yyahoo: To be clear, the price paid for Lucas was $4 billion dollars. I referenced $8 billion since you spoke of bringing in more than double of the investment price.
It's very difficult to get a grasp on how much money is earned on a regular basis from existing Lucas products. What I think we can say with confidence is that you're not going to make up a $4 billion cost without new product and a couple movies are not going to earn you $4 billion dollars alone and even then there's significant additional cost to produce new product, especially a movie. If Disney has earned back the $4 billion alone in 5 years, I'd be surprised, let alone actually making a profit on the investment.
googled a little bit and i think you're right. although its hard to believe for me, that companies nowdays doing investements without expecting profit anytime soon.