The Star Wars Money Machine

Darth Cola writes " The Star Wars franchise has made George Lucas plenty rich. But his fortune is only a peice of a much bigger financial pie, one which Forbes.com estimates at just shy of $20 billion. They have a rundown of the Star Wars financial empire, and a market by market breakdown of where the money comes from." From the article: "It all started with a story treatment, handwritten in pencil on a few sheets of lined yellow legal paper. That's all that existed of the multibillion-dollar financial empire, now known as the Star Wars universe, when filmmaker George Lucas sat down in 1974 to write what, within three years, would be the biggest meteor to hit Hollywood since there's been a Hollywood."

Comments

Story treatment

[Jugalator]

It all started with a story treatment, handwritten in pencil on a few sheets of lined yellow legal paper.

Which looked something like this, for those of you who haven't seen it...

Here's also a small discussion on how the script evolved.

Re:George Lucas

[Slider451]

Star Trek was still dead

True.

Galactica was camp, and out of nowhere came this shining new well crafted "Space Opera".

Galactica didn't come out until after Star Wars, riding on its coattails, as did Buck Rogers.

The only 70s SF shows of any significance I can think of that came out before Star Wars were Space:1999, another timeless classic that has aged quite well; and Dr. Who, when Tom Baker was the Doctor.

Re:That was then

[The One and Only]

With PM, we saw large portions of the movie given over to selling a video game.

If you're talking about the pod race, and the subsequent release of "Episode I Racer"...bullshit. Not only does Lucas put high-speed "thrill rides" into his movies just on general principle (the Death Star in ANH, the speeder bikes in ROTJ, the street race in American Graffiti, the climatic car chase in THX 1138), he was also making a gratuitious homage to the chariot race in Ben-Hur. [1] [2]