George Lucas Claims He’s Ready to Retire from Blockbuster

“I’m retiring,” Star Wars media emperor George Lucas recently told the NY Times, having toiled through today's difficult indie film climate to get his ambitious Red Tails into theaters. “I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff.” Or, as Lucas producer Rick McCallum put it: “Once this is finished, he’s done everything he’s ever wanted to do. He will have completed his task as a man and a filmmaker.” Say it ain't so, George! Wait, what's that? It's not really the end? Oh, you tease.


It turns out Lucas means he's retiring from making huge popcorn blockbuster films, the last of which (he hopes) will be the Tuskegee Airmen flick Red Tails, directed by Anthony Hemingway. The full NY Times profile is a fascinating peek into Lucas's self-image and future aspirations once Red Tails opens, or doesn't. As corny as he sounds when talking about the importance of the film and what it could mean for black film and black filmmakers, he's fairly upfront with his idealism. He embraces and acknowledges his own "naive" filmmaking style. He admits he made Red Tails "for black teenagers." He says Star Wars fanboy backlash following his numerous tweaks to the franchise have discouraged him from making more sequels. (Yay?)


Lucas’ “retiring” quote comes from an extensive profile of the filmmaker in the NY Times, in which he talks about the hardships of actually getting Red Tails made and distributed. He concedes that after looking at a three-part epic script that tackled the training of the Tuskegee airmen, the dogfights over Europe, and the racist atmosphere the airmen returned to after the war, Lucas realized he couldn’t make the Lawrence of Arabia version:


“I can’t make that movie. I’m going to have make this kind of . . . entertainment movie.”


Red Tails merely focuses on the middle part of the story; the one with all the action. The piece notes that Lucas has left himself an out clause for a fifth Indiana Jones film, but for the forseeable future he seems to be done writing, producing, or directing big-budget flicks. No Lucas interview would be complete without Star Wars talk, and the director had some choice words for fanboys:


“On the Internet, all those same guys that are complaining I made a change are completely changing the movie. I’m saying: ‘Fine. But my movie, with my name on it, that says I did it, needs to be the way I want it.’”


Regarding the possibility of any future Star Wars movies, Lucas was incredibly blunt:


“Why would I make any more, when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”


As many have said before, I’d be fine with Lucas making all the changes to Star Wars he wants if he would just make available the original versions with zero edits. Nevertheless, it sounds like we may or may not get some Lucas indies in the future. Regardless of my personal opinion of Lucas, I’m intrigued to see what kind of small-budget independent films he’ll roll out.