Smokey And The Bandit was the no. 2 movie at the box office in 1977, Star Wars was no. 1 by a wie margin. And none of those movies made the 400 million plus that Star Wars did. The case can be made for Jaws being the first blockbuster and possibly CE3K but none of the others really came close to Star Wars.
Lucas: "I sold Star Wars to White Slavers"
- Thread starter Tribble puncher
- Start date
Smokey And The Bandit was the no. 2 movie at the box office in 1977, Star Wars was no. 1 by a wie margin. And none of those movies made the 400 million plus that Star Wars did. The case can be made for Jaws being the first blockbuster and possibly CE3K but none of the others really came close to Star Wars.
TPM came out in a era before IMAX and 3D showings and when it was rereleased in 3D it made another 100 million. Truthfully it outstripped all the previous Star Wars movies.
And while I haven't seen or read all of Lucas' comments but it sounds like how Gene Roddenberry felt after the Star Trek movies were taken from him.
They were still what was considered at the time a blockbuster film (a huge, highly successful one), despite not being the biggest blockbuster. My point was that Star Wars didn't convince Hollywood that summer was a great time to release their big films. They knew this since pretty much the dawn of cinema.
Oh, and Gone with the Wind made $400 million in 1939 dollars.
In fact, if you look at the all time box office adjusted for inflation, Star Wars may be #2, but seven out of the top ten preceded Star Wars.
I don't know how the system works, but I was referring less to his ownership of the property and more to things like royalties from the Directors and Screenwriters Guilds. I didn't look at the credits to see if he was listed, but I know writers get royalties when characters they create are used in later products. I'm wondering if he receives something from the movie somehow.
And I don't think it would be a foolish move for Disney to keep Lucas in the loop financially. It gjves Disney some leverage to keep Lucas from undermining the new product.
So Lucas recanted and took back the "white slavers" remark [...] I guess you can't argue with money.
Wasn't the interview from the OP taken before he saw TFA, and hasn't he seen it multiple times now? That's what I gathered from a few of the reports, but I could have gotten it wrong.
Perhaps seeing the film made him change his mind. I mean, he had already gotten his money...
I can't tell when the Charlie Rose interview was actually conducted. But Lucas already saw an advanced screening sometime before December 6, and gave the backhanded compliment, "I think the fans are going to love it. It's very much the kind of movie they've been looking for."
Maybe he warmed up to it with additional viewings.
Kor
Yeah just picking Cannonball out at random it only made 1.5 million hardly a blockbuster, The Omen about 60 million and The Pnik Panther movie a mere 41 million, none of them were the huge hit Star Wars was. And there's a difference between "summer" blockbuster and a blockbuster, the Christmas season has produced several massive hits as well.
But it wasn't until Star Wars came along that the word blockbuster was used to describe such a huge hit. And Star Wars changed how movies were marketed and many movies were aimed at the summer audience and became highly successful.
Meh, Gone with the Wind was a December release that was in theaters for well over a year. Most of the films on the all-time list prior to the 80s weren't summer releases. Most cinema historians I've read think the summer blockbuster started with Jaws. Spielberg and Lucas both timed their film releases intentionally, but not because they thought the blockbuster thing would take off.
When Grease and Animal House (!) were major hits in summer 1978, studio execs began to take notice. Prior to that, they thought that Jaws, Star Wars, and, to a lesser extent, Smokey and the Bandit were just strong product that happened to have been released in the summer (although Star Wars was in mid-May, again an intentional act). And it wasn't until TESB, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. hit in successive years that the studios realized that they had a new forumula.
Prior to that, films were released on a smaller number of screens for a longer run. In modern terms, look at how Avatar and Titanic made their money using this same formula. Late in the 80s, I still remember going to see movies months after they were released, unlike now.
So, yeah, Star Wars didn't create the summer blockbuster, but it was an early contributor to the change in paradigm.
I'm not sure if he expected that much, but I'm sure at the very least he expected or hoped that his story outlines would be used, even as just a jumping off point.
But instead they were pretty much completely tossed aside, which I'm sure had to hurt... even though, from the sound of it, this new trilogy wasn't something Lucas felt super passionately about doing, but only undertook to give his company something profitable to work on.
I wonder if he now understands why some people didn't appreciate the changes applied to the Special Editions.
I doubt it. It's all about his vision and complaining that people don't see it the way he sees it, and supposedly how he always saw it.
Exactly how I feel. This being an "origin" film, I didn't mind it repeating beats and and cues from Star Wars 77. I also think some of what people considered a lack of originality (Han on the run from people he owed money to, for example) was more about reminding us who these characters are/were than simply a ripoff.
But I really, really, don't want a remake of ESB for the next one.
Because TFA is more fun for various reasons and has enough fresh stuff in it for most people. I went to see it three times so on average you and me watched it twice. You're welcome. 
I'm not going to re-watch ANH anytime soon.
I'm not going to re-watch ANH anytime soon.
I wouldn't call it trash by a long shot but i do agree with Lucas in principle, the story was far too close to ANH and not very original.
However there are enough new elements, especially the new characters, that make it worthwile to see it and the general feel of the movie was great.
All that remains now is to tread new ground storywise and hope there is a real story to tell other than the hunt for Kylo Ren/Rey becoming a Jedi.
I think it was funny how Lawrence Kasdan in the "Empire of Dreams" documentary mentioned how "delighted" he was that ESB wasn't going to be a rehash of ANH.
I guess rehashing ANH for TFA was what Kasdan needed to do before Lucasfilm would agree to give him the Han Solo prequel film?
The new actors in TFA were good, shame they had nothing interesting to do.
I guess rehashing ANH for TFA was what Kasdan needed to do before Lucasfilm would agree to give him the Han Solo prequel film?
The new actors in TFA were good, shame they had nothing interesting to do.
Bingo bango bongo.
I'd also like to add that TFA lacked that little bit of magic for me; the romance and earnestness of ANH just wasn't there but that was to be expected if your brief is to copy something else.
I guess it was more that JJ is too much of a Star Wars Fan and partially blinded to reality.
I said this in my review here after i saw the movie.. it was like he had a checklist of favorite scenes/moments/character traits he wanted to have in his movie and didn't much care if it made sense or was needed in the movie (such as the alien bar scene at Maz Kanata's vs the Mos Eisley Cantina or the Superweapon concept in general).
I hope he cuts the ties a bit better now that he's got it out of his system and gives us an original story for Star Wars 8.
TFA is "trash" to pretty much the same degree ANH was "trash." None of it is deep, high-cultural philosophical musing; all of it is damned entertaining, low-culture cinema. If TFA is a "fanfic" of ANH, so be it; it's a fabulous fanfic that deserves its success, and the first Star Wars movie I'm likely to see a second time in theatres.
Also, I profoundly wish (pace the LA Times reviewer linked earlier) that we lived in a world where a major commercial franchise casting a woman and a black guy in its lead hero roles was not a major thing because the rest of the movie industry had already figured that shit out long ago. But we don't live in that world, and Rey and Finn are non-trivial as selling points for TFA for apparently a hell of a lot of people. On more than just those grounds, because they're engaging and tremendously fun just as characters... but yeah, on those grounds too, at least for me.
It's not hard to suss out. Reviving the spirit of ANH after a decade of the prequels is a totally different proposition from rehashing it one movie later before it was ever clear Star Wars was going to be a "franchise."
Also, I profoundly wish (pace the LA Times reviewer linked earlier) that we lived in a world where a major commercial franchise casting a woman and a black guy in its lead hero roles was not a major thing because the rest of the movie industry had already figured that shit out long ago. But we don't live in that world, and Rey and Finn are non-trivial as selling points for TFA for apparently a hell of a lot of people. On more than just those grounds, because they're engaging and tremendously fun just as characters... but yeah, on those grounds too, at least for me.
Dream said:
It's not hard to suss out. Reviving the spirit of ANH after a decade of the prequels is a totally different proposition from rehashing it one movie later before it was ever clear Star Wars was going to be a "franchise."
Well, he was trying to draw on a sense of nostalgia, and after the general disappointment with the prequel trilogy, he needed to give the people something familiar.
Maybe he took it a little far, but it's clear that the goal of this film was to reassure people that his Star Wars would be more like the originals and distance themselves from the prequels.
Similar threads
