“I went to see it in a theater in a shopping center in my home town, and it was miserable,” Ben Burtt says. “The audience seemed to like it, but it sounded awful compared to what it could be. Weak and dead, like an old radio broadcast. I felt very sad for the people, for all the work that we put into it, because they couldn’t hear it as the film was intended to be heard.”
“There is really only one sort of movie magic, and it’s called directing,” John Barry says. “It’s very much like conjuring. A conjurer has his lady do something terribly interesting over here, while he gets a pigeon out of his back pocket. The jump to lightspeed is an example of conjuring, if you examine that scene very carefully. The film builds up to it—Han has to get the coordinates before they can make the jump—and it goes on quite a bit before you actually get the visual trick, which is a very short moment, but it’s great. George is very good at all that.”
“Star Wars is the first picture I really worked on that went to completion,” Ralph McQuarrie says. “So I didn’t really have that sense of what value the production illustrations were until I saw them on the screen.”
For Alan Ladd, who was elected to Fox’s board of directors in late July 1977, it was the end of many worries. The wild success of the film had proved Lucas right, to Ladd’s relief. “What nobody had understood was that George’s concept was to really just throw those things away, not dwell upon them, not ever give anybody the chance to say, My God, what a wonderful set,” Ladd says. “The whole thrust of the film was movement. That’s what he was going for. All of our concerns evaporated once we saw the final picture.”
“It was amazing,” Lucas’s assistant, Lucy Wilson, remembers. “You’d go to restaurants and people were sitting around you talking about the person you work for and the movie you were working on—and it’s on the cover of magazines. But we wondered, ‘Well, okay, this is huge—but in two years, you know, is there a future?’ ”
ILM FINALS
“We calculated, at the end of the project,” Robbie Blalack says, “that we had generated fourteen thousand pieces of film, given all of the separations, mattes, intermattes, garbage mattes, and lasers. All of those pieces of film had to be lined up by someone. All had to be printed by someone. The cataloging, sorting out, and the process of funneling that through was monstrous. The final count is 560 bluescreen shots compressed into 365 total shots, and it’s all one generation removed, except for six shots.”
On nearly all of those shots, the Dykstraflex camera was used—which amazingly had less than twenty-four hours of downtime due to mechanical or electronic failure for the whole production. Budget-wise, ILM spent $3,619,601, $2 million over the studio-imposed ceiling, $1 million over the original estimate. The revised final budget for outside optical effects came to $273,369.
Twentieth Century-Fox also took out an ad, in the September 16, 1977, edition of Variety, to trumpet Star Wars as the studio’s number one film of all time.
The People’s Choice Awards for Favorite Motion Picture of 1977 went to Star Wars in 1978.
“This was my first experience with real special effects,” Lucas says. “I had worked in opticals and animation before, but I hadn’t really worked on the kind of problem-solving special effects that were generated by Star Wars. I find it fascinating. I’d like to continue to work out some of the things and try to advance them—because I don’t think we took them as far as they can go.”
“I think it came out fabulously, considering the limitations of time and money,” Dykstra says. “It was a really unique group of people. And I really respect all of the stuff that George did to make it happen.”
“George said at one point, ‘I wore my favorite clothes, and never has so much money and time been spent on fun,’ ” Richard Edlund notes. “We certainly had a lot of fun doing the effects; it was fun to get up and go to work every morning.”
“It was always difficult for me to accept George’s idea of having the starfighters move at a tremendous speed and, of course seeing the film now, I agree with him completely,” says Dennis Muren.
“There’s a funny story,” Edlund adds. “Joe Johnston went to the DMV one time when Star Wars had just come out, and he was standing in a line that went back to the door, and someone came in, looked at the line, and said, ‘Shit, they ain’t playin’ Star Wars here, man!’ ”
“I remember leaving the theater and having these kids ask us for our autograph,” Joe Johnston says. “We said, ‘No, you don’t want our autograph, we’re like model builders.’ But they said, ‘No, no, we want you to sign this!’ So we were thinking, Wow, this must mean something—people are asking for our autographs!”
Fan interest was mirrored to some extent by crew interest, both just before and after the film came out, as its physical props became increasingly valuable. “Once people knew it was going to be a really good film, things just started disappearing,” Mary Lind recalls. “That’s when everybody put locks on the doors.”
As head of Film Control, Lind was also in charge of locating a secure and technologically safe resting place for the now incredibly precious negative. The optimum facility was found at the Hollywood Film Company in its vaults on Seward Street, with black-and-white optical elements stored in vaults 203 and 204, and negatives of the entire film in vault 356.
Her last duty fulfilled, Lind, who had come to work prepared to leave directly for Hawaii, jumped into a taxi and sped to the airport wearing a bathing suit and sandals.
SEVEN STORIES FOR ONE DEAL
“Fox went, in a very few years, from being a company right on the edge to being a very profitable company,” Warren Hellman says.
In short, the studio’s stock rose from a low of $6 a share in June 1976 to nearly $27 immediately following the release of Star Wars, according to Aubrey Solomon’s Twentieth Century-Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. On June 22, 1977, Variety pointed out that the volume of Fox stock traded, 7,808,400 shares since May 23, exceeded 100 percent of the firm’s common stock. A rumor circulated at the time saying that insider trading had taken place, given that a few individuals had bought up Fox shares right before Star Wars came out, while the stock was low, and then made millions when the stock soared.
“The story was that some people were sufficiently prescient to realize that there was this big hit coming and bought the stock while it was cheap,” Gareth Wigan explains. “But the truth is, there were very, very few people within Fox, and certainly none of them had any stock, who believed Star Wars was going to be a huge hit. I think in fact the reason the stock moved up is that a lot of people thought it was going to be a catastrophe and the studio was going to lose all its money, and therefore the management of the studio might easily change—and therefore this was a move to acquire stock with a view to a takeover. I think they were actually trying to buy the stock with a view to getting rid of the management. But still, good luck to them, they made a lot of money.”
True to character, Fox penny-pinched to the very end. Because the film’s final budget was $11,293,151, $3 million over the imposed budget—though fairly close to at least one of the early projected budgets—the studio had taken a part of Lucas’s directorial fee as compensation. “George was committed personally for $15,000 of his salary, as a penalty against the budget overage,” Kurtz says. “That was another thing that we argued and argued and argued about with them—and they didn’t reimburse him until after the movie came out.”
Of course by that time, Lucas’s financial situation was different from that of most filmmakers, even the most successful ones. His insistence, the help of his lawyers, and the ongoing fantastic success of the movie guaranteed him a fortune. Plus, as the film garnered what was evidently becoming a loyal fan base, its ancillary and sequel rights became more and more important. “George not only determined what products to go with, but achieved complete creative control on how the artwork looks, how the packaging looks, what ads would be used,” Jake Bloom says. “Whereas I firmly believe, under the traditiona
l Hollywood deals that were made prior to this picture, that George would not have had creative control over these deals.”
One area where Lucas capitalized on this creative control was in his deal with Marvel Comics—negotiated by Lippincott—for a full-color serial adaptation. The fact that it was written by Roy Thomas and penciled by Howard Chaykin, both of whom had sizable reputations and followings, gave the film a legitimacy in certain circles. “Studios minimized the comic fan,” Bloom explains, “but George felt they were important in creating a base of hard-core fandom. It’s a word-of-mouth business. That’s something that Twentieth Century-Fox did not see three and a half years ago, but George saw it. Because of that Twentieth and George are now receiving vast benefits. I’m sure the studio will look at their contract and suddenly say, ‘How could we have made that deal? How could we do that?’ But they should thank God that they did it. They fell into something that they couldn’t even envision.”
Artwork by Charles White III and Drew Struzan was featured in the summer 1978 re-release poster, which ran in newspapers across the country, including the July 16, 1978, edition of the Los Angeles Times (elongated to include credits).
“Yesterday [August 10, 1977], I was out at Fox, and I was talking to the business affairs people,” Tom Pollock says. “And they told me that there are seven different stories circulating about why those rights were given to George—when they had never been given to anybody else before, have never been given to anybody else since, and will never be given to anyone in the future. They said there are seven stories about why they gave away the sequel rights. Because the sequel rights are enormously valuable. And they gave us half the merchandising. It was George’s idea and I give it all to George.”
“Recently [summer of 1977], I went to the latest comic convention in San Diego after the picture’s success,” Bloom adds. “Star Wars was probably the major thing down there; suddenly people are merchandising and trading and starting to collect Star Wars items. We already have avid collectors who will be there forever.”
“The first screening of the completed film was at the big theater on the lot at Fox the Friday before it opened,” Lippincott says. “It was a daytime screening for the Variety critic who blew his top because I invited 20 people from the sci-fi and comic book world who had helped me out. The critic gave us a very good review and it turned out my guests over the weekend called many of their friends around the country. The spark really took off and affirmed what many had hoped about the film.”
Lucas, as well as John Williams, also struck gold when the soundtrack, which sold for about $9, went platinum with 650,000 copies selling by mid-July. The stock of General Mills, which owned Kenner, went up dramatically, too—solely based on the rumor that it would procure the toy license for the film—which it did (though toys didn’t hit the market until after the holiday season of 1977). With all of his success, Lucas decided to give points or percentages of points as gifts. “Everybody has points, but the key is to make them pay off,” Lucas says. “I had a chance to give away a lot of my points, which I had done with Graffiti. The actors, composer, and crew should share in the rewards.”
Among those he gave a part of the profits to were: Gary Kurtz; Willard and Gloria Huyck; the law firm of Pollock, Rigrod, and Bloom; actors Alec Guinness, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and Harrison Ford; and Ben Burtt, Fred Roos, and John Williams.
As one might expect, news about a sequel spread rapidly—which led to a dramatic reversal of roles at Fox’s negotiating table. “My understanding is that when George’s agent came back for Star Wars two, he said, ‘Okay, one: The profit split is being reversed,’ ” Warren Hellman recalls. “ ‘Two: You’re going to donate the product rights to us. And three: You’re still not getting any sequel rights.’ This I do remember: There was a great board meeting where management said, ‘We have to give George the rights to his characters.’ But we had a bunch of lawyers who said, ‘You can’t simply give away property rights!’ We voted, and I think it was a six to five vote, because somebody had made the point that you can’t own his children.”
Festivities included the 1978 Oscars and other parties: Grant McCune, Mark Hamill, and Richard Chew, with others.
Carrie Fisher and Anthony Daniels
Gary Kurtz, Ralph McQuarrie, and John Barry
Eating dinner at the Academy Awards with their respective guests, Ben Burtt, Paul Hirsch, and Richard Chew.
Lucas chats with others at a party.
Flanked by C-3PO and R2-D2, Ben Burtt receives a Special Achievement Award for Best Sound Effects.
John Williams (with unidentified winner on left) with his Oscar for Best Original Score. Other recipients were John Barry, Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley, and Roger Christian for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration; John Stears, John Dykstra, Richard Edlund, Grant McCune, and Robbie Blalack for Best Special Effects; Paul Hirsch, Marcia Lucas, and Richard Chew for Best Editing; Don MacDougall, Ray West, Bob Minkler, and Derek Ball for Best Sound. Nominations included George Lucas for Best Director and Best Screenplay; Gary Kurtz for Best Picture; and Alec Guinness for Best Supporting Actor.
The inevitable slate of imitations was quickly planned by other studios, as well. Walt Disney productions began work on two films: Space Station One with a $10 million budget, targeted for teens, and The Cat from Outer Space, for younger kids. Universal and Paramount joined forces to plan a new version of When Worlds Collide. Universal began a remake of The Thing. The Doug Trumbull–run special effects house Future General was inundated with work, as were other specialty houses as studios wanted to jump-start any science-fiction film that they had stowed away on their shelves. To this day, Leonard Nimoy credits Star Wars with getting the first Star Trek film made, while, back in 1977, a new Star Trek TV series was announced at a fan convention in Los Angeles.
NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS
“It won’t be here forever,” says Greg Myers, who accompanied his eight-year-old daughter and two nephews to the cinema. “I thought I’d better see it [again] while I had the chance.”
“I’ve been hearing about this flick since it opened and I had to see it for myself,” Robbit Kitsch of Port Huron, Michigan, says. “I think I’m going to come back with a few friends and guide ’em through and enjoy it all over again.”
Indeed, repeat customers were another key to Star Wars’ first-run box-office longevity. Not only was it good, but tens of thousands of people also felt it warranted at least one more viewing—with some attending more than fifty shows—and, before the advent of consumer videos, people had only one place to see it. Thus, by September 13, in Bend, Oregon, an estimated 50 percent of each audience was repeat viewers.
Even with the film’s popularity assured, Twentieth Century-Fox’s terms—a guaranteed 12-week run, 90 percent of the profits after overhead, and a guaranteed $65,000 against earnings—kept profit margins thin for theater owners, though no doubt the studio expected them to pad their overhead. The studio also benefited from a U.S. Justice Department ruling in April 1977 that required theater owners to bid for films. Until then movie theatres in the same area would make “split agreements” in which they would join together to divide up the season’s first-run films—but that was ruled as being in violation of antitrust laws.
The winning bidder in Rocklander, New York, was the Town Theatre, where the film opened on August 5. With the percentage agreement, as reported by Jan Herman in the Journal-News, the theater had paid back the $65,000 guarantee by the third week. By the fourth week, the theater collected $16,000 for overhead and $9,300 profit—the rest of the $82,300 went to the studio. The second-month revenues of $66,400 provided a profit of $5,040 after overhead to the theater, with $45,360 going to Fox. Third-month profits dropped to $1,570 of $31,700 with the distributor getting $14,130.
By November 27, 1977, 90,000 people had attended Town Theatre’s 240 showings of Star Wars, that is, roughly one-third of the city’s population. Half of Benton County in Oregon—approximately 6,750
people—had seen it by July 29. The film ran for at least 18 weeks at the Cinema II theater in Danbury, Connecticut, where “phenomenal” repeat business was in evidence. In the tiny town of Hamilton, Texas, on November 10, Texan Theatre manager Lem Guthrie reported that Star Wars had entered its second week—which had never ever happened there before (one showing per night, $2 admission).
Across the nation, so many theaters were showing the film so often that new prints had to be made because the first were literally being worn out. Popcorn was sold like never before.
Nevertheless, Star Wars had to eventually move aside for new movies, such as Close Encounters. On October 20, the film was replaced by The Last Remake of Beau Geste after a record-setting 18-week run at Waterloo’s Strand Theatre in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It left Mentor, Ohio, on December 22, 1977, replaced by Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl.
Back in San Francisco in November, Fox and Columbia started bickering over which film would play the Coronet, Star Wars or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. “The Coronet has been established as the Star Wars theater in San Francisco,” Kurtz says. “It’s still doing $55,000 a week, which is amazing.” The Spielberg film went to the Northpoint. In Denver, Colorado, a press conference was convened in mid-December where it was announced that, to avoid problems, Star Wars would move from the Cooper to the Continental Theatre to make way for Close Encounters.
The Making of Star Wars (Enhanced Edition) Page 50
