sent from: London, UK. destination: Los Angeles, California, USA

FULL DISCLOSURE: what follows is pure speculation on my part and is not based on any inside knowledge that I have; it is purely educated guesswork.

What I will think will happen at ILM/Lucasfilm Animation, specifically where Star Wars is concerned:
– Lucasfilm Animation will be re-branded under the Walt Disney Animation banner, and subsequent seasons of The Clone Wars animated show will be produced in Singapore as they are presently.
– The hush-hush fairies/rockabilly CG feature that Lucasfilm Animation have been on/off with over the past 6 years will either be shut down or get a quiet DVD release under the Walt Disney banner.
– ILM will continue to serve external clients as they always have done, with an increasing reliance on satellite offices around the world in major production centres.
– Star Wars VII visual effects will be centered in San Francisco with a small core team, with the majority of the work produced at ILM Singapore and by a network of tightly controlled 3rd-party vendors all over the world.

Since writing this I’ve been informed that at least some Lucasfilm Animation work is presently being done in Taiwan – I don’t know if it’s Clone Wars or the Untitled Fairy Feature, so that complicates the picture of how the work is farmed out over there further.

Let’s imagine – you’re a Disney executive charged with handling these new assets, your company just spent $4 billion dollars to acquire it and investors are going to be looking at this very closely, making sure that what is done with Lucasfilm and its subsidiaries is profitable and worth investing in. What would you do?