The Disney-owned Lucasfilm has relinquished its ownership over its big, non-franchise idea, signalling the end of its intention to produce new intellectual property.
Lucasfilm’s track record under Disney has been somewhat mixed – a continuation, one might argue, of the company’s progress under George Lucas throughout the last few years before he sold it in 2012. Whilst the TV arm is doing incredibly successfully with popular Star Wars TV shows, the movie side of things has stalled, with no Star Wars movies on the release slate, and reception to the last couple that did arrive being somewhat mixed. On top of that, its plan to restore the Indiana Jones franchise has also faced an uphill battle, with the movie being delayed by another full year.
In addition to the struggle faced by Lucasfilm to restore its celebrated franchises, it seems the company has also now abandoned its plans to diversify into new storytelling realms.
Children Of Blood And Bone was set to be Lucasfilm’s big foray into the world beyond existing franchises, with an adaptation of the young adult fantasy novel by Tomi Adeyemi. However, when progress on the development stalled, Adeyemi reportedly wanted the chance to script the project herself. When Lucasfilm opted not to go in that direction, the project became deadlocked until earlier this month, when the rights reverted to the author. Paramount now has the project and Adeyemi is scripting it for the studio.
For the forseeable future then, it looks like Lucasfilm will be focusing its big screen efforts on legacy franchises, which is a shame, as it would be fascinating to see what the studio could do, freed from the creative shackles of decades-long story continuity. But, hey, here we are.
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