'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Helped Disney Earn Back Lucasfilm's Price Tag

One of the biggest media acquisitions of the decade came when the Walt Disney Company purchased Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, allowing them to create new movies, TV series, and merchandise with the Star Wars brand, among other properties. Released just over five years after the purchase, Star Wars: The Last Jedi's box office brought the Disney-owned films' cumulative total over that purchase amount.

Less than two weeks after The Last Jedi hit theaters, the film zoomed past the $900-million mark worldwide which, when combined with the box office earnings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, put the three films' box office totals over Lucasfilm's price tag. Solo: A Star Wars Story hit theaters earlier this year and added a few hundred million to that grand total.

On the positive end of things, Disney has scored massive wins at the box office with their films, with these numbers not even factoring in all of the profits they've earned from TV series, merchandise, novels, books, and all other products Disney is releasing. The massive hauls taken in from these revenue streams likely would have confirmed the grand total Disney has earned with Lucasfilm licensing having eclipsed the purchase cost years ago.

However, making and marketing these blockbusters costs a tremendous amount of money, so it's difficult to deduce when, or if, the net profits of Lucasfilm have come close to what Disney paid for the studio. Even factoring all of the expenses with developing the brand, Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore, told CNBC that he believes Disney has "more than made back its original investment."

He added, "This was one of the smartest acquisitions in history."

The astronomical achievements of the Star Wars films have had a severe impact on what can be considered a "success" for the studio, with Solo being considered by many to be a disappointment, even if it took in nearly $400 million worldwide.

"Solo still made a lot of money," Dergarabedian pointed out. "By any other measure Solo was a success, but in the realm of Star Wars anything less than a grand slam home run is seen as a disappointment. So [that film] was held to a higher standard, no question, but that's because of how well the films have done even before Disney."

The accomplishments of the studio are sure to grow even further, thanks in large part to Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who extended her contract to 2021.

Next year will see the premiere of the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga with Star Wars: Episode IX, as well as the debut of the first live-action Star Wars TV show, Star Wars: The Mandalorian.

What is your favorite Star Wars project that Disney has released? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

[H/T CNBC]