Star Wars is one of the most lucrative media franchises to come out of Hollywood, starting out as a personal project for George Lucas, and having all the trappings of a perfect B-movie. However, the franchise has since snowballed into one of the pillars of Disney, and one of the most lucrative IPs to come out of classical Hollywood.
George Lucas, in an interview with Charlie Ross, talked a lot about how he accidentally stumbled onto mainstream success, something that forced him to make the kind of films that he wasn’t very keen on. Further, Star Wars would eventually end up out of his hands, leaving the director free to do what he set out to do in the first place: make films for himself.
George Lucas never wanted to make popular films
George Lucas revealed that, like Francis Coppola, the director was always interested in making films for himself. However, his creations with Star Wars stumbled into the mainstream, becoming one of the most popular franchises of all time. Speaking with Charlie Rose, the actor revealed:
“I am gonna make movies that only I wanna see and I wanna do. I have always wanted to do that. I fell into popular movies by accident. I always disliked Hollywood, theatrical movies.”
At the point when the interview was given, George Lucas was four years into his semi-retirement, with The Force Awakens having just come out. Lucas has been involved in Star Wars content since, sitting down with the creators who have worked on the franchise, and serving as a consultant on a few projects.
George Lucas actually wanted to make a Flash Gordon film
One of George Lucas‘s ambitions as a filmmaker was to do a Flash Gordon film, wanting to give one of his childhood obsessions a serious go at the films. Failing to do so, the filmmaker crafted his own little space opera, one that almost ever studio passed over.
Lucas’s B-movie plots would take traditional fantasy stock characters an d set them in space, heavily using miniatures to create a grand scape. This would end up being Star Wars, which would be distributed with the help of 20th Century Fox, after being rejected by Union Artists, Universal, and even Disney. Lucas also took inspiration from greats such as Akira Kurosawa and Edgar Rice Burroughs to craft his interstellar masterpiece.
