Star Wars expanded to other media
Although the "Star Wars" film series itself has never been rebooted, a decision was made, due to works set after the original trilogy that contradict and deviate from Lucas' own view of the "Star Wars" story, to discard the "EU" works from the franchise canon. Lucas decided to cease creative involvement after selling, in October 2012, the "Star Wars" franchise as well as Lucasfilm (the production company of "Star Wars") to The Walt Disney Company. When Disney began development of a sequel trilogy of films and other works, and needed its films to have full creative freedom unbound by the "EU", nearly all "EU" works were removed from "Star Wars" franchise canon and rebranded as "Star Wars Legends". (The two 2008 "EU" works which remained in canon were and its .)
George Lucas
"Star Wars" quickly became the highest-grossing film of all-time, displaced five years later by Spielberg's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial". After the success of "American Graffiti" and prior to the beginning of filming on "Star Wars", Lucas was encouraged to renegotiate for a higher fee for writing and directing "Star Wars" than the $150,000 agreed. He declined to do so, instead negotiating for advantage in some of the as-yet-unspecified parts of his contract with Fox, in particular ownership of licensing and merchandising rights (for novelizations, T-shirts, toys, etc.) and contractual arrangements for sequels. The studio was unconcerned to relinquish these rights, as its last major attempt in the field, with the film "Doctor Dolittle" (1967), had proved a discouraging failure. Lucas exploited merchandising rights wisely, and Lucasfilm has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from licensed games, toys, and collectibles created for the franchise.