Lucasfilm

• 1. Introduction

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  Lucasfilm began on the 10th of December 1971, when filmmaker George Lucas founded it in Marin County, California. Today it is best known for Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and for pushing the craft of special effects, sound and computer animation. Since 2012 it has been a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios. It is one of five live-action film studios there. How did one filmmaker's company grow into a family of businesses that built effects, sound systems, games and animation? Why were so many of those businesses later sold, spun off or shut down? And what did it take for Lucas to hand the whole enterprise to someone else?

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• 2. The First Decade

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  Downtown San Rafael served as a location for Lucasfilm's first production, American Graffiti, which Lucas directed. The 1973 film was released to critical and commercial success. By the mid-1970s the company's offices sat on the Universal Studios Lot. Pre-production on what became Star Wars began while Graffiti was still being made.

  Universal rejected funding for Star Wars. After the success of Graffiti, Lucas pitched the film to 20th Century-Fox, and the pitch worked. Star Wars, the company's second production, opened in a limited release on the 25th of May 1977 to critical acclaim and box-office success. The company was incorporated as Lucasfilm Ltd. on the 12th of September 1977. Lucas also created the Star Wars Corporation, Inc. as a subsidiary. It controlled the film's copyright, along with sequel and merchandising rights. In 1978 Lucasfilm produced the Star Wars Holiday Special for 20th Century Fox Television.

  That same year Lucas hired Charles Weber, a Los Angeles real-estate specialist, to manage the company. Lucas told him he could keep the job as long as he made money. Lucas wanted to focus on independent films. Instead the staff swelled from five people to almost 100, with more middle management and rising costs. In 1980 Weber asked Lucas for $50 million to invest in other companies. He also suggested selling Skywalker Ranch to pay for it. Lucas fired him and had to let half of the Los Angeles staff go. By then the Star Wars Corporation had been discontinued, and its business was absorbed into the divisions of Lucasfilm. The second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, reached cinemas that same year.

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• 3. Beyond The Galaxy

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  Three Indiana Jones films, drawn from stories by Lucas and directed by Steven Spielberg, arrived between 1981 and 1989. While Return of the Jedi, released in 1983, was in production, Lucas decided not to pursue further Star Wars films. For a time the company looked elsewhere.

  John Korty directed the animated film Twice Upon a Time in 1983. Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters followed in 1985. The next year brought Jim Henson's Labyrinth and an adaptation of Marvel Comics' Howard the Duck. In 1988 Ron Howard directed the fantasy film Willow from a story by Lucas. The animated film The Land Before Time came out the same year. The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, created by Lucas, was produced for television from 1992 to 1993. The long-delayed Radioland Murders, from a Lucas story, was released in 1994.

  In 1992 Lucas watched an early computer-generated test that Industrial Light & Magic had made for Jurassic Park. Afterward he announced his intention to produce a Star Wars prequel trilogy. Pre-production began in 1995. The trilogy took ten years to make and ended with Revenge of the Sith in 2005. Meanwhile Lucas reworked the originals. His Special Editions of the Original Trilogy arrived in 1997, in theatres and on VHS and Laserdisc. Further changes followed in 2004 and 2011 for DVD and Blu-ray.

  In 2005 Lucasfilm also opened an animation studio in Singapore. Lucasfilm Animation began production there on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a 3D animated series. Lucas was creator and executive producer, and Catherine Winder was also an executive producer. Dave Filoni was supervising director, Chris Kubsch led the Singapore studio, and Henry Gilroy was another key member of the team. The series aired on Cartoon Network from 2008 to 2013. Fans received it well, and it earned nominations at the Daytime Emmy Awards and the Annie Awards.

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• 4. Machines And Sound

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  THX was unveiled on the 20th of May 1983. Lucas had been unhappy with how Return of the Jedi was presented in cinemas, so he created the company to address it. THX was a theater sound system.

  In 1987 Lucasfilm was expanding from three to five films a year on its own. It decided to make its Northern California production facilities more available to other filmmakers. Two years later it launched Lucasfilm Entertainment Group, later renamed LucasArts Entertainment Company. The new subsidiary consolidated four units: Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasfilm Commercial Productions, Lucasfilm Games and Sprocket Systems.

  Today Industrial Light & Magic handles visual effects, with offices in Vancouver, London, Mumbai and Sydney, plus an ILM Immersive unit. Lucas Studio also works on visual effects. Skywalker Sound does post-production sound design. Lucas Licensing manages licensing and merchandising, and Lucas Books is a book publishing imprint of Del Rey Books, licensed from Lucasfilm.

  Several other units have gone. THX was spun off in 2002, and Creative Technology owned 60 percent of it before selling to Razer Inc. in 2016. Lucas Learning, a LucasArts spinoff that made educational software, left the market and shut down in 2001. Kerner Optical, a model shop and 3-D development team spun off from Industrial Light & Magic in 2006, went bankrupt in 2011.

  The most famous departure was Pixar Animation Studios, which Lucasfilm sold to Steve Jobs in 1986. Pixar became a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company in 2006, six years before Disney bought its former parent.

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• 5. Passing The Torch

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  George Lucas met Disney CEO Bob Iger in May 2011, during the re-opening of the Star Tours: The Adventures Continue attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Discussions about a distribution deal with Disney officially began then. Lucas told Iger he was considering retirement and planned to sell Lucasfilm, along with Star Wars and Indiana Jones. The two companies already had a history. Lucasfilm had worked with Walt Disney Imagineering on Star Wars and Indiana Jones attractions at Disney parks worldwide.

  In January 2012 Lucas announced his retirement from large-scale blockbuster films. He planned to refocus on smaller, independently budgeted features. In June 2012 Kathleen Kennedy was appointed co-chair of Lucasfilm. She was a long-term collaborator with Steven Spielberg and an executive producer of the Indiana Jones films. Lucas would remain chief executive and co-chair for at least a year. Kennedy succeeded him as chairperson in June 2013.

  On the 5th of September 2012 Micheline Chau announced her retirement after two decades as president and COO. With her departure, senior executives for each division would report directly to Kennedy. Chau was credited with keeping the Lucasfilm and Star Wars brands strong, especially through animation spin-offs and licensing.

  On the 8th of July 2012 the marketing, online and licensing units moved into the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio in San Francisco. They share the complex with Industrial Light & Magic. A planned expansion of Skywalker Ranch was shelved in 2012 because neighbors opposed it. Skywalker Sound remains the only Lucasfilm division based at the ranch.

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• 6. The Disney Deal

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  On the 30th of October 2012 Disney announced a deal to acquire Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion. About half was paid in cash and half in Disney stock. Disney gained ownership of Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Lucasfilm's operating businesses. Those covered live-action film production, consumer products, video games, animation, visual effects and audio post-production. It also took the company's portfolio of entertainment technologies. The intent was for Lucasfilm employees to stay where they were.

  Kathleen Kennedy became president of Lucasfilm and reported to the then-chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, Alan Horn. She also served as brand manager for Star Wars, working with Disney's global lines of business. Lucas was announced as a creative consultant. Disney promised new Star Wars films, beginning with The Force Awakens in 2015. Star Wars merchandising would begin under Disney in the fiscal year 2014. Starting with Star Wars Rebels, certain products would carry the Disney name alongside Lucasfilm's, as Disney had done with Pixar.

  The Federal Trade Commission approved the merger on the 4th of December 2012, so no antitrust problems stood in the way. On the 18th of December 2012 Lucasfilm converted from a corporation to a limited liability company and became Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC. Disney completed the acquisition on the 21st of December 2012, making Lucasfilm a wholly owned subsidiary.

  The distribution rights were more tangled. 20th Century Fox, the original distributor of the first six Star Wars films, kept physical and theatrical rights to the prequels and to Episodes V and VI until May 2020. It also kept full rights to the original 1977 film in perpetuity. Lucasfilm retained television and digital rights to Episodes I through VI, except Episode IV. On the 20th of March 2019 Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, after buying its owner, 21st Century Fox, and gathered all those rights under one roof.

  In December 2013 Disney also bought distribution and marketing rights to future Indiana Jones films from Paramount Pictures. Paramount kept distribution of the first four films and a financial participation in any new ones. As a result, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny became Lucasfilm's first film co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures.

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• 7. The Kennedy Era

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  In early 2013 Bob Iger disclosed that Lucasfilm planned standalone Star Wars films alongside the Sequel Trilogy over six years. The aim was to expand the Star Wars universe beyond the main saga. Rogue One premiered in 2016, and Solo: A Star Wars Story followed in 2018. After Solo performed poorly at the box office, Iger confirmed a slowdown in new Star Wars films. Lucasfilm shifted its focus to Disney+, where The Mandalorian became a success.

  On the 3rd of April 2013 LucasArts, the video game division, was closed and most of its staff laid off. A small team stayed to handle licensing. Disney then signed an exclusive agreement with Electronic Arts to make Star Wars games for the core gaming market for a decade. Disney Interactive Studios focused on casual games. Sales came in lower than expected, and the exclusive deal ended in January 2021. That was more than three years before its the 14th of October 2024 expiry. Lucasfilm was rumored to be courting either Ubisoft or Activision. After the 3rd of April 2023, EA stepped back somewhat. Its subsidiary Respawn still makes Star Wars games, including Jedi Survivor and an unannounced sequel.

  In January 2014 came word that Dark Horse Comics would lose its Star Wars comics license to Marvel Comics, another Disney subsidiary, in 2015. That April Lucasfilm rebranded the Star Wars Expanded Universe as Star Wars Legends. Only selected works, including the six episodic films and The Clone Wars, stayed canon. A new line of canon books began under the Lucasfilm Story Group. Its first two revealed members were Pablo Hidalgo and Leland Chee, headed by Kiri Hart as senior vice president of development.

  In 2014 Lucasfilm opened regional headquarters in Singapore. The facility housed staff from Lucasfilm, The Walt Disney Company Southeast Asia and ESPN Asia Pacific.

  In November 2023 Dave Filoni revealed he had been promoted to chief creative officer. He would be directly involved in planning future Star Wars films and other media. On the 15th of January 2026 Kathleen Kennedy announced she was stepping down as president of Lucasfilm. Filoni was appointed president, alongside co-president Lynwen Brennan.

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• 8. Box Office Ledger

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  The Force Awakens earned $2,071,310,218 worldwide in 2015. Of that, $936,662,225 came from the United States and Canada, making it the highest-grossing film ever there. Four other Lucasfilm releases also rank among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time. They are The Phantom Menace, Rogue One, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.

  The Last Jedi took in $1,334,407,706 worldwide in 2017, the biggest total among them after The Force Awakens. The Rise of Skywalker earned $1,077,022,372 in 2019, and Rogue One earned $1,058,684,742 in 2016. The Phantom Menace, from 1999, reached $1,046,515,409.

  The early films look smaller but did well for their time. American Graffiti grossed $140,557,835 worldwide in 1973. The original Star Wars took in $775,398,507 in 1977. The Empire Strikes Back earned $549,001,086 and Return of the Jedi $482,365,284. Raiders of the Lost Ark made $389,925,971 in 1981. Willow, in 1988, grossed $137,600,000 worldwide.

  By franchise, Star Wars counts 12 films and 28 television seasons from 1977 to the present. Indiana Jones counts five films and three television seasons since 1981. Willow stretches from 1988 to 2023 with one film and one season. American Graffiti accounts for two films between 1973 and 1979. The most recent Indiana Jones film, the Dial of Destiny in 2023, earned $383,963,057 worldwide.

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