The French outlet Brut recently shared a clip from an interview with Lucas that was conducted at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Check out their post on X below:

In the interview clip, he discusses his retirement, saying that "we could see the problems" with theatrical distribution amid the rise of streaming platforms, particularly Netflix, and he decided to leave the business because he recognized that it was on the verge of a "giant transition." Read a full transcript of his quote below:

Streaming is really powerful, and it's great, it's really upped the movie business because the theatrical movie business... we could see the problems, and it was not good. So everybody was looking to save it, but nobody knew streaming would. And that's when Netflix took off, and at that point, I said, 'I don't know what this is gonna be, there's gonna be a giant transition in the business, I don't know that much about it,' and I sold the company, and I retired.

Lucas Sensed The Film Industry Was Changing

Star Wars Had To Adapt To The Streaming Era

Even though the state of streaming looked entirely different in 2012, it turns out Lucas was exactly right about the industry being in a huge state of transition. Although Disney Star Wars projects still had theatrical hits, including 2015's The Force Awakens, which earned more than $2 billion worldwide and is still the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time worldwide, the franchise hasn't had a theatrical release since 2019, with the majority of new projects debuting directly to streaming on Disney+. Below, see a breakdown of the streamer's live-action Star Wars titles since 2019:

There are also more Star Wars TV shows set to come to streaming with the The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew. This doesn't necessarily mean that the franchise has abandoned theatrical distribution, as there are several movies currently in development, including The Mandalorian and Grogu, a follow-up to the popular streaming show. However, the fact that the franchise has shifted so demonstrably toward streaming for this many years shows that the streaming era has had a huge impact on Lucas' iconic universe.

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Lucas exhibiting this kind of prescience is in keeping with his past decisions, as this keen sense is something that allowed him to create the Star Wars phenomenon in the first place. This included everything from latching onto the rise of the nascent summer blockbuster and retaining merchandising rights for the property, the latter of which proved to be one of the most lucrative decisions he ever made. Some of his experiments were more divisive, including adopting many bleeding-edge digital filmmaking techniques in the prequel trilogy, but Lucas has constantly looked forward at what is next for the industry.

Source: Brut/Twitter

Star Wars

Created by

George Lucas

First Film

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

Cast

Pedro Pascal

TV Show(s)

Star Wars: Visions

Video Game(s)

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Star Wars is a multimedia franchise that started in 1977 by creator George Lucas. After the release of Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope (originally just titled Star Wars), the franchise quickly exploded, spawning multiple sequels, prequels, TV shows, video games, comics, and much more. After Disney acquired the rights to the franchise, they quickly expanded the universe on Disney+, starting with The Mandalorian.

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