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Walt Disney World has quietly scrubbed plans for its sixth annual "Star Wars Weekends" event in May, even though a fifth installment of George Lucas' mega-hit movie series will debut May 16.
The popular promotions, replete with autograph-signing actors from previous Star Wars movies, drew thousands of movie buffs from around the nation -- dozens of whom typically lined up before dawn outside MGM Studios' turnstiles.
But Disney may have had little choice about missing out on a chance to ride the marketing rocket of the forthcoming Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones.
The scrub appears to be something of a snub by Lucasfilm Ltd. So intensely is the company promoting the forthcoming Star Wars that it doesn't have much reason to cooperate with Disney's four special weekends as it has in the past.
"To be honest, it's a little less important to us this year," said Howard Roffman, the San Francisco-based company's vice president of licensing.
In fact, Lucas has scheduled his own version of a Star Wars weekend, called Celebration II, in Indianapolis on the first weekend in May. Celebration I, held in Denver in early May 1999, drew 30,000 people.
Entertainment industry experts speculate that Lucas was so surprised and pleased with that attendance that he decided to beef up his promotion this year, even though it helped doom MGM's event. His reasoning, they say: Better to have a dedicated Star Wars gathering in the nation's car-accessible midsection than inside a drooping Disney theme park.
Roffman confirmed that Lucasfilm consultants picked Indianapolis for its fan gathering because of its geographic desirability. But he insisted that Lucasfilm plans to start supporting MGM's May weekends as soon as 2003.
"We really like what Disney has done with Star Wars Weekends," he said.
Disney World spokesman Craig Dezern said officials there decided against holding Star Wars Weekends to focus on its current "100 Years of Magic" promotion. That 15-monthlong offering, which ends on Dec. 31, consists of new parades, live-action shows and a museum-like display of Walt Disney artifacts.
But Alan Bromley, a New York media consultant who specializes in movie marketing tie-ins for the fashion industry, said, "Disney can't be happy to be left out of the action when a new Star Wars comes out at the same time as the company's annual event based on those movies."
Disney's decision to cancel the event disappointed some longtime fans.
Dan Rose, a San Francisco bank worker, has traveled to MGM's special weekend for the past two years.
"I was planning on going to Orlando again this year. Last year I got in line at 5:30 in the morning to get Princess Leia's [Carrie Fisher's] autograph."
With attendance still slumping because of a decline in air travel that has followed last Sept. 11's terrorism attacks, the attraction could clearly use a boost from what appears destined to be one of the spring's hottest movies. After all, the most recent release in the series, Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, in 1999, sold $922 million worth of tickets worldwide.
Disney World has a ready-made setting for Star Wars Weekends: They're held just outside its Star Tours attraction at MGM Studios. Star Tours cost about $50 million to build in 1990, according to one source familiar with the facility. The "ride" combines flight-simulator technology with a 4½-minute action movie created by George Lucas. Guests exiting the ride walk through a bustling store filled with Star Wars toys, shirts and other souvenirs.
Disney World has held past Star Wars Weekends right outside the Star Tours ride. But to some knowledgeable entertainment industry sources, even the 12-year-old ride is becoming a symbol of a more distant relationship lately between Disney and Lucas, who helped create the Star Tours attraction in the late 1980s.
An MGM Studios official said in 1998 that Lucas had agreed to update the Star Wars ride's mini-film based on the then upcoming Star Wars I. But Episode I has long come and gone without a new Star Tours film. Officials at both Lucasfilm and Disney say the update is still being planned, but neither company is specific about when it may actually arrive.
One source familiar with the planning for Star Tours estimated the cost of a new short film for it to be in the range of $5 million to $10 million, to be paid by Disney.
Robert Johnson can be reached at
rwjohnson@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5664.