Where exactly are you getting your information about the size of the market? All I've read in this thread are assumptions and weak inferences based on tenuous 'connections' to Lucasfilm and Disney. Also, ESB and ROTJ are irrelevant at this point. This year is all about celebrating the original movie, not the original trilogy. I don't know why you keep bringing that up. Unless you know something the rest of us don't, the sequel rights aren't an obstacle
Speaking of which, Pablo might have been referring to the whole Trilogy as well. There's his 'out', right there. If it IS just "Star Wars '77" being released this year then his tweets WERE "true, from a certain point of view".
I'm not saying this in a way to try to make you feel like "Shut up, new guy!" But you joined this board in December, 2016, so you may not have read through the rather voluminous run of pages that this thread takes up. On this board, the subject of the OOT has come up many a time, and usually there's a discussion about whether it's really happening, why it is or isn't, and what it'd mean for it to actually come to pass.
Disney is a publicly traded company that has to justify its expenditures to its shareholders. It can't just go blowing cash on projects without having a good reason, because the cash its blowing is, in fact, the shareholders' money. So, vanity projects, pet projects, or things that aren't really profitable but people think are really really cool...generally are less likely to be greenlit. Someone, somewhere has to have some kind of proposal that shows why the project will not merely make money or break even, but be the BEST expenditure of Disney's cash that that money could buy.
Enter the OOT.
This is an expensive project, depending on how it happens. Disney has to pay some studio to do the restoration work on the films. The quality of the source material may be questionable. We suspect there are interpositives (which aren't as good as negatives, but are close) of the original versions of the films floating around somewhere or stored in some vault. We know that the actual original negatives are either shot or so chopped up as to be basically incapable of producing the OOT now. Or at least, so Disney and Lucas and everyone involved has said. That might not be the whole truth, but especially with George no longer in control, nobody has any reason to lie, really.
So, it'd cost money to make this project happen. What could they reasonably expect to receive? That's a big question, and a legitimate one. Star Wars has been released at least once on every home media format. DVDs in 2004 (and a repackaging in 2006 with the LD rips), and blu-rays in 2012. They've been available in those forms since then. At this point, it's fair to assume that anyone who wanted to buy them...bought them. So, any future release either needs to be a new format, or needs to offer something new and improved. Whether that's a new transfer, new resolution, or something else, people aren't likely to shell out cash for these films again if they already own them.
In this little hobby, in this little corner of the internet, it's easy to assume that OF COURSE everyone would LOVE an archival version of the OOT. I mean, duh, right? Who'd prefer the SEs? But the thing is, many, many, many average consumers out there (not superfans like us), really just...don't care. They probably wouldn't notice that the krayt dragon scream is different in the DVDs than what it was on the VHS version they had as kids. They don't even know what a krayt dragon is, let alone that the dewback cry in the original probably wouldn't frighten Sand People to begin with. To them, Obi-Wan just screams, waves his arms, and the Sand People run away.
They don't care that the sabres turned into glowbats as opposed to the more "wild" sense of barely contained plasma fire in the OOT. They don't care that "Close the blast doors!" appears in a sound edit that isn't the old mono feed. They get that "Han Shot First," but...eh...it doesn't really bug 'em. To them, "close enough" is close enough. And the SEs are close enough to the experience they want.
Most people are like this, I think it's safe to say. As a result, most people have already bought the blu-rays, and are therefore unlikely to buy a new version of the OOT. Unless the OOT version was the only thing available, and then at something like 4K or upwards, they probably wouldn't buy, and even at 4K, they might just balk anyway because how many times do they have to keep buying the same movie?
All of this suggests that the market for the OOTs isn't all that big. It's vocal, sure. Deeply passionate. And maybe willing to pony up more cash than the average viewer would (e.g., I would definitely pay $200 for the OOT alone, if it was done properly and officially). But there just aren't enough of them to justify the outlay of cash necessary to make the project happen.
And none of this addresses the issue that Fox currently owns the distribution rights to all three OT films. Those rights won't revert to Disney until, I think, 2020 at the earliest. Maybe later. I forget. And they will NEVER revert for ANH; Fox holds the distro rights to that film for all eternity. That means if Disney is going to release the OOT, it has to cut a deal with Fox if it wants to do so before 2020 or so. It would then have to justify paying Fox money today that it could save by just waiting until the rights reverse, and again, for what? So fanboys like us can have our OOT? Unlikely.
