Why Darth Vader And Mickey Mouse May Soon Become Best Of Pals!

Most of us associate Disney with Mickey and his friends and princesses like Snow White and Cinderella - None of whom of course are for cool tweens and teens! However, over the years the Burbank, California based entertainment behemoth has become much more than that.

In 2006 it acquired Pixar Inc., the magic behind favorites like Ratatouille and WALL-E and then in 2009, Marvel Entertainment who as you all know is responsible for all our favorite superhero films like Ironman, Spiderman and Avengers! Now, the company has added one more amazing movie studio to its growing list.

On Tuesday, October 30th, Disney announced that it had agreed to buy Lucas Films, the maker of epics like Jaws, Indiana Jones and of course Star Wars for an astounding 4.05 billion USD in cash and stock.

So why did Disney think that Lucas Films was worth so much? Because it gives the entertainment giant full rights to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchise, as well as, lucrative businesses like Lucas Arts (publisher of games like Star Wars III : The Clone Wars), Industrial Light & Magic (responsible for special effects on movies like Transformers) and Skywalker Sound (responsible for sound effect in movies like Titanic). But most important of all, it gives Disney the right to restart one of the most popular movie franchises - Stars Wars! The high grossing movies have earned Lucas Films $4.4 billion dollars just in ticket sales!

And Disney is not wasting much time in getting things started either. The merger news was accompanied by another big announcement - The making of Star Wars 7, which if all goes well will be in theaters by 2015. No word on who will play the role of Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia, though.

And in case you are wondering, while R2D2 may meet Mickey and the gang at the theme parks, they will not be starring alongside him in any of the Star Wars movies. Disney has a reputation of keeping each of their companies independent and allowing them to succeed in what they do best.

While getting to see a brand new Star Wars movie is exciting, what is even more so is what George Lucas, the founder of Lucas Films plans to do with his massive windfall. Turns out that the generous man who is already worth over $3 billion, has decided to donate most of the new funds to help education, which means that not only will we see some awesome new movies, but we will also benefit at school! A win-win no matter how you view it!

Resources: Forbes.com, eonline.com