Interview: George Lucas
I happened to tune in NPR’s “Fresh Air” the other day and there was George Lucas being interviewed to promote his new book “George Lucas’s Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success”. And while the decidedly left-brain approach of the book — going through endless files to uncover production budgets, actual box office totals, and so on — would seem to result in something less than entertaining, it sounds like precisely the opposite.
Here are some excerpts of the interview with guest host David Bianculli:
BIANCULLI: But it’s probably accurate though. It’s okay. One of the things that’s in this book, I should describe to people that there’s all these charts, there’s all these lists. There’s all these little side things, and then each film is described, and then there are stories and show-biz stories and financial stories, and you find out these interesting little factoids all the way through.
I didn’t know, for example, that Meg Ryan and Molly Ringwald were up for “Pretty Woman” before Julia Roberts got it, or that “Butch Cassidy” is the number one Western of all time.
Mr. LUCAS: Well, there’s a lot of — there’s a lot of mythology around the movie business, and this pretty much pokes a hole in all of it, because that was the point of the book, to say all right, let’s remove all the hype and let’s just get down to the raw facts. And they’re more fascinating, personally, I think, than the hype is.
I mean, there are things, you know, I even learn things. In mean in 1910 the average ticket price was $6 or 6.50. Today, the average ticket price is $6.50. You know, I — you know, I just made my assumptions based like everybody else does, but the cost of a ticket hasn’t changed at all.
You know, obviously in the big cities it’s more, and in the small towns it’s less, but the average is pretty much the same as it was back in, you know, 1920.
BIANCULLI: One cost that I’m sure has gone up, the music rights for “American Graffiti” in this book — because I’ve always wondered about that, because “American Graffiti” was your movie. It really started the nostalgia music craze, and you were able to get what was then a two-album but I guess a two-CD or just a two-album set of songs, 40 songs, for $80,000. Now, what do you think that would cost you today?
Mr. LUCAS: Well, that’s not actually what happened. When we did the movie — you know, it was a very low-budget movie, $700,000, and they said the music budget can’t be over 10 percent of the movie, and of course nobody wanted me to do that. They said you can’t just put that much music in a movie, it won’t work. And you can’t — you have to score it. You can’t just throw songs on it. It’s not going to work. It’s because nobody had ever done it before.
So I did it. We made the movie. We put the music in there. It was $70,000, and at the time we said, look, for another $5,000 per song we can get you the record rights to this. And they said no, no, no, no, we don’t want any record rights. We don’t want anything.
And then they came back a year later, and again, we were bringing these — you know, nobody knew who the owners of these songs were and all kinds of things because it was real — about a period of music where there wasn’t much organization. And so you know, sometimes we’d go to people who had records in their garage, and the rights, you know, and the masters and everything.
So a year later, the studio went to do an album after the film was a giant hit, and it cost them a million dollars…
And then Lucas confirms the longstanding rumor about a swap he and Spielberg did:
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I’m David Bianculli in for Terry Gross.
We’re talking to George Lucas whose latest project is a massive new book about the history of quality in popular filmmaking called “George Lucas’ Blockbusting.” When we left off, were talking about his own history of filmmaking, hanging out with other young friends in the business.
One story about your filmmaking friends in your earlier days — and I don’t know that this is true, but I’d liked to confirm it if I can, because I think it’s a wonderful story — that you and Steven Spielberg, at one point in your careers, each thought that the other one was coming out with a blockbuster. And so you traded points so that you would actually have some sort of a financial remuneration from the other’s film, in case the other one did better. Is that true?
Mr. LUCAS: Yeah, that is true, actually. And we were, in those days, you know, it was very — it was the ‘60s.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. LUCAS: And it was a different world. It was sort of a communal world, where everybody helped each other. Everybody encouraged everybody. Everybody shared with everybody — and then we did that way. Of course, you know, none of us knew these films were going to be hits.
BIANCULLI: Well, that’s what I love about it.
Mr. LUCAS: I mean Steve…
BIANCULLI: Yeah.
Mr. LUCAS: Steve may have come out ahead because he said I know this is going to be a hit. I certainly didn’t know it was a hit. So, you know I…
BIANCULLI: But what films are we talking about here?
Mr. LUCAS: Well, that was “Close Encounters” and “Star Wars.”
(Soundbite of laughter)
BIANCULLI: Oh. Oh.
Mr. LUCAS: So we were…
BIANCULLI: Not a bad couple of films to throw money around on a bet.
Mr. LUCAS: Yeah. Well, in the end it was, you know, I thought he had the better film and he thought I had the better film and he won. I had the better film.
Spielberg took points on Star Wars: A New Hope and Lucas took points on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. What a hoot.
For a transcript of the interview, go here.
And for the podcast, go here.
UPDATE: In comments, Trellick Tower asked:
Can you explain the “taking points” thing? Does it mean Spielberg got the money from Lucas’ percentage of Star Wars?
Points are a percentage of the overall movie’s revenue. There are “net” points, which is based on the profits a movie nets (after expenses), and “gross” points, which generally speaking is based on gross dollars. There are many definitions of the latter — “dollar one gross” which is the percentage kicks right-away to more watered down versions that are tied to including some expenses — but obviously you prefer a gross position, rather than a net position. This is especially true because of the studios’, shall we say, creative bookkeeping habits. [Do a Google search on “Paramount lawsuit Coming to America Art Buchwald” and you’ll see what I’m talking about].
Net points are pretty much a joke. Except for in the case of movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Paranormal Activity, or Sex, Lies & Videotape, where the prod budget is extremely low and the revenues are extremely high, it’s rare for a net participant to see any $$. In fact, when K-9 sold and Siegel & Myers had an office on the Universal lot, I had a conversation with someone a U’s biz affairs office who said that the only person he knew who had seen net profit dollars was Spielberg (he was probably referring to Jaws).
Which brings us back to Spielberg & Lucas, and their deal. I’m guessing they swapped net points, but they may have had enough clout at that point to negotiate for gross points. But the long answer to your question is basically what you said: Lucas got his directing fees for Star Wars, and Spielberg got his directing fees for Close Encounters. But they swapped their profit participation positions so that Spielberg got points on Star Wars and Lucas got points on Close Encounter. While both movies did good business, SW was a huge blockbuster, so Spielberg (in theory) made a lot more $$ on that part of the deal than Lucas did.
But I don’t think Lucas shed any tears over how he did.
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