Sci-Fi Storm

In a further consolidation of distribution and marketing rights from studios it has acquired in recent years, Disney has reached an agreement with Paramount to acquire the rights for any future Indiana Jones films – not that they’ve announced any plans for them.

Paramount retains the distribution rights for the existing films and will receive a cut of future ones.

Disney and Paramount reached similar agreements over Iron Man 3 and The Avengers after Disney acquired Marvel.

Now with Lucasfilm, Disney will produce, distribute and market all future Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. Does this mean we will see more Indy? Well, right now Disney seems to have all of the Lucasfilm guns aimed at Star Wars Episode VII as well as a couple ancillary Star Wars films and a new upcoming animated series, Star Wars: Rebels, and they haven’t announced anything for the future of Indy, but it seems an unusual deal if Disney didn’t plan on doing something, since it only applies to future productions. So it seems likely we’ll be hearing something in the near future…

LucasFilm announced today that it will postpone the 3D re-releases of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, now that development is proceeding full speed on Episode VII. According to the announcement, “Given the recent development that we are moving forward with a new Star Wars trilogy, we will now focus 100 percent of our efforts on Star Wars: Episode VII in order to ensure the best possible experience for our fans. We will post further information about our 3D release plans at a later date.”

Disney obviously wants to push forward with new material quickly – this despite the fact that it has been re-release its own inventory of films in 3D on a fairly rapid schedule, with Monsters Inc. the most recent.

Here are some of the big and our favorite stories we covered in 2012…

In January, rapidly rising British actor Benedict Cumberbatch joined Star Trek: Into Darkness, while CW’s Arrow dropped “Green” from the name and named Stephen Amell the lead actor.

We lost actor Ian Abercrombie and the voice of the Robot from Lost In Space Dick Tufeld.
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I’ve been asked many times since the announcement that Disney would acquire Lucasfilm what I think of the news. I just haven’t gotten around to finishing this article…now that the feds have cleared the acquisition, I remembered 🙂

It’s no secret that I’m a big Star Wars fan (and of other Lucasfilm productions – heck, I still see humor in Howard The Duck…), nor is it a secret I’m a big Disney fan. As I mentioned to a certain Disney Jedi friend of ours, it’s two of our worlds colliding!

But is it a good thing? I think so.
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WHOA!!!!

In a blockbuster deal just announced, Disney will acquire LucasFilm for $4.05 billion in cash and stock. Kathleen Kennedy, currently the co-chair of LucasFilm, will become the President and report to Walt Disney Studios chief Alan Horn.

The deal appears to be in line with George Lucas announcing earlier this year that he wanted to step away from LucasFilm and go back to “hobby movies”. Lucas said as part of the announcement, “It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come.”

It is also being reported that there will be a new Star Wars film, to be released in 2015! No details, and it seems a little soon for something no one has heard of yet, but George Lucas has been mulling various ideas for a while…
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