George Lucas reveals why he sold Star Wars to Disney

In 2012, George Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney for billions of dollars. In a new book, he reveals why…beyond those billions of dollars, we mean.

In October of 2012, Star Wars creator George Lucas stunned the entertainment world when it was announced he had sold Lucasfilm, and the rights to Star Wars, to Walt Disney for a cool $4.05 billion.

At the time, Lucas gave a vague answer about wanting to retire, but in the upcoming book The Star Wars Archives: Episodes I-III 1999-2005, Lucas revealed to author Paul Duncan the exact reason behind his big decision.

The actual book isn’t released yet, but this extract is plenty interesting on its own:

"At that time, I was starting the next trilogy; I talked to the actors and I was starting to gear up. I was also about to have a daughter with my wife. It takes 10 years to make a trilogy — Episodes I to III took from 1995 to 2005. In 2012 I was 69. So the question was am I going to keep doing this for the rest of my life? Do I want to go through this again? Finally, I decided I’d rather raise my daughter and enjoy life for a while. I could have not sold Lucasfilm and gotten somebody to run the productions, but that isn’t retiring."

This sounds like a compelling enough reason for Lucas to sell the franchise he created back in 1977. And of course, the $4 billion price tag was probably a nice motivator, not that he was hurting for funds before.

I also like Lucas’ point about why he didn’t simply hand off control to another employee. Selling the company was the only way Lucas could ensure that he wouldn’t be tempted to simply step back in at a later date. “On The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi I tried to stay out of the way, but I couldn’t,” he continued. “I was there every day. Even though the people were friends of mine and they did great work, it wasn’t the same as me doing it. It was like being once removed…I’m one of those micromanager guys, and I can’t help it. So I figured I would forgo that, enjoy what I had and I was looking forward to raising my daughter.”

That said, Lucas may have had a bit of seller’s remorse after the movies started to come out, saying he felt “betrayed” by some of the choices Disney has made. “I thought I was going to have a little bit more to say about the next three because I’d already started them, but they decided they wanted to do something else,” he said. “Things don’t always work out the way you want. Life is like that.”

Yep, that comes with the territory when you sell off your business; the new owners are bound to

run it into the ground

make some changes you don’t like.

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h/t Deseret News