Five years after buying Marvel Studios and clearly benefitting from new film franchises, Disney is taking what it’s learned in managing the superheroes and applying it to Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars.”

Disney views the “Star Wars” franchise as one that can be better exploited through new films, starting with next year’s “Star Wars: Episode VII” and spinoffs, as well as TV shows, like next month’s launch of Disney XD’s “Star Wars Rebels,” toys, licensed merchandise and theme park attractions around the world.

It’s not that “Star Wars” needed too much help.

When Disney bought the company, “Star Wars” was already one of Hollywood’s biggest franchises, having earned $4.4 billion globally from six movies, and billions more from TV shows, videogames, theme park rides and merchandise.

Disney just felt it could do even better, and the mantra at the company concerning “Star Wars” is: “do everything, but do it faster because we already know the route, and take it through the same channels” that worked so well for Marvel, said chief financial officer Jay Rasulo, who spoke Wednesday at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia Conference in New York. There are similarities and differences between Lucasfilm and Marvel and their properties, “but the similarities are far greater.”

Disney announced it would pay $4 billion to buy Marvel in 2009, and Lucasfilm in 2012, for another $4 billion.

“The notion that you could put together a series of origin films, of characters that were not that well-known whether it was Thor, whether it was Captain America, even Iron Man before our acquisition and then have those characters assemble in a movie that just blew the doors off called ‘The Avengers’ — it was something that was on the drawing board with the Marvel Studios people but then we actually did it and that was fantastic,” Rasulo said.

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“The Avengers'” success — when it earned $1.5 billion — may have surprised Disney and Hollywood, but even more so was that the sequels that followed “did way better than the original versions,” Rasulo said. “Not only did we build those ensemble superhero films, but each one along the way.”

And now the massive success of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which became the summer’s top earner, and collected nearly $600 million worldwide so far, has helped Disney figure how to launch characters that are even less known to moviegoers and use humor to attract new audiences like women to what was once considered just fanboy fare.

“Even though we had those ambitions, we had to deliver on them,” Rasulo said.

But Disney always had bigger plans for Marvel.

“Under the surface, we had a more subtle thing we wanted to accomplish,” Rasulo said.

That included promoting the characters to new audiences in and outside of the United States through new TV shows, but also a more expanded consumer products business. “We wanted to internationalize Marvel,” Rasulo said.

Disney is the world’s largest licensee, earning a record $40.9 billion in retail sales in 2013 from merchandise featuring Marvel’s superheroes, Disney’s princesses, Pixar’s toons and Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars.”

Until the Disney acquisition, Marvel was mostly focused on the toy business. “We wanted to lessen that dependence on toys and expand into all other categories,” Rasulo said.Lucasfilm also had a limited licensing business developed for its sci-fi franchise that mostly focused on toys and U.S. consumers.

And Disney has moved quickly to expand that through its consumer products group, while developing new films and TV shows that will help boost sales and overall exposure.

“We’re mirroring Marvel but we already know the path,” Rasulo said.