Newsarama have published a statement from Dark Horse President Mike Richardson regarding Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm. This move obviously raises questions about Dark Horse, who currently own the rights to the Star Wars franchise. It’s nothing definitive, by any terms, but it does suggest that something may have to change as a result of Disney’s move.

Dark Horse and LucasFilm have a strong partnership which spans over 20 years, and has produced multiple characters and story lines which are now part of the Star Wars lore. Star Wars will be with us for the near future. Obviously, this deal changes the landscape, so we’ll all have to see what it means for the future.

Remember the situation for Boom! once Disney bought out Marvel. We’ll be keeping an eye on this as it develops.

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32 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah, Marvel’s acquisition was the death kneel for my comic book efforts with Disney as well. Dark Horse is a good home for the Star Wars comics. See how it shakes out but the tone doesn’t make it seem promising.

  5. @John Green – A Dark Horse acquisition would probably make sense. Maybe they’re watching to see if there’s any legs left in the 300 / Sin City franchises with the upcoming 2013 sequels.

  6. Will Disney pull all of the publishing licenses? Random House has a large backlist of titles dating back to 1976.

    Given Marvel’s …lack of success with Muppets and CrossGen (and most licensed properties since Star Comics), Disney might decide to allow Dark Horse to continue publishing the Star Wars comics.

    What is the general opinion of the original run of Marvel’s Star Wars comics? Might we hope for a return of Jaxxon? A collection of the Ewoks comics?

  7. Hmmm… but what IP do they own?
    What movie production contracts?
    What does Dark Horse have that Disney couldn’t acquire via Hyperion?
    If Disney acquires DH, then the Fox licenses will probably evaporate and move to HarperCollins.

  8. Jan Tosh and Prince Xizor are really upset about this. After suffering through the prequels, I thought Lucasfilm had already been acquired by Disney. Who knew?

  10. Dark Horse already has an Omnibus of the Ewoks comics.

    Marvel of course would have done 4 individual HCs followed by TP editions. After 2 years, only Vol 2 and 4 of the HC would be available, and Vol. 3 and 4 of the TP. Then they would release an “Ultimate” oversized complete HC edition, followed by the “Ultimate” TP edition, both of which would be in stock at Diamond and Amazon for years until Marvel gave them away for free when you purchased an unrelated HC discounted 75% off.

  11. 300 and Sin City are creator owned. So if Disney bought Dark Horse, they would still need to negotiate with Frank Miller to create 300 or Sin City films.

  12. When a company is sold it is generally true that all existing contracts are renegotiated. When the owners of the Robert E. Howard rights sold them a few years ago, Wandering Star had to stop publishing because they were no longer allowed to control the paperback rights to their books, which eliminated their profits. I know of another person who was in the middle of a contracted Howard project and he was forced to renegotiate his contract, with terms less advantageous to him. From what I understand, Star Wars has often been the difference between Dark Horse staying solvent or not when the market was otherwise not doing so well.

  13. Does anyone know how much time is left on Dark Horse’s current agreement with Lucas? Two years? Three? Hopefully more? I’m hoping to get a couple of years out of the new Star Wars book that debuts in January before Marvel gets their hand on it and screws it ten ways to Sunday.

  18. They lost their licenses for Muppets and Pixar comics. They also had a license for additional Disney material, and that was also lost (so only one volume of the Four Color Archives and one volume of the Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories Archives were published).

  19. “From what I understand, Star Wars has often been the difference between Dark Horse staying solvent or not when the market was otherwise not doing so well.”

    And THAT, despite the fact that the only Star Wars comics I’ve ever bought were Clone wars Adventures TPBs for my son, is what has me concerned.

  20. YES, to Jaxxon! For those who don’t know : JAXXON the Lepi smuggler (a humanoid talking green rabbit) and Amaiza Foxtrain his fellow smuggler (although I don’t know how she could smuggle anything in THAT outfit) will now be part of Star Wars “cannon”! If Rocket Raccoon can be put in movies why not Jaxxon?

    http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jaxxon

  21. Unless Dark Horse somehow owns the majority of Hellboy/300/Sin City/etc (which I thought were all creator owned), I’m not following why so many of you believe Disney would want to purchase the company.

  22. I see the SW comics moving over to Marvel as soon as Disney can find it economically viable, and figures out where all the SW IP’s are. At least this shouldn’t affect Fantsy Flights license for gaming since Disney doesn’t own any gaming companies. Although they just might decide to open a division to look into that for it’s IP’s….

  23. It’s very likely that Star Wars comics will eventually published by Marvel.

    I would love to see guys like DnA and McNiven handle a Star Wars series.

  25. This is a no brainer they will farm this crap out to Marvel now.

    Longtime Expanded Universe will get burned any when the new film comes out based on retcons and new fiction tying into the next trilogy like the New 52 made the New Earth/Classic DC fans run away in 2011.

    The dollar is for a new audience and an untapped market.

    And tell you what, Disney will crossovers with Marvel characters since they can do anything they want with the damn property. Marvel gets Bendis to stay and not quit like he always claims to by writing Star Wars and it crosses over with X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy or some such nonsense. Star Wars Vs. X-Men the Summer 2015 event. They already have their hand in the pot before the ink is dry on this contract since X-Men writer Brian Wood is writing the just announced and so bravely titled ongoing monthly title, Star Wars for Dark Horse

  27. >> When a company is sold it is generally true that all existing contracts are renegotiated.>>

    No, that’s not generally true.

    When a company’s sold, all existing contracts are generally binding on the new owner, unless there is specific contract language saying otherwise.

  29. slam dunk for Disney. compare Disney stock to the S&P 500 since the Marvel purchase. it has a slight >1 Beta (more less in line with the market but slightly more volatile ie slightly bigger gains/losses). then Avengers comes out and Disney really starts to pull away. this is an attempt to repeat that success, and help broaden Disney’s appeal to the young male demographic.

    there’s obviously a lot more to the deal than just hoping to repeat the success of one movie (a lot of people forget that Disney’s most profitable asset by a lot is ESPN), but considering no one is better at creating synergies (yes i know that is an odious term) with children’s entertainment than Disney, i’d say this is an easy win for the mouse. The big test will be what they do with the new Star Wars movies, but they should start realizing gains with the merchandising right away.

    so 4 billios of value all started with one guy writing a space opera movie script in the mid 70s. pretty gnarly when you think about it.

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