Producer Rick McCallum leaving Lucasfilm

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Hollywood producer Rick McCallum says he is returning to his independent filmmaking roots after two decades of making blockbusters at Lucasfilm.

George Lucas announced earlier this year he had sold his company, which made the classic "Indiana Jones" and "Star Wars" pictures, to Disney for more than $4 billion.

Disney swiftly announced more "Star Wars" movies are on the way without Lucas at the helm, but now McCallum said he won't be helping out with them either.

"It's a producer's job to make possible a director's vision, whatever that may be," McCallum said in a statement on starwars.com. "George never let the limits of reality constrain his vision, so the challenge to production was always to find ways to make anything possible, while being respectful to the fact that he was financing his own movies. To do that, we needed to keep that independent filmmaking mentality that requires you to innovate and improvise, while making movies of enormous scale."

"Rick is a close friend as well as an extremely talented producer. No matter how impossible I made the task, Rick was able to overcome the challenges," Lucas said. "In addition to putting together great crews and working miracles with the budget, he was instrumental in helping push filmmaking into the 21st century. He has a larger-than-life personality and made this amazing 20-year journey with him a fun one."