Mark Hamill To George Lucas: ‘What? Are You Nuts?!’ (Answer: Maybe, But At Least He’s Charitable)

Entertainment Weekly recently spoke to Mark Hamill about the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII and George Lucas’ selling of LucasFilm to Disney. Hamill says Lucas invited him and Carrie Fisher to dinner last August to let them know Episodes VII, VIII, and IX were on the way.

So when he said, “We decided we’re going to do Episodes VII, VIII, and IX,” I was just gobsmacked. “What? Are you nuts?!” [EW]

Would a crazy man constantly edit then re-edit movies that were released decades ago? Don’t answer that.

The full interview over at EW is interesting, but what we really want to get to is this news about what George Lucas is doing with at least half of the $4.05 billion Disney paid him. A LucasFilm spokesperson tells The Hollywood Reporter:

“George Lucas has expressed his intention, in the event the deal closes, to donate the majority of the proceeds to his philanthropic endeavors.” [...] The spokesperson noted that this “announcement continues a commitment that Lucas made in 2010 to The Giving Pledge where he stated, “I am dedicating the majority of my wealth to improving education. It is the key to the survival of the human race. We have to plan for our collective future—and the first step begins with social, emotional, and intellectual tools we provide to our children. As humans, our greatest tool for survival is our ability to think and to adapt—as educators, storytellers, and communicators our responsibility is to continue to do so.’” [THR]

So a majority of the $4+ billion will go to charity, but we suspect the rest will be used like this:

[Pictures via Malgusto and The Daily What.]