About 25 years ago, young director George Lucas had done a deal with one of the big studios, 20th Century Fox, to make his dream science-fiction project, Star Wars. However, Lucas - having just had a hit with American Graffiti - figured he was now worth a bigger fee than originally agreed. No way, said Fox. But as a compromise the studio agreed that Lucas could have full ownership of any sequels or prequels to tar Wars. (No one, except maybe Lucas himself, expected any sequels or prequels; Fox couldn't have known just how much money that decision would cost the studio, and how rich it would make Lucas.)
Now Fox is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation media empire. Since the new Star Wars film is entirely financed by Lucasfilm, the director's own company, the only way to get an irresistible piece of this action is to distribute the movie to cinemas. And sure enough, Fox has secured the distribution rights to the whole Star Wars prequel trilogy.
When two years ago George Lucas announced that he was about to embark on filming the first three parts of his proposed nine-film Star Wars series, he only intensified the habitual speculation surrounding one of Hollywood's hottest properties. As if to remind people of the reason for all the scuttle-but, he then re-released a digitally enhanced "Special Edition" of the original trilogy. Much of the speculation centred on who would win the rights to distribute the new films.
Even though Fox had distributed the original films and shared in the success of the re-released Special Edition, their participation in the new series was not at all assured. Lucasfilm self-financed the shooting of the new film and left the studios competing against each other as they sought to obtain the distribution rights for the new series. Many thought that Lucas's friend and Indiana Jones collaborator, Steven Spielberg, would win the coveted rights for his Dreamworks studio.
Instead Lucasfilm and Fox announced the deal. It would have been a hugely embarrassing failure if Fox had not acquired the rights: David Picker, of United Artists, and Ned Tanen, of Universal, are still remembered as the men who turned down the original Star Wars back in the early 1970s. Such a long memory might seem unreasonable if not for the scale of the phenomenon they forfeited. In financial terms, the Star Wars films dwarf all other competition. The first trilogy grossed well over $1 billion in box-office receipts, while selling over $4.5 in merchandise, including 50 million videos. Star Wars toys recouped $625 million in 1997 alone. Lucasfilm is believed to make $900 million a year, while Lucas's fortune was estimated by Forbes magazine as $2 billion.
With all that in mind, it seemed only a touch excessive when the Fox Group chairman and chief executive, Peter Chernin, described the deal as "one of the privileges of my career".
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