When Disney ponied up $4 billion for Star Wars, they clearly knew what they were doing.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens continues its inexorable climb to box-office records, thrilling fans and critics alike, proving the legs of the franchise by earning more than $1.9 billion worldwide thus far.

Now that The First Order has conquered movies, Disney has its sights set on selling the TV rights for the nine-film package that includes Episode VII, the next two installments, and the previous six “vintage” films.

Sources tell Variety that Disney is looking for $30 million for the newest films, with their asking price for Episodes I-VI unclear at this time.

Disney has pitched (or will pitch) the package, which will include other non-Star Wars titles, to Turner, FX Networks, Viacom, NBCUniversal (with USA and Syfy as their focuses), A+E Networks and AMC Networks.

With the nearly limitless VOD options and streaming services, movie packages on TV have declined in demand for quite some time, but the Force might prove to awaken several industries.

Starz already has the pay TV rights for Force Awakens under a prior deal, but the rights will shift to Netflix thereafter during the pay-TV window, starting with all Disney titles this year thanks to a $300 million-per-year deal.

That might actually throw a wrench in Disney’s plans; how much will a network want to pay for Star Wars when it’s been available on Netflix prior to reaching the pay TV window?

And $30 million per film is on the high end of the spectrum, Variety reports, with the Indiana Jones franchise netting Paramount $25 million a piece back in 2008 from USA Network.

As Variety points out, all of this could be a moot point, with Disney checking the market before making a deal with one of their subsidiaries like ABC or Freeform (the network formerly known as ABC Family).

Brief Take: Movies on free TV, with commercials, don’t draw like they used to (get in line), but Star Wars hunger has no bounds, and might revert the trend…for a moment.

Read more: Variety

[Cube image courtesy of Disney via Screenrant]

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