Star Wars is an American epic space-opera media franchise created by George Lucas. The original film, later subtitled Episode IV – A New Hope, was followed by the sequels Episode V and Episode, forming what is collectively referred to as the original trilogy. A prequel trilogy was later released, consisting of Episode I, Episode II and Episode III. Years later, a sequel trilogy began with Episode VII, continued with Episode VIII, and will conclude with Episode IX. The first eight films were nominated for Academy Awards (with wins going to the first two released) and were commercially successful. Together with the theatrical anthology films Rogue One and Solo: A Star Wars Story, the combined box office revenue of the films equates to over US$9 billion, and is currently the second-highest-grossing film franchise.
In 2012, Lucas sold his company to Disney, and in 2014, most existing spin-off media was made non-canon and rebranded as "Star Wars Legends". The episodic 'Skywalker saga' and the TV series The Clone Wars (2008–2014) define the canon, along with most other works released after April 2014, though a few Legends-universe media are still released, and some Legends characters are sometimes re-introduced into the canon, for example the titular character from Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy of novels.
