A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

© 2019 TWDC What are the most obvious signs from their movies that Disney is out to make money? Why are you asking such a silly question about The Walt Disney Company in general and specifically its Walt Disney Motion Pictures Studio division? Is there a valid reason for this, or are you jumping on the “let’s bash Disney because it’s a huge corporation” bandwagon? First of all, The Walt Disney Company was not created just to create “art” or provide entertainment just for the sake of making audiences happy. It was founded. in part, because Walt Disney was an artist who wanted to share his talents as an animator with the world, but it was also set up as a business enterprise. It wasn’t created to make art for art’s sake. Second, “Disney” exists to give its shareholders a return for their investments. When you buy stock in any business, you’re not merely getting a pretty piece of paper with the company logo; you’re purchasing a stake in that company’s future. Thus, if you o...

© 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corp. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  Will Kevin Feige's Star Wars film spell the end for the George Lucas era? No. The “George Lucas era” ended in the fall of 2012. In case you didn’t notice, George Lucas sold his company, Lucasfilm Ltd., to The Walt Disney Company, for $4 billion (half cash, half in Disney stock) in October of 2012. Lucas stopped making  Star Wars  live-action films in 2005 but continued to work in the franchise as creator and executive producer of the CGI animated series  Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  He did not micromanage that 2008–2014 show; he leaned on Dave Filoni, Catherine Winder, and others for that, although he signed off on all of the big storylines, such as the return of Darth Maul, the one-off appearance of Chewbacca, and the Mortis story arc. He also said many, many times that he had  no  plans to make any more  Star Wars  films set after  Return of the Jedi  and t...

© 1996, 2019 New Fox How will the Disney/Fox merger affect Fox News? The Walt Disney Company/21st Century Fox merger has not affected Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel or the over-the-air Fox Broadcasting Company. Before Murdoch and 21st Century Fox’s shareholders agreed to the deal, both of these assets were spun-off into a newly-created entity called “New Fox.” The Walt Disney Company already owns ABC, so it had no need to purchase the Fox TV network. Murdoch, on his part, is more interested in keeping Fox News Channel in his media empire, since being a mover and shaker in the conservative movement is far more important to him than being a provider of entertainment to the masses. (And considering how unpopular Fox News Channel is outside its conservative fanbase, I don’t think Disney's Alan Horn and Bob Iger wanted  that  hot potato anyway.) So, if you’re a regular watcher of Fox News Channel and were worried that its programming would morph into something that ...

The Blu-ray packaging for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. © 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. and Buena Vista Home Entertainment No. First of all, (and I’m tired of explaining this over and over),  The Walt Disney Company  does not, nor did it ever have, a plan “to have the audience focus on a new set of characters.” If anyone had such a plan, it would have been  Lucasfilm,  the Disney-owned subsidiary that is responsible for actually making  Indiana Jones  and  Star Wars. Second of all, creating a new set of characters for the Sequel Trilogy was always going to be in the cards, as the window for making a post- Return of the Jedi  trilogy closed sometime between 1983 and 1994, partly because of George Lucas’s divorce from Marcia Lucas and  Star Wars  burnout, and partly because when Lucas decided to go back to big-budget filmmaking, he chose to make the Prequel Trilogy instead. Meanwhile, as Steve Perry noted in his foreword to the  Shad...

Does Disney own the movie Titanic now? James Cameron’s 1997 film was the most expensive motion picture of its day; its unprecedented $200 million budget was so large that Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment had to team up with two major studios to get his film made and distributed. The two studios that stepped up to the plate were Paramount Pictures (a subsidiary of Viacom) and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation (a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation). Though it might seem strange that two rival studios would join forces to produce and release a major motion picture, it has happened several times, most notably when Universal Pictures and Columbia Pictures bankrolled Steven Spielberg’s  1941  back in the late 1970s. What usually happens in these deals is that one studio gets the rights for domestic distribution, while the other gets the foreign distribution rights. In the case of  Titanic,  Paramount Pictures got dibs on the lucrative North Amer...

If The Walt Disney Company acquires Fox, will Disney own the TV rights to Batman? The purchase of 21st Century Fox by The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) was finalized in the spring of 2019 after the relevant government agencies in various nations, including the U.S. and China, signed off on it. It’s therefore no longer a hypothetical question (“if”); it’s a done deal. However, your question from 2017 reflects quite a few misconceptions that need to be cleared up. Let’s begin, shall we? First, you have to understand that before the Disney purchase of 21st Century Fox was set in motion, Rupert Murdoch and his fellow owners had to spin off several divisions from the company that was the parent of the legendary film studio 20th Century Fox and its in-house labels, Fox Searchlight and Fox 2000. None of the “Fox”-branded TV networks that were formerly part of Murdoch’s old News Corporation/21st Century Fox were included in the deal. TWDC already owns ABC and ESPN; it can’t own a...

On Quora, inquiring member Anthony Perez asks: Other than money, why did George Lucas sell the Star Wars franchise to Disney and make Kathleen Kennedy in charge of the franchise going forward? My reply: First of all, Lucas did not simply sell the  Star Wars  franchise, as your question erroneously states. He sold  Lucasfilm Ltd.,  the production company he founded in 1971 after leaving Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope, which he also helped to create back in ‘69. This means that Lucas not only sold Lucasfilm and its various subsidiaries, including Skywalker Sound, THX Labs, and Industrial Light & Magic; he also sold Lucasfilm’s intellectual properties, including  Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Red Tails  and  Willow. Before the sale to The Walt Disney Company (TWDC), Lucas had pretty much decided to retire anyway, but he didn’t want Lucasfilm to die off or be purchased by just anyone. He was 68 years old and did not want to spend any...

Is Star Wars: Episode IX just an excuse for Disney to make a bunch of money? All things being equal, all movies (except those small movies made solely by independent “artsy” production companies that hardly anyone sees), are made with the goal of making someone - usually a studio and its stockholders - “a bunch of money.” That’s why  movie studios  exist: they invest (read “risk”) millions of dollars in a movie - in this case,  Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker -  with a certain expectation of making a profit. The Walt Disney Company and its film division, Walt Disney Motion Picture Studios, are of course also making  Star Wars - Episode IX  to fulfill George Lucas’s on-again, off-again aspiration of creating a three-Trilogy Skywalker Saga, plus they have to finish the story that Lucasfilm began with 2015’s  The Force Awakens  and continued in  The Last Jedi.  Everyone involved in the creation of  Star Wars...

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know (or should know) that one of my pet peeves is cognitive dissonance. It doesn't matter if it involves politics, interpersonal relationships, or pop culture, but I am easily annoyed when people willfully ignore facts and publicly express notions that are based on personal opinion or political dogma. For instance, in the Star Wars fandom, there is a subgroup of fans that continually ascribe decisions made by Lucasfilm Ltd., the production company that creates content for both the Indiana Jones and the Star Wars franchises to its parent company, The Walt Disney Company. No matter what it is - whether it's the announcement that a new film or TV series is being considered or that a new book is going to be published, it's never Lucasfilm that gets credit (or the criticism) for the decision, it's Disney.  Allow me to illustrate by sharing yet another Star Wars- related item from Quora. In the Star Wars category, Jensen...

Dan Perri's classic logo for Star Wars. ™ Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) If there's one current trend that I hate on social media is the myth that "Disney" makes editorial decisions re Star Wars and Indiana Jones.    What exactly did Disney add and remove from the Star Wars universe/story? What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. -  The Captain,  Cool Hand Luke One of the most persistent myths about  Star Wars,  the franchise, and especially the business end of how the films and other media products are made is that The Walt Disney Company “adds and removes” elements of the  Star Wars  story. Not a day passes in which I don’t see any mention on social media - usually derisive and hateful - about how “Disney” did this, that, or the other thing to  Star Wars. Lucasfilm, which was founded in 1971 by George Lucas, did not magically disappear in 2012 after The Walt Disney Company acquired it. The com...

On Quora, Daniel Brown asks: Is  Star Wars: The Clone Wars  canon? Unlike its 2003–2005 2D animated precursor,  Star Wars: Clone Wars,  the 2008–2013 3D computer animated series  Star Wars: The Clone Wars  is included in the overall canon. Lucasfilm Ltd., the parent of Lucasfilm Animation, has stated since 2014 that the series created and executive produced by George Lucas is a key element of the  Star Wars  canon, which currently looks like this: Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones Star Wars: The Clone Wars Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Solo: A Star Wars Story Star Wars Rebels Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Star Wars: The Mandalorian Star Wars: Resistance Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last ...

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 ...

Image Credit: www.toonzone.net Why did Disney decide to end The Skywalker Saga, instead of leaving open the possibility of continuing it after "The Rise of Skywalker"? First of all, The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) does not have that level of micromanaging editorial control over any of its subsidiaries (ABC, ESPN, Marvel Enterprises, National Geographic, Lucasfilm, or 21st Century Fox). I don’t know why people keep on assuming that Alan Horn and Bob Iger are omnipresent and omnipotent and that “Disney” execs have their fingers in every pie, ostensibly ruining franchises and people’s childhoods just for grins. If I seem to be a bit annoyed at this question’s basic assumption, it’s because I  am  annoyed about how intellectually lazy people get, especially when it comes to Lucasfilm Ltd., its leadership, and its role in making decisions as far as its biggest intellectual properties,  Star Wars  and  Indiana Jones. Second, Star Wars needs to grow b...

Do you think Disney has done a better job with Star Wars than Lucasfilm? Questions such as “Do you think Disney has done a better job with Star Wars than Lucasfilm?” reflect either willful ignorance or a misunderstanding of the corporate relationship between The Walt Disney Company (TWDC or “Disney”) and Lucasfilm Ltd., especially when it comes to the topic of  Star Wars. The relationship between TWDC and Lucasfilm is no different from that of Sony and Columbia Pictures or the “old” 20th Century Fox Film Corporation and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox (and before that, News Corporation). TWDC is the “corporate parent,” while Lucasfilm is an editorially-independent production company with its own President. Lucasfilm, for the most part, has free rein to decide how to handle its two major franchises,  Star Wars,  and  Indiana Jones.  TWDC has the right to decide  when  and  how  movies are scheduled for production  and  ...