In 2012, George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05 billion. According to Disney CEO Bob Iger, the deal had been in the works for over a year; he first approached Lucas in May 2011, when he arranged a breakfast with the legendary filmmaker during the reopening of the Star Tours attractions in Disney World and Disneyland. There, he asked:

“I don’t want to be fatalistic, George, and please stop me if you would rather not have this conversation, but I think it’s worth putting this on the table. What happens down the road? You don’t have any heirs who are going to run the company for you. They may control it, but they’re not going to run it. Shouldn’t you determine who protects or carries on your legacy?”

Iger gives a full account of the Disney Star Wars deal in his autobiography, The Ride of a Lifetime. But what was Lucas’ own perspective? He’s since provided a little clarity in a number of different interviews.

Lucas Felt It Was Time To Retire From Filmmaking

He’d Been Considering Retirement For A Long Time

We tend to forget that Lucas had been considering retirement since 1977. A medical emergency during the making of the first movie left him wondering whether he should retire way back then, but he reconsidered after the success of Star Wars. By 2012, aged 67, Lucas knew the time had come.

Lucas explained selling Star Wars to author Paul Duncan in an interview for The Star Wars Archives: Episodes I-III, where he explained he was facing a lot of changes in his life. Although Lucas had previously adopted, he was about to have his first biological child with his wife, Mellody Hobson, and he wanted to focus on his daughter Everest.

I’d still be working on Episode IXI in 2012… So the question was am I going to keep doing this the rest of my life? Do I want to go through this again? Finally, I decided I’d rather raise my daughter and enjoy life for a while. I could have not sold LucasFilm and gotten somebody to run the productions, but that isn’t retiring. On The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi I tried to stay out of the way, but I couldn’t. I was there every day. Even though the people were friends of mine and they did great work, it wasn’t the same as me doing it; it was like being once removed, I knew that probably wouldn’t work again, that I’d be frustrated.

I’m one of those micromanager guys, and I can’t help it. So I figured I would forgo that, enjoy what I had, and I was looking forward to raising my daughter. Also, I wanted to build a museum, which I’d always wanted to do, so I was thinking, ‘If I don’t do this now, I’ll never get that done.’ I’ve spent my life creating Star Wars – 40 years- and giving it up was very, very, painful. But it was the right thing to do. I thought I was going to have a little bit more to say about the next three because I’d already started them, but they decided they wanted to do something else. Things don’t always work out the way you want. Life is like that.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, situated in Los Angeles, will open next year. It seems Lucas is still living the dream.

Lucas’ Last Experience Of Filmmaking Wasn’t A Pleasant One

He Seemed Disappointed By Hollywood

Lucas’ last experience of filmmaking wasn’t a pleasant one, as he admitted to the New York Times. He’d done the rounds pitching a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen, Red Tails, and he’d been surprised to find Hollywood execs just weren’t interested. One studio’s execs didn’t even bother to show up for the screening.

“Isn’t this their job? Isn’t their job at least to see movies? It’s not like some Sundance kid coming in there and saying, ‘I’ve got this little movie — would you see it?’ If Steven (Spielberg) or I or Jim Cameron or Bob Zemeckis comes in there, and they say, ‘We don’t even want to bother to see it…’ ”

It doesn’t seem a coincidence that, in the same interview, Lucasfilm declared Red Tails – which he ultimately financed himself – to be the end of his career. “I’m retiring,” Lucas said. “I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff.“

Lucas Sensed Major Changes Coming For The Film Industry

Lucas Was Always A Visionary

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Finally, speaking at Cannes just last year, Lucas offered a fresh explanation for why he decided the time was right to retire. Lucas had always been a visionary, and he sensed major changes coming for the entire industry.

Streaming is really powerful, and it’s great, it’s really upped the movie business because the theatrical movie business… we could see the problems, and it was not good. So everybody was looking to save it, but nobody knew streaming would. And that’s when Netflix took off, and at that point, I said, ‘I don’t know what this is gonna be, there’s gonna be a giant transition in the business, I don’t know that much about it,’ and I sold the company, and I retired.

This, it seems, was a major reason why Lucas sold Star Wars. He knew changes were coming, and he didn’t feel as though he wanted to be the one to reinvent the wheel. And so George Lucas stepped back at last, pᴀssing on the torch.