Weird Questions About 'Star Wars': Does George Lucas still own the Star Wars franchise after it was taken over by Disney?

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On Quora, I keep on seeing questions such as this one:

Does George Lucas still own the Star Wars franchise after it was taken over by Disney?


My answer:
© 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corp. 
No. When George Lucas sold his company, Lucasfilm Limited, to the Walt Disney Company in 2012, he sold all of the rights to intellectual properties Lucasfilm owned, including:
  • The Star Wars franchise and brand, which includes the five Star Wars films produced by Lucasfilm before 2012. 20th Century Fox owns the distribution rights for those until 2020, at which time the rights will be transferred to Disney. Fox, however, still owns the rights to Star Wars, aka Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope, in perpetuity because the studio financed the making of the film in addition to releasing it.
  • The four Indiana Jones movies and the Young Indiana Jones TV series, which Paramount Pictures released but were financed by George Lucas.
© 1981 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)


So, no. Once Lucas signed the deal with Disney to sell Lucasfilm, he also gave up any control over his creations.

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