Because Harrison wanted it. There's really no other reason. He gave them 2 SW sequel movie appearances and now Harrison gets Indy 5.
Indiana Jones (Disney+ series)
- Thread starter ghostryder
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Because Harrison wanted it. There's really no other reason. He gave them 2 SW sequel movie appearances and now Harrison gets Indy 5.
The Indy franchise is one of LFL's biggest assets. Harrison may have wanted a 5th movie but that alone didn't make it happen.
It's pure commercial sense for Disney to do something new with the franchise. And using Harrison one more time was arguably the lowest-risk approach. Giving Harrison a send-off movie like Hugh Jackman's 'Logan' where they pass the hat to somebody else . . . all this is just commercial common sense.
But they screwed it up, of course. They put the same Kathleen Kennedy in charge of the project and expected a different result.
It's pure commercial sense for Disney to do something new with the franchise. And using Harrison one more time was arguably the lowest-risk approach. Giving Harrison a send-off movie like Hugh Jackman's 'Logan' where they pass the hat to somebody else . . . all this is just commercial common sense.
But they screwed it up, of course. They put the same Kathleen Kennedy in charge of the project and expected a different result.
I saw a video today where they said Disney isn't allowing Lucasfilm to do anything other than focus on SW. They can't even get that right so far. I'm just wondering how long they will be wasting money until they figure out we want good stories, not their ideology in a costume. Until they figure out that that is a big reason their projects are failing (Willow I'm talking to you), they will keep failing.
The problem isn't Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Willow. The problem is that in the decade since Lucasfilm has been acquired, there hasn't been a single new IP developed. Not a single one. They've been banking on the existing IP's with no thought or strategy to develop or create a totally new franchise that doesn't rely on the successes of George's creations. That's why they keep failing. There are no real artists writing these stories because none of them have the talent or inspiration to come up with something that isn't Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Willow.
Come to think of it…is there anything that Disney has released in the last 10 years that isn’t a sequel, remake, prequel, “reimagining” of their current IP portfolio?
Lucasfilm had plans to develop a Young Adult fantasy trilogy into a film series: Children of Blood and Bone, but that was the ONLY thing they had planned that wasn't a pre-existing Lucas creation. That project has since been acquired by Paramount according to the latest headlines, so again, that leaves zero original content in Lucasfilm's coffers. Though the frequency at which projects get announced and cancelled it's hard to keep track of these things anyway.
Well…when you get past Star Wars, Willow, and Indiana Jones there really isn’t that much left as far as storytelling IP for Lucasfilm …I mean, unless you want to do Howard the Duck 2: Quaktastic! or Even More American Graffiti: Bob Falfa Returns…
Compare that to the purchase of Marvel…not even close. But, even that well seems to be getting dry.
NakedMoleRat
Master Member
I’m actually writing a script for a continuation of The Greatest American Hero, that I hope I’ll someday be able to pitch to D+.
I might post some of it here sometime.
Lucas himself was a genius enough businessman to milk the original three films alone for 20 years before he made the prequels. How many copies of each new SW: trilogy release did we all buy before the SE came out? He wasn't oversaturating the market with content and let anticipation drive the demand for more, rather than offering content ad nauseum, something studios still haven't learned, despite Lucas's brilliant marketing strategy. Granted I know the market was different then and that modern audiences have a deluge of content to choose from, but the method works, even if they spread out the material by a year or two, releasing new books or supplemental material in the interim.
Though my overall point is that no one in Lucasfilm is developing anything outside of SW, Indy, and Willow. Sure Lucasfilm has the rights to them, but instead of acquiring the rights to some new property (like they had planned with that Children of Blood and Bone) or the seeming impossibility that one of their employees is actually writing their own original story, they have nothing. Nothing.
When I say original content, I'm not talking a story based on a Lucas creation, I'm talking about an author writing a screenplay of their own design. Apparently that's a mortal sin in the studio system these days and unless it's a sequel, prequel, spin off, or reboot, it simply gets ignored. Lucasfilm isn't alone in being guilty of this, but they stand out from the crowd because they don't have enough properties or the type of writers with enough imagination to cook up something new, where their peers have enough under their ownership to draw from to give the impression that they're offering "new" content.
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George Lucas managed the OT better than modern studios would do it. But to be honest I think that was too unique of a situation. Lucas & the OT was a once-in-a-generation kind of creative burst. And the commercial/media environment of 1970s-90s was the ideal time period for it to thrive in. There are some lessons for the other studios to learn from it, yeah, but it's not exactly an instruction manual for them to copy.
The main thing is that George erred on the side of under-using the asset in general. He didn't spend the money it would take to keep making another big SW movie every 2 years. And he didn't collect the ticket sales that such a heavy SW schedule might have produced either. He didn't lose money on a Star Wars land at Disneyworld because he didn't make one at all. George just ran the whole SW franchise in a lower gear than Disney has been doing. Quality over quantity.
LFL today . . . . the bottleneck choking off the flow of new original shows is the studio's purse strings.
There is no shortage of creative writers who are willing & able to come up with new stuff. There never has been.
The main thing is that George erred on the side of under-using the asset in general. He didn't spend the money it would take to keep making another big SW movie every 2 years. And he didn't collect the ticket sales that such a heavy SW schedule might have produced either. He didn't lose money on a Star Wars land at Disneyworld because he didn't make one at all. George just ran the whole SW franchise in a lower gear than Disney has been doing. Quality over quantity.
LFL today . . . . the bottleneck choking off the flow of new original shows is the studio's purse strings.
There is no shortage of creative writers who are willing & able to come up with new stuff. There never has been.
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It may not be a step by step tutorial on how to run a franchise, but they haven't taken any of Lucas's business savvy at all because they honestly believe that they're too big to fail. I'm not saying Lucas didn't make bad decisions either, but even when he was wrong creatively, he had more originality in him because the guy is an artist at heart. Lucasfilm since, is not run by artists. That's a huge part of why they haven't developed anything outside their tentpoles.
bwayne64
Master Member
Yep even Lucas started to go downhill with Rotj. I mean Ewoks are cute, but taking on and defeating Imperial troops. Boba Fett taken out by accident. Leia in a brass bra. Don't get me wrong I loved the outfit. But Lucas went to pains to show her as a strong, competent woman, and then puts her in a bikini. Again, loved the outfit, ; ) And don't even get me started on the prequels. But even after all this, I would take almost anything from him, over the crap Disney has produced. I think there should be a history split like BC and AD for Star Wars. BD and AD, before Disney, and after Disney, ; )
I can't see much of a future for SW anymore. Kennedy spent the last decade dropping turds in the pool. The only solution is to drain the whole thing out to clean it. But it's probably gonna be the 2030s before Disney will even consider such a drastic step. FFS it's 2023 and they haven't even fired Kennedy yet.
Wanna get REALLY frustrated? Chew on this: I could imagine a scenario where Disney starts remaking (read: altering & replacing) George's SW movies before they remake Kennedy's.
Picture the pitch meeting:
"We should stick to what the public wants. Everybody likes Han & Luke & Leia & Darth Vader. They don't wanna see more of Finn & Rey & Kylo. Lucas's movies are 40 years old and ripe for being remade with better action & spectacle. So let's make the classic SW movies, bigger, badder, & uncut. We'll add modern diversity and get rid of a few things that haven't aged well. Younger kids will respond to them because the storyline has such good bone structure. Older diehard SW fans will complain about the remakes but they will hate-watch them out of morbid curiosity anyway. And none of those movies would be hard to shoot. By modern standards they are only medium expensive. ANH is gonna be the cheapest one to remake so we'll start with that and prove the concept. If it sells tickets then we'll shoot ESB and ROTJ back-to-back. This is a slam-dunk low-risk project."
Wanna get REALLY frustrated? Chew on this: I could imagine a scenario where Disney starts remaking (read: altering & replacing) George's SW movies before they remake Kennedy's.
Picture the pitch meeting:
"We should stick to what the public wants. Everybody likes Han & Luke & Leia & Darth Vader. They don't wanna see more of Finn & Rey & Kylo. Lucas's movies are 40 years old and ripe for being remade with better action & spectacle. So let's make the classic SW movies, bigger, badder, & uncut. We'll add modern diversity and get rid of a few things that haven't aged well. Younger kids will respond to them because the storyline has such good bone structure. Older diehard SW fans will complain about the remakes but they will hate-watch them out of morbid curiosity anyway. And none of those movies would be hard to shoot. By modern standards they are only medium expensive. ANH is gonna be the cheapest one to remake so we'll start with that and prove the concept. If it sells tickets then we'll shoot ESB and ROTJ back-to-back. This is a slam-dunk low-risk project."
LFL hadn't, either, for 24 years prior to that, though, right?
Sure they have had stuff that were not sequels, remakes, prequels or reimagining. In those ten years, they launched new “franchise making” movies, like Frozen, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant Man, and Black Panther, as well as other originals, like Big Hero 6, Tomorrowland, Zootopia, and Moana, to name a few.
Though as I said, under Lucas his release schedule for films was spread out enough that the demand was created by the anticipation for new content. His career would have ended in the 1980s if he hadn't taken his sweet time. I know he claims to have all these ideas but it's clear he didn't have many outside his tentpoles either, but he also created those, and Lucasfilm presently doesn't appear to have that capability.
Well, you don’t pay $4.05 billion to just say, let’s ignore their property now and write new IP. They paid that astronomical amount and will milk the properties that came from the purchase. They acquired that property specifically for those franchises.
Lucas also created those tentpoles, limited as they were, but he survived because he spread them out enough. That's a different thing than acquiring an IP and continuing it at breakneck speed. I'm not suggesting they ignore their properties but given how unimaginative they've been with them they'll need new ones if they want to stay relevant and keep up this pace with releases. Again continuing vs. creating. Thus far we have little evidence Lucasfilm is currently capable of creating their own original property, where George built entire companies to support his creations.
As I said before, the one example of them looking to expand is now in development with Paramount.
As I said before, the one example of them looking to expand is now in development with Paramount.
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If I’m not mistaken…most of that list is from their existing IP portfolio.
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