When did Disney buy ‘Star Wars’?

In recent years, we’ve been treated to a lot of Star Wars content — some of it good, some of it not so much. But one thing’s for certain, Disney have been rinsing the franchise as much as they can. We can’t complain though, with series like Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Mandalorian all being fantastic in their own right, it almost makes us forgive Disney for the sequel trilogy. With even more Star Wars content on the way, it doesn’t look like we’ll be saying goodbye to the franchise any time soon. But just how long has the Franchise been under the control of Disney?

Disney’s first major Star Wars release was The Force Awakens. The film was released at the end of 2015 and marked the start of a new era for the franchise. Although Disney had acquired the rights to the franchise as well as the entirety of George Lucas’s production company, Lucasfilm, a few years before in 2012. After the acquisition, the studio got straight to work on a new story with both new and old characters.

Talks between Lucas and Disney started way back in May 2011, George stated his plans to retire and sell his production company along with the rights to its titles. These included Star Wars and Indiana Jones, which is also getting a sequel this year. An agreement was made and Lucas signed the company over to Disney on October 30th 2012 for an incredible $4.05 billion. That sounds like a lot, but the company had made its money back by 2018 after releasing just four films. To put the Lucasfilm acquisition into perspective, Disney purchased Marvel for about the same and it purchased Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 billion! 

The co-chairman of Lucasfilm at the time, Kathleen Kennedy, was promoted to president of Lucasfilm and planning began with Disney CEO Bob Iger, to build the franchise back up to what we know today. Many changes were made to the company, the sequel trilogy was planned as well as the standalone titles such as Rogue One and Solo. Since then, we’ve seen five new Star Wars films and eight series (with four more set to be released this year). 

Disney have been consistently pushing out Star Wars content since 2015, and for the most part, it’s been very fruitful for them. Not only that, but the company has also managed to keep a majority of the fans happy, although many weren’t too pleased with the film entries. However, the series on Disney + have been massively successful and it looks as though that’s what Disney and Lucasfilm will be focusing on for the foreseeable future. There’s not too long to wait either as season 3 of The Mandalorian will be arriving on Disney + March 1.