Last week, Lucasfilm shocked Marin by pulling out of their plan to build a film studio on their Grady Ranch property. The studio project had faced opposition from the nearby Lucas Valley Estates. Others in Marin begged the company to reconsider, but Lucasfilm is standing firm. Lucasfilm is hoping to sell the property for use as low income housing, something I’m sure the Lucas Valley Estate folks will just love. Meanwhile, I’m sure that Lucasfilm will have no trouble finding another Bay Area community to welcome a film studio.
Michael Fassbender loves Star Wars toys. Of course he does. “‘Star Wars’ was really the only sci-fi sort of fascination I had as a youngster,” he told Absolute Radio while doing promotion for Prometheus. “I collected and I’ve still got the AT-AT and the Millennium Falcon and the Ewok village.”
Lucasfilm is among those named in a burgeoning antitrust case that alleges companies stiffed “lucrative job movement in Silicon Valley by agreeing not to raid their rivals for employees.” Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe and Pixar are also named.
Is The Old Republic already losing subscribers? The analysts say TOR has lost about 10% of it’s subscribers in the last month, and they project an average of 1.25M subscribers through the year. (I’m no expert, but isn’t that kind of how an MMO launch works? Not everyone is going to stick around?)
The game has had a good share of controversy – an anti-gay campaign and a free game time giveaway that alienanted some players (Though Bioware did expand upon the giveaway.) Let the course of gaming never go smooth, or something to that effect….
Wired’s Kathy Ceceri and her family got a sneak preview of the Star Wars Identities exhibit in Montréal, and shares quite a bit about what you can see there. It opened on the 19th.
BWAHAHA the low-income housing thing. I really hope he follows through and that it happens, and that he’s not *just* trollerskating all over the NIMBYs that didn’t want to let tourists into their neighborhood.
I say this because low-income housing is a good thing and there needs to be more of it. The juvenile glee I get when I hear stories about wealthy NIMBYs Getting Told is totally beside the point.
One of the articles states that LFL is working with a couple of different alternate locations, due to a need for facilities in early 2013. That will be an amazing feat if it happens. I can only imagine a rehab of existing buildings in that short of a time span, unless they are already well underway with permitting and construction documents. This stuff does take time, no matter who you are.
Well, a lot of their existing plans should stay in place, at least as far as blueprinting. And pulling permits for a new facility of that size, with that kind of money and economic potential behind it, should be pretty quick unless they see more local opposition…or unless the County Clerk just feels like being a dick. Which could happen, too.
I’m seriously considering a trip to Canada to see the Identities exhibit. It sounds right up my alley.
Doyle: A new site means new plans, as the chances of just reusing everything they already have as is are zero. At the very minimum there are different site conditions – topography, views, utilities, geological conditions, vehicular access, etc. which will need to be dealt with. Also, things are not just signed off by a County Clerk. There are local planning, building and engineering departments to deal with, and depending on what you are doing and the site conditions, you might be dealing with State and Federal agencies as well. All of this takes time, and then there is the time required for construction. Even if they were to put shovels in the dirt tomorrow, getting a project of this size done in under a year are slim to none.