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迪斯尼公司宣布，将以40.5亿美元的总价收购《星球大战》系列电影的制作公司卢卡斯电影，并将于2015年推出该系列电影的第7集，之后还会有第8集，第9集。在2006年和2009年，迪斯尼曾分别以74亿美元和42亿美元的价格收购了皮克斯动画公司和惊奇漫画公司。此次收购卢卡斯电影，迪斯尼将以现金和股票各一半的形式完成交易，乔治•卢卡斯将继续担任该电影公司的创意顾问，现任联席主席凯瑟琳•肯尼迪将担任公司总裁及《星球大战》续集的制片主任。
乔治•卢卡斯于1971年创建卢卡斯电影，并在1977年发行首部《星球大战》电影。卢卡斯表示，在过去的35年中，他最大的乐趣就是看着《星球大战》一代一代出现。他认为《星球大战》会比他活得长久，并且认为在他有生之年完成这个项目的交接是很重要的事情。
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Disney is buying Lucasfilm, the company behind the Star Wars films, from its chairman and founder George Lucas for $4.05bn . |
Disney is buying Lucasfilm, the company behind the Star Wars films, from its chairman and founder George Lucas for $4.05bn .
Mr Lucas said: "It's now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of film-makers."
In a statement announcing the purchase, Disney said it planned to release a new Star Wars film, episode seven, in 2015.
That will be followed by episodes eight and nine and then one new movie every two or three years, the company said.
The last Star Wars film was 2005's Revenge of the Sith, and Disney said it believed there was "substantial pent-up demand".
Disney will pay about half in cash and half in stock, issuing 40 million Disney shares in the transaction.
The deal follows Disney's acquisitions of Pixar studios for $7.4bn in 2006 and Marvel comics for $4.2bn in 2009.
"Our valuation of Lucasfilm is roughly comparable to the value we placed on Marvel when we announced that acquisition in 2009," Disney said, adding that the valuation was almost entirely driven by the Star Wars franchise.
George Lucas launched Lucasfilm in 1971 and the first Star Wars film was released in 1977.
"For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next," Mr Lucas said.
"I've always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime."
Mr Lucas will continue as a creative consultant.
Kathleen Kennedy, currently co-chairman of Lucasfilm, will become president of the firm and will be the executive producer on the new Star Wars films.
When the later Star Wars films were released in the 1990s and 2000s, although they did well at the box office, they were generally not well-received by fans.
But Josh Dickey, film editor at Variety magazine in LA, said that Disney was a "great fit" to update Star Wars.
"They're so good at branding and brands. They're so good at working with existing intellectual property and making it resonate with fans and marketing it very well," he told BBC World Service radio.
"They're not as good at creating original content, except for their Pixar division.
"I think if you bring together the minds from Pixar [and] the minds from Disney, the news that Disney is going to reboot Star Wars was a lot more exciting to fans than just 'there's gonna be another Star Wars'."
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(Agencies)
（中国日报网英语点津 Helen ）
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