Popverse's top stories

• Vision actor Paul Bettany says he's pretty sure he'll be in Avengers: Doomsday or Secret Wars, but Marvel could change their plans at any moment
• Ask Rosario Dawson, the Daredevil: Born Again cast, the Amazing Digital Circus cast, the Hart of Dixie cast and more questions at Florida Supercon 2026!
• Doctor Who 2026 Christmas episode is cancelled as the BBC announces the future of series is open to bidding

Mickey Mouse has quite an interesting landlord.

In 2012 Disney purchased Lucasfilm from George Lucas for $4.05 billion. However, you might be surprised to learn that Lucas is still getting money from Disney, thanks to some of his property holdings. You see, Disney may have bought George’s company, but they didn’t buy the offices the company was based in.

Skywalker Ranch is a production facility located in Nicasio, California. The movie ranch was purchased by George Lucas in 1978, and he still owns the property today. Skywalker Sound, Lucasfilm’s sound editing company, has been based at Skywalker Ranch for decades, and Disney hasn’t seen the need to move their office space.

According to Matthew Wood, a Skywalker Sound editor who voices General Grievous, this means George Lucas is still getting a check from Disney every month. “After the success of the original Star Wars films and American Graffiti and whatnot, [George Lucas] built out this beautiful location in Northern California,” Matthew Wood revealed during a panel at Spacecon 2026. “It’s about 40 minutes north of San Francisco. It’s out in nature right before you get to wine country up there. And he made this wonderful place work, wonderful place to create art, and he’s donated 90 percent of the land that he purchased to an open space moratorium. It’s open space and can never be developed on.”

Wood continued, “And now, funnily enough, since the intellectual property of Star Wars is owned by Disney, I work for Disney now - but we work at Skywalker Ranch, and we pay George Lucas. He’s our landlord, because all the rents and the physical properties are his. And he loves having us there. He’s a filmmaker at heart, so having us working at his location I think feels good to him.”

I wonder what kind of a landlord George is. Getting $4.05 billion from Disney is impressive but getting them to continue paying you every month is a power move worthy of Palpatine himself. Well done George, I wasn’t aware of your game.

Get to know, understand, and love the Star Wars franchise more with our Star Wars watch order, guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies & TV shows, and all the Star Wars movies and Star Wars TV shows ranked.