’s not what Lucasfilm does. Not historically, at least. Since 1990, Lucasfilm has put out seven films. Three of those were the Star Wars prequels. One of them was Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which was just the first four episodes of The Clone Wars TV series cobbled together. One of them was the fourth Indiana Jones movie. The other two were Radioland Murders, which most people have never heard of, and Red Tails, Lucas’ long-gestating passion project about the Tuskegee Airmen, which came out earlier this year. In the same time period, Kennedy produced 22 features, served as Executive Producer on 18 more and also had a hand in numerous short films and TV projects. If Kennedy was coming to take over Lucasfilm, then Lucasfilm was going to start making a lot more movies.
Publicly, it had been a quiet period of transition since Kennedy came onboard. And then…that out of the blue announcement, which exploded across the entertainment news landscape.
There are a lot of elements to this deal, so it might be easiest to examine them one at a time.
THE DETAILS
Although Disney has experience acquiring successful companies with a popular brand, the partnerships haven’t always been smooth. Their 1993 purchase of Miramax Films ended sadly, with the 2005 departure of Harvey and Bob Weinstein from the company – named for their parents Miriam and Max – that they had made synonymous with prestige independent film. It never made much sense for the studio behind Bambi, Dumbo and Cinderella to go into business with the studio behind Reservoir Dogs, Clerks and sex, lies and videotape. Bambi’s mother may have been shot, but we didn’t see the hunter carve her up for venison while dancing to “Stuck in the Middle With You.”
Prior to purchasing Pixar in 2006, Disney had a marketing and distribution deal with the animation studio, but it turned ugly when the two sides couldn’t agree on terms. After Michael Eisner left Disney in 2005, Bob Iger took over and seemed to bring peace to the Magic Kingdom. Relations with Pixar were smoothed, leading to the 2006 deal with Disney. Then in 2009, Disney bought Marvel Entertainment, and now the Lucasfilm deal continues the company’s acquisition of family-friendly brands with all manner of franchise possibilities. (And let’s not forget The Muppets, who have been part of the Disney family since 2004, and whose profile rose with last year’s hit movie. A sequel is currently in pre-production.) Under Iger’s management, relations with Pixar, Marvel and The Jim Henson Company seem to be going well, and with a seasoned pro like Kennedy in charge at Lucasfilm, there’s no reason to think that Disney will try to meddle in the business. Iger was quite clear with Disney’s investors: this purchase is all about Star Wars, and the doors that will open should be enough to keep Disney’s leadership and shareholders plenty happy.
The purchase includes all of the Lucasfilm companies – Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Skywalker Sound and LucasArts. In the case of ILM, Iger stated that the plan is to leave it alone to do business as usual. Hopefully that will prove to be the case – for Skywalker Sound and LucasArts as well – allowing Disney to reap whatever revenue they bring in while also taking advantage of them for their own needs. ILM and Skywalker Sound have been used by many Disney films in the past (as well as Marvel’s Iron Man franchise and The Avengers), and it seems highly probable that Disney will now utilize the companies for all of their films. The article above does point out that, with the exception of Sony Imageworks, movie studios have not had the best luck running visual effects companies, and Disney in particular struggled with Dream Quest Images (which became The Secret Lab) and Robert Zemeckis’ ImageMovers. The article also mentions that ILM made $100 million in revenue last year, which I seriously doubt. The nightmarish fiscal realities of the visual effects industry are a whole other issue, but I can tell you that VFX studios don’t make that kind of profit. They don’t make much profit at all. Anyway, my hope is that Iger is true to his word and allows ILM, Skywalker Sound and LucasArts to keep doing what they’re doing, and that the piles of cash they’ll make from Star Wars and its merchandising will more than cover the cost of ILM and Skywalker Sound going about business as usual. As for LucasArts, hopefully Disney’s intention to pursue more Star Wars video game opportunities will provide lots of work to keep them going strong.
Lucas’ previous relationships with other studios make the future of his properties murky at this point. According to this piece in The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Fox owns the distribution rights to the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV) for all time, while their ownership of the five subsequent films reverts back to Lucasfilm in 2020. That means the ongoing 3D re-releases of the movies (Episodes II and III are due in 2013) will remain Fox releases, and any more home video releases in the immediate future will also come from Fox. If Disney ever hopes to release a major box set with the entire nine-part saga, it will have to work out a deal with Fox for Episode IV. (Dare we dream that under Kennedy and Disney, we’ll eventually see a remastered home video release of the first trilogy’s original versions? If we do, I doubt it will be before home video goes away and everything is online or beamed directly into our brains and projected through our eyeballs on whatever surface is in front of us.) The article quotes a Lucas associate as saying that the director didn’t like the idea of splitting up the movies amongst different rights holders, but that turning the future of Star Wars over to Fox instead of Disney made no sense. Anyone taken a family vacation to Foxland lately?
Distribution rights to the Indiana Jones films remain with Paramount, meaning any future Indy movies would require some kind of deal between Paramount and Disney. And despite ongoing rumblings, nobody seems really committed to another Indy film anyway. Meanwhile, the popular animated series The Clone Wars airs on Cartoon Network, which is owned by Warner Bros. Iger’s plans for the future of Star Wars definitely seem to include TV series (perhaps the long-awaited live action series will finally see the light of day?), but where The Clone Wars will land after its current season ends – and how series box sets will be packaged in the years ahead – remains unconfirmed.
One Lucasfilm property that shouldn’t have rights hurdles to clear is Howard the Duck. The 1986 film was based on a Marvel Comics series, and now Lucasfilm and Marvel are united under one roof. Your move, Disney.
OF MICE AND BEN…KENOBI
So now that Disney owns every star, moon and planet in George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away, what will they do with it all? Well, we know they will make Episodes VII, VIII and IX, which I’ll talk more about later. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg for a property as rich as Star Wars.
Disney has been in business with George Lucas going back to 1986, when ILM created visual effects for the Michael Jackson 3D short, Captain EO. The next year, the Star Wars-themed motion simulation ride Star Tours opened in Disneyland, eventually hitting the other Disney parks as well. The development of future theme park attractions based on Star Wars is inevitable. A park the size of all of DisneyWorld could easily be created from the vast expanses of the Star Wars galaxy, and if it happened to Harry Potter, you can bet the Millennium Falcon it will happen to Star Wars.
How awesome is that gonna be?
The possibilities are pretty much endless, but for starters, here’s some fun artwork created by artist Tom Hodges for Star Wars Celebration V a couple of years ago.
If there’s one thing that Disney and Lucasfilm have in common beyond visionary creators whose imaginations birthed timeless, beloved characters and stories, it’s that they both know how to sell the shit out of Stuff. So beyond the new movies and the obvious theme park development, expect Disney to churn out endless streams of Star Wars Stuff. The only question is what that will actually look like, since Lucasfilm has already been doing it for years. TV shows, toys, novels, comic books, clothes, toothbrushes, coffee mugs, keychains, posters, calendars, Christmas tree ornaments…just think of all the Stuff that Star Wars can – and has – been slapped on. Can Disney up the ante, or will they just keep the machine going?
THE BIG SCREEN
In practical terms for movie fans, the biggest shocker of the Lucasfilm/Disney announcement was probably not the acquisition so much as the reveal that Episodes VII, VIII and IX were in the works, with 2015 set as the release date for the first. And not only would there be a post-Jedi trilogy, but Lucas would not be directly involved in making them.
Wow.
Now the Kathleen Kennedy move started to make sense. While Lucas has helped develop story treatments and will serve as Creative Consultant, he is leaving the future of Star Wars on film in the capable hands of Kennedy and a new group of filmmakers. Those of us who were disappointed in what Lucas did with the prequels dared to imagine new Star Wars movies that could actually recapture the tone of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. The possibilities are thrilling. Speculation immediately began about who would or should direct the new movies. That question hasn’t been answered yet, but another one has been. The task of writing Episode VII has landed on the desk of Michael Arndt, who won an Oscar for Little Miss Sunshine and earned another nomination for Toy Story 3. His outstanding work on the latter is what makes me feel comfortable and encouraged by the choice. Granted, it’s still not much to go by. Those are his only two films to date, though several more are on the way: another Pixar film (due in 2015), the next installment of The Hunger Games franchise (on which he will share credit with Slumdog Millionaire writer Simon Beaufoy), the Tom Cruise sci-fi film Oblivion, directed by Tron: Legacy‘s Joseph Kosinski and also featuring contributions from Departed writer William Monahan, and Phineas and Ferb, based on the hit cartoon series. At least two of those will be out before Star Wars hits, so we’ll have a better sense of Arndt’s skills, but so far he seems to be a guy who can combine humor, strong characters and authentic emotional weight. Seriously, do we need to talk about the amazing final third of Toy Story 3?
Directors will likely be approaching the invitation from Kennedy with as much trepidation as passion. While we all know the vitriol directed at Lucas because of the prequels (among other things, to be fair), at least he could fall back on the fact that everything we love about Star Wars still sprung from his brain. But who wants to be the outsider who comes in and potentially screws up the chance to relaunch the brand?
It needs to be someone who has established an ability to make smart, commercial movies, and in my perfect world, a little more weight will be given to filmmaking skill than how profitable or financially successful their previous films have been. One friend of mine suggested Rian Johnson, director of Brick and Looper, and that’s just the kind of person I’d like to see take the job. In that vein, Duncan Jones – director of Moon and Source Code – could be a great choice as well. Jon Favreau would probably do a good job too. I’d love to see it directed by somebody who isn’t necessarily proven in sci-fi or fantasy, but who has shown skills handling mainstream content with good performances, editing and storytelling. Ben Affleck, perhaps? (He says no.) Will Disney look to its Pirates of the Caribbean helmer Gore Verbinski? That could go either way, though with a good script I think he’d do a fine job. David Yates handled the last four Harry Potter films quite nicely, showing a skill for balancing action and effects with quiet and even powerful moments of performance and character. I don’t know; I’m not interested in wasting much time speculating on these things. I just want Kennedy and whoever else is involved in the process to be smart about it, and not hand the reins over to someone who makes bland, cookie-cutter studio movies that might make money, but who has no personality as a filmmaker. On the other hand, it shouldn’t be someone who has such a singular style or point of view that they overshadow the movie. People have tossed around big names like Peter Jackson and Christopher Nolan, but I can’t imagine either being interested or…right for the gig. Apparently, Lucasfilm sent Arndt’s treatment to three directors in recent weeks, and all have declined…either because of other projects they have lined up, or maybe because they only see the pitfalls. Whatever their real reasons, J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird and Steven Spielberg all passed. (Oddly, Spielberg talks about not being a sci-fi guy or being interested in action movies anymore, even though his next project is Robopocalypse…a sci-fi action movie.) One name that keeps popping up as a likely director? Matthew Vaughan, who directed the Daniel Craig caper Layer Cake, the comedic fantasy Stardust, the action-comedy Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class. (He was set to direct an X-Men follow-up, but abruptly dropped out right around the time the Lucasfilm/Star Wars news broke, fueling speculation that he’d been offered Episode VII. I’ve seen all his films except for Stardust, and I’ve enjoyed them, but I don’t know if he’s got the right stuff for Star Wars.
Then again, I’m admittedly being far too precious about this whole thing…as evidenced by the fact that I’m still writing about it.
What I really want to see is a Funny or Die short or SNL sketch or something where we see what a Star Wars movie would be like directed by eccentric filmmakers like Terrence Malick (Luke wandering the desert of Tattooine to whispered voiceover about the spiritual essence of the planet’s twin suns), David Lynch (Han and Lando have an oblique, circular conversation in a room with dim, flickering lights and a loud, unsettling buzzing noise coming from nowhere in particular) and Quentin Tarantino (Luke, clad in a yellow jumpsuit, once again finds trouble in a cantina, this time expertly wielding his lightsaber to maim an onslaught of aliens).
The fact that we’re even getting Episodes VII, VIII and IX is perplexing. While the rumors back in the days of the first trilogy were that Lucas had nine stories altogether, he often said during the prequel era that the completion of the second trilogy would make clear that together, the Star Wars movies were really the story of Anakin Skywalker; his rise, his fall and his redemption at the hands of his son. Despite what most of us think of the prequels, the six movies together do tell that story, forming a symmetrical arc that ends with Return of the Jedi. The post Jedi-years have been explored in numerous novels, but none of those stories stemmed from Lucas’ own ideas. In fact, I remember when the first Star Wars novel, Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, came out – I was in my early teens – and I took a stand against reading it because it was not based on George Lucas’ own story. I wasn’t interested in a Star Wars that didn’t come from Lucas. (Little did I know what I would get for my loyalty.) Still, Zahn claims that Lucas once briefed him on his own intentions for the later years of the saga, saying that the idea would be to follow the next generation of the Skywalker family.
Actors Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford have all expressed willingness to return for new movies, and they would have to be willing, because c’mon… you can’t recast those parts. And yet, if the stories skip so far ahead in time that Luke, Leia and Han have become one with The Force, then you’re no longer talking about Episodes VII, VIII and IX; you’re just talking about new movies in the Star Wars universe. In truth, I don’t know how I feel about seeing Hamill, Fisher and Ford back in these roles. It’s not that I want to see someone else playing the iconic parts, but it’s been a long time since Return of the Jedi. It’s not always so easy to slip back into characters years later. Whatever else you might think about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the Indy that Ford played in that movie just wasn’t the same Indy we knew in the 80’s. If he’d been playing the part every few years in a new adventure, the aging would have been less apparent. But to pick up the character 18 years later…it was a bit jarring. True, Luke, Leia and Han would probably play more supporting roles in the sequels, but still…there’s no doubt that this is dangerous territory.
Ooooh, but if they could pull it off….could be really cool. And could we make sure Billy Dee Williams gets in on this too?
The next three films will need to fit tonally with the six before it, but once Disney can turn its attention to telling other stories on film from within the Star Wars universe, there could be more potential for going in unexpected directions. The Kennedy/Marshall Company produced all the Jason Bourne movies, which makes me think of how cool it would be to see Paul Greengrass bring his gritty realism to a story of spies or smugglers in some of the galaxy’s seedier corners. Don’t think Disney would go for that? I’m not so sure. All four Pirates movies were PG-13. As long as Kennedy keeps things from going too dark, I think she’ll be given a fair amount of leeway. And if the plan is really to put out a new Star Wars movie every 2-3 years – as Iger said in his announcement – they’ll need to be varied in tone and style to keep interest sustained. Frankly, that seems like too many movies, even with an expansive galaxy to draw inspiration from. Given the extent to which it has been marketed over 35 years, you can’t really be concerned at this point with the idea of Star Wars cannibalizing itself, but the Major Event mindset that comes with a big movie release could get old if really attempted with such regularity. Perhaps a live action TV series is the better way to explore the worlds of Star Wars for the long haul.
About a week ago, news broke that Lawrence Kasden and Simon Kinberg have been approached for the sequels, though it’s not fully clear yet in what capacity. Their involvement is not official yet, but sounds likely. They may each be writing an installment of the sequel trilogy, and/or coming aboard one or all of the sequels as producers. Kasden’s involvement is surprising and exciting; surprising because he works only occasionally these days (or at least, only gets films made occasionally), and exciting because he of course co-wrote both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (and Raiders of the Lost Ark; damn, that dude was on fire!) On the other hand, those were the days of Kasden’s own classics Body Heat and The Big Chill. His work lately has been much less celebrated and memorable. Prior to writing and directing this year’s little-seen, little discussed Darling Companion, his last film was nine years earlier: a messy adaptation of Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher. Kasden’s glory days seem far behind him. But maybe a return to the world of Star Wars will revive his creative juices. I’m hopeful. The hiring of Simon Kinberg leaves me less encouraged. Kinberg’s had some popular hits, but his movies have been pretty shallow. I enjoyed the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith well enough, and I’m more a fan of X-Men: The Last Stand than most people, but neither of them demonstrate what I’d want in a writer for a Star Wars movie. His credits also include Sherlock Holmes, which always looked dumb to me (I still haven’t seen it), the forgetful Hayden Christensen sci-fi flick Jumper and the horribly received Reese Witherspoon/Chris Pine/Tom Hardy romantic comedy This Means War. When it comes to Star Wars, Kinberg comes with a bit too much Hollywood studio gloss for my preference, and he’s definitely outclassed by Arndt and Kasden. But time will tell.
GOODBYE GEORGE
It’s bittersweet to see Lucas step away from the company he built, even if so many of us have been disheartened by the direction he’s taken in these later years. It probably is the best thing for the future of the franchise to place it into someone else’s hands, and it’s comforting to know that the first pair of hands to guide it will be Kathleen Kennedy’s. And I have to imagine that Lucas is largely relieved by the decision. Since 1977, he has been trapped by this crushing machine that became more massive and all-consuming than he ever could have imagined when he set out to make a Flash Gordon-esque space fantasy that told a simple story of good vs. evil. He had no idea that Star Wars would become his life, and when you add to that the excessive amount of flack he’s taken over the last 15 years for the special editions and the prequels, I imagine there must have been a moment when he committed to this decision, or after he signed the contract with Disney…a moment to himself where he just sat down, closed his eyes and exhaled a long breath of freedom. In 2008, the super-smart, super-funny Simon Pegg was a guest on Elvis Mitchell’s outstanding podcast The Treatment, and he said that when he met George Lucas at the premiere of Revenge of the Sith, Lucas told him, “Don’t be making the film you made 30 years ago 30 years from now.”
A sad, almost confessional comment. And now, at last, Lucas can unburden himself from the shackles of Star Wars that, while I’m sure have provided him with rewarding creative experiences over the years, have also undoubtedly sapped much of his energy and derailed other pursuits. Will he make the small, obscure, non-mainstream artsy films he’s been talking about for so long? Who knows. Philanthropy is a huge part of his life, and most of the money he makes from selling his company to Disney is expected to go into his charitable endeavors. He does still have that Creative Consultant role, and will probably continue to keep his eyes on the franchise and offer his advice from time to time, but by and large, Lucas is done with the series. He leaves his company to Kennedy and Disney. Talk about the end of an era.
A series of video discussions between Lucas and Kennedy have been filmed are being released once a week at starwars.com. The first two are here, the third here. Two more will follow in the weeks ahead.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The two people reading this know that I’ve said more than enough at this point. There will be plenty more to talk about when a director is announced, when casting is announced, when the movie itself arrives and when Disney’s plans to steward the franchise have had time to take hold. In the end, I think the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney could be a great thing, and I’m excited to see what happens in the years ahead. I’m of two minds about the sequels, but I have no doubt that when they hit, my inner child will bust out.
If I have two final, random hopes for the future of Star Wars under this deal, here they are: that the new movies be shot with a lot less greenscreen and digital set decoration, instead favoring physical sets that look tactile; and that Disney can somehow work out a deal with 20th Century Fox to remaster and release the unaltered versions of the original trilogy on Blu-Ray. It’s not exactly a new hope…but it is a renewed one.
May the Force be with us…
I Am DB 