Lucas created Lucasfilm, the business behind the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movie franchises. The two properties have collected more than $12 billion in global ticket sales since 1977. He sold the Marin County, California-based production company, including Industrial Light and Magic, to Disney for $4.1 billion in 2012.
The majority of Lucas's fortune is derived from the sale of Lucasfilm and special effects operation Industrial Light & Magic to Disney in October 2012. He received $2.2 billion in cash and 37.1 million shares of Disney in the transaction, according a March 2013 bond prospectus. His stake hasn't been disclosed since then. This calculation assumes the billionaire hasn't sold any shares since 2013, making him one of the largest shareholders of the company.
As a closely held company, Lucasfilm produced the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies. Together, films from the two franchises have collected more than $12 billion in worldwide ticket sales, according to box-office reporting service Box Office Mojo. This calculation asserts that Lucas invested almost all of his proceeds from the movies -- as well as merchandise royalties -- back into Lucasfilm and the effects business prior to their sale to Disney.
The value of Skywalker Ranch is based on the average price per square foot of recent land sales in Marin County, California according to Zillow, a real estate and rental market website. That average price is then applied to the acreage of Skywalker Ranch, which was reported as about 6,000 acres in the New York Times on Oct. 16, 2016.
About 5,000 acres of the land have been put into a perpetual conservation easement with the Marin County Agricultural Land Trust. The value of that property has been reduced by 40% to account for restrictions on its development. Original purchase prices for each parcel listed by the Marin County Assessor's Office are removed from the final value to account for the cost of acquiring the property.
Connie Wethington, a Lucas representative, declined to comment on the billionaire's net worth calculation.
George Lucas was born in Modesto, California, in 1944, the son of Dorothy and George Lucas Sr., a stationery store owner. He abandoned his ambition to become a race driver after a severe car crash, and turned his attention to filmmaking. He enrolled at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts where he landed a degree in fine arts. He tried joining the U.S. Air Force as an officer, and was turned down because of his many speeding tickets.
Lucas re-enrolled at USC as a master's student in film production in 1967. He formed a production shop with director Francis Ford Coppola, and released his first feature, "THX 1138." The movie flopped. Shortly after founding a new production company, Lucasfilm, he directed "American Graffiti," which landed him an Oscar nomination.
He then created the Star Wars trilogy and became involved with writing and producing the Indiana Jones films with Steven Spielberg. Both movies franchises became some of the highest-grossing films of all time. Lucas owned the licensing and merchandising rights for his movies and contractual arrangements for sequels. He also created Industrial Light & Magic, a special effects business, and LucasArts, a video-games producer.
Lucas sold Lucasfilm, including the movie and merchandising rights to the two franchises, Industrial Light & Magic and LucasArts, to Disney for $4.05 billion in cash and stock in October 2012. He owns the Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, California.
Lucas married Mellody Hobson, the president of Chicago investment firm Ariel Investments, in 2013. They have four children.