With the 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney, most of the licensed "Star Wars" novels and comics produced since the originating 1977 film "Star Wars" were rebranded as "Star Wars Legends" and declared non-canon to the franchise in April 2014. Though Lucasfilm made it clear that new media would "not tell the same story told in the post-"Return of the Jedi" Expanded Universe", it was also established that "creators of new "Star Wars" entertainment have full access to the rich content of the Expanded Universe." Acknowledging that Thrawn had long been considered by Lucasfilm when developing projects, Filoni later said in 2016 that in particular the character had been on his list of potential villains when developing "Star Wars Rebels".