Star Wars on TV: Turner Pays Reported $250 Million for Movie Rights

Time Warner's cable TV network, Turner, has reached a deal with Disney for the cable TV movie rights to the Star Wars series. According to Variety, the deal covers 10 Star Wars films, four of which have not been released yet, while it also has a separate agreement with Fox for the 1977 original.

As part of the deal, which had been in the works for a year and is estimated to come at a cost of at least $250 million, TBS and TNT will get air all the major Star Wars movies. The deal is good through at least 2022. USA Network and FX Networks were among the other contenders to acquire the TV rights.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens alone is reported to have cost $35 million-$40 million to license. The four other upcoming movies, Rogue One, Episode VIII, the untitled Han Solo movie, and Episode IX, are all expected to fetch the same licensing fee.

The Force Awakens will air on Turner networks in early 2018, following its pay-TV availability on Starz. Rogue One will debut in 2019, according to the report. There was no mention of when the other upcoming films will premiere on cable TV, but that's no big surprise, given they're still a long ways off.

Debuting sooner will be the six older Star Wars films, including the original trilogy and the new trilogy, which will air over six consecutive nights starting on September 20. TV marathon events are scheduled for September 24-25 and in the lead-up to the December release of Rogue One.

According to the report, the Turner-Disney deal was "complicated" by the agreement that Disney has in place with Netflix for newer Star Wars movies. As announced previously, Netflix reached a deal with Disney that will see Star Wars movies that come out in the 2016-2018 window air on the streaming service before other networks.

Go to Variety to see a further breakdown of the Turner-Disney Star Wars TV rights deal.