Lucasfilm

Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company based in the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco, California. The studio is best known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as its leadership in developing special effects, sound and computer animation for film. Lucasfilm was founded by filmmaker George Lucas in 1971 in San Rafael, California; most of the company's operations were moved to San Francisco in 2005.The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 at a valuation of $4.06 billion.

History

Independent era

Lucasfilm was founded by filmmaker George Lucas in 1971.

On July 8, 2005, Lucasfilm's marketing, online, and licensing units moved into the new Letterman Digital Arts Center located in the Presidio in San Francisco. It shares the complex with Industrial Light & Magic. Lucasfilm had planned an expansion at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California, but shelved the plan in 2012 due to opposition from neighbors. However, it still plans to expand elsewhere.Skywalker Sound remains the only Lucasfilm division based at Skywalker Ranch.

George Lucas

George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and entrepreneur. He is best known as the creator of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as the founder of Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic. He led Lucasfilm as chairman and chief executive before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012.

Upon graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with fellow filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. He wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure. Lucas's next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his teen years in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful, and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.

Lucas's next film, an epic space opera then titled Star Wars (1977), went through a troubled production process, but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time as well as a winner of six Academy Awards and a cultural phenomenon. Following the first Star Wars film, Lucas only produced and co-wrote the following installments in the trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). Along with Steven Spielberg, he co-created and wrote the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984), and The Last Crusade (1989). Lucas also produced a variety of films through Lucasfilm in the 1980s and 1990s.