George Lucas Bet Everything On A Space Movie Nobody Wanted — And It Made Him A Billionaire

His First Movie Ever Was A Total Box Office Disaster

George Lucas's directorial debut, <cite index="4-1">the science-fiction THX 1138 (1971), released when he was 26, was a commercial flop</cite>, pulling in only <cite index="5-1,5-21">$945,000, a financial loss for the studio</cite>. It hit him hard — he later admitted he felt "cruelly used" by Warner Bros., who also used the film's failure to <cite index="4-6">end their partnership with Coppola's Zoetrope, disappointed by the box-office results and unimpressed by the first cut of Lucas's film</cite>.

One Coming-Of-Age Movie Basically Saved His Career

Shaken by the THX flop, Lucas took Francis Ford Coppola's advice to make something warmer and more mainstream. The result, American Graffiti, <cite index="1-5">would become one of the most profitable movies in Hollywood history</cite>, eventually earning <cite index="10-19">$200 million with a budget of just $775,000</cite>. That single hit is exactly what convinced 20th Century Fox to gamble on his next weird passion project.

Almost Nobody Wanted To Make Star Wars

Long before it was a cultural phenomenon, Star Wars nearly never got made at all — <cite index="12-10">over 40 studios originally turned Lucas down, and even Fox didn't think it would be a hit, treating it as a vanity project, something to get out of the way so the studio could work with Lucas on other projects</cite>. Universal had already passed on his treatment, <cite index="20-17">deeming it too strange and complaining that science fiction wasn't popular enough at the time to merit such an expensive film</cite>.

He Traded His Paycheck For The Deal Of The Century

Instead of taking the full raise he'd earned after American Graffiti, <cite index="10-4">George offered to keep his salary at $150,000 in exchange for two seemingly insignificant requests: that he retain all merchandising rights, and that he would retain the rights to any sequels</cite>. Fox happily agreed, since <cite index="10-6,10-7">the studio had lost a fortune on Doctor Dolittle merchandise and merchandise just wasn't a meaningful revenue stream in general back then</cite>. That handshake ended up dwarfing the movie itself — by the time Lucas <cite index="13-20">sold Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company for $4.05 billion in cash and stock in 2012</cite>, <cite index="13-18">licensed Star Wars merchandise had already generated over $20 billion in retail revenue</cite>.

Even His Own Crew Thought Star Wars Was Going To Bomb

While shooting the original film in 1976-77, <cite index="19-7">the cast and crew believed the film would be a failure</cite>, and the stress of a runaway production left Lucas diagnosed with hypertension and exhaustion. Harrison Ford later admitted the British crew thought they were ridiculous, recalling they "laughed at us constantly and thought we were ridiculous," while Fox's own board reportedly grumbled that "the script makes no sense to us in any way shape or form."

He Got Fined A Quarter Million Dollars Over An Opening Crawl

When The Empire Strikes Back skipped a traditional opening directing credit for Irvin Kershner, just like the original had for Lucas, the Directors Guild came down hard: <cite index="27-1">the DGA fined Lucas $250,000 in penalties over the missing credit for Kershner</cite>. Furious at being punished for a formatting choice he loved, <cite index="27-7">Lucas left the guilds he belonged to out of frustration at the Hollywood system</cite> — a decision so drastic that <cite index="27-8,27-9">he couldn't even hire Steven Spielberg or Kershner to direct Return of the Jedi, and instead brought on non-guild filmmaker Richard Marquand</cite>.

The Prequels Turned Fans Against Him Almost Overnight

The Phantom Menace landed in 1999 to sky-high hype and then <cite index="39-3">was mercilessly excoriated by members of the fan community</cite>, with complaints about <cite index="38-1">the films' alleged sophomoric approach to the galaxy far, far away</cite> and Jar Jar Binks becoming a lightning rod. The backlash got intense enough to spawn its own subculture, including the bluntly titled 2010 documentary The People Versus George Lucas, though Lucas has since insisted the saga was always meant to be a kids' movie.

"Han Shot First" Became A Fan Rallying Cry For A Reason

Nothing broke Star Wars fandom's brain quite like the 1997 Special Edition's cantina scene, where <cite index="31-4">George Lucas altered the scene so that Greedo fired first, and the fan response was immediate and overwhelmingly negative</cite>. <cite index="31-5">The phrase "Han shot first" became a rallying cry for purists</cite> frustrated by Lucas's post-release tinkering, and he kept adjusting the moment for decades, <cite index="30-3">even later updating the sequence to show the pair firing at the same moment</cite>, never fully satisfying anyone.