We won’t have George Lucas to kick around anymore. Maybe.
Lucas, who produced and financed Red Tails, the just-opened drama about the Tuskegee Airmen, says he is through with the blockbuster movie business. One of the men most responsible for the ascendancy of expensive, high-concept, comic book-style action fare says he wants to make small, independent films now.
“I’m retiring,” he told the New York Times in a story in which he also describes how the major studios all dissed him when he pitched Red Tails to them (executives at one studio didn’t even attend the screening). “I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff,” Lucas says.
Millions of baby boomers would cheer if that were true. Many of them revile Lucas for ruining their fond memories of the original three Star Wars films with his digital tinkering and (most egregiously) for releasing a trilogy of fantastically lucrative but much-hated prequels for a new generation.
But don’t cheer too soon. Before he retreats to smallville, Lucas may make a fifth Indiana Jones movie (despite the bad taste the last one left in the mouth of many fans of the earlier three).
Here is the New York Times story.
Eric Harrison has reported on film and reviewed movies for the Los Angeles Times and the Houston Chronicle, where he was chief film critic for five years. He has won awards for his film criticism and reporting. He teaches journalism at Texas Southern University in Houston. 