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George Lucas Recalls Early Cannes Days With ‘THX 1138’, Besting Studios With ‘American Graffiti’ & ‘Star Wars’; “The Fact That People Make Money In The Movie Business Is A Myth”


“We weren’t really that interested in making money, were interested in making movies,” said Star Wars franchise architect about the early days of his career with mentor Francis Ford Coppola with movies such as THX 1138 and American Graffiti. In a wide-ranging discussion that took the Salle Debussy Theatre crowd at the 77th Cannes Film […]

Originally United Artists, known to be filmmaker friendly, bought Lucas scripts for American Graffiti and Star Wars, but they didn’t like the former. Uni initially put the 1950s Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, Richard Dreyfus, Harrison Ford ensemble in theaters and it took off ultimately grossing $115M stateside. Lucas with his lawyer went about drafting their own contract for Star Wars with Fox, getting the monies on licensing, unheard of at the time, and control fo the sequel rights.

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