George Lucas: Still Planning To Make Films, But They Won't Be Shown In Theaters

from the interesting... dept

Mon, Nov 5th 2012 2:56pm — Mike Masnick

Back in 2006, we wrote about George Lucas claiming that the $200 million feature film was dead and that he was going to focus on making much cheaper videos for TV or online. That's not entirely what's happened in the interim, but it appears that he may be more serious about focusing on such things now that he's handed over Lucasfilm to Disney. In an interview about what he's working on next, he said that he's still going to make films, but he doesn't expect that they'll be for theater viewing:

His last film was this year's "Red Tails," which told the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, a legendary black flight unit formed in 1941 that debunked widely held beliefs that black pilots were incapable of fighting in combat. While he described that film as a labor of love, he said, "I'm going to go further out than that. I barely got 'Red Tails' into the theaters. The ones I'm working on now will never get into the theaters."

That could mean a lot of different things, but it would be cool to see someone like Lucas really embrace the internet...

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Filed Under: films, george lucas

22 Comments

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Ed C., 5 Nov 2012 @ 3:14pm

Since the boxoffice has been taken over by clones, the old master might as well give up and go into retirement. I've heard that Dagobah has some nice waterfront properties.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2012 @ 3:29pm

Well he has four billion reasons to make cheaper stuff now.

"His last film was this year's "Red Tails," which told the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, a legendary black flight unit formed in 1941 that debunked widely held beliefs that black pilots were incapable of fighting in combat. While he described that film as a labor of love,"

Well too little to late there, movies and documentary's were made that were a whole lot better and cheaper than Red Tails. He and that movie did little to shine any light on those brave people.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2012 @ 3:53pm

Re:
"Red Tails" barely made it to theaters because it was poorly made and had to be completely rewritten and reshot. That's his own fault.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2012 @ 4:08pm

So Disney is going to transform Star Wars into their usual shitty direct-to-video sequels while George is going to make shitty direct-to-video films himself?
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Michael Long (profile), 5 Nov 2012 @ 4:11pm

Re: Re:
Red Tails was typical Lucas: Wooden characters, plodding lot line, and lots and lots of loving CGI work on the fighter sequences...
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2012 @ 4:34pm

The ones I'm working on now will never get into the theaters

Hopefully he'll use his billions on time traveling and apply this plan to the Star Wars prequels.
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gorehound (profile), 5 Nov 2012 @ 4:36pm

Re:
And Hoth has great potential for Ski Resorts.
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ebilrawkscientist (profile), 5 Nov 2012 @ 5:41pm

OMGHERD Lucas!
Tuskegee Airmen, really; or was that a veiled reference to Tusken Raiders? Similarities, no? Airmen may have been good smugglers, but now they're Bantha fodder!
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 5 Nov 2012 @ 6:17pm

Re:
I was pondering this sort of thing, and I was left wondering if he had indeed surrendered all of the SW properties to the mouse.
See because a smart Disney exec would be rushing to get the unLucasified Star Wars Trilogy into stores for Christmas.
And there is this little embarrassing thing that the fans have been demanding for years - The Star Wars Christmas Special.
The House of Mouse could make a killing and earn enough good will that the fans would gladly plunk down the cash to see the next 2 of the 3 planned movies.
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Cosmicrat, 5 Nov 2012 @ 7:02pm

Red Tails was decent
Everyone hates on that film. I kind of liked it. Sure it was cartoonish, but that throwback to an earlier more corny style of storytelling has always been one of Lucas' hallmarks. It is by no means a great movie, but a good B movie.

To those of you who hated "Red Tails": what would you consider a good movie?
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IronM@sk, 5 Nov 2012 @ 7:25pm

Re:
Since the boxoffice has been taken over by clones

I see what you did there.
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Indie films, 5 Nov 2012 @ 8:37pm

I just had a vision of George Lucas and Joss Whedon teaming up to make an epic scifi internet genre bending extravaganza thing.

But in all seriousness, even if that doesn't happen it's great that Lucas is exploring different options. Hopefully others will follow his example, he's no stranger to blazing new trails in the film world.
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Ed C., 5 Nov 2012 @ 9:17pm

Re: Re:
The farce is strong in this one, it is. :P
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DogBreath, 5 Nov 2012 @ 10:09pm

Re: Re:
And there is this little embarrassing thing that the fans have been demanding for years - The Star Wars Christmas Special.

Don't forget to include "Return of the Ewok", so "the circle will be complete".

So Disney is going to take over Star Wars, what could possibly go wrong?

Well... I suspect it could go down like this.
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The eejit (profile), 6 Nov 2012 @ 12:04am

Re: Re: Re:
Meesa gonna get-ya! Messa gonna make-ya watch meesa all the time!
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Nov 2012 @ 3:37am

"What do you call a black guy flying a plane?"

"I don't know. What?"

"A pilot, you racist!"
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 6 Nov 2012 @ 6:26am

Re: Re: Re:
But but... I hate sand! It's coarse and it gets into everything unlike you, Padme!
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jupiterkansas (profile), 6 Nov 2012 @ 8:08am

Lucas is an old fan of experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage and has threatened for years - decades in fact - to retreat into his corner and go make weird little experimental movies like when he did THX-1138.

Instead, he retreated into his corner and created nothing but slick, commercial product for 40 years.

Personally, I'd be very excited to see those experimental films, but I'm not holding my breath.
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art guerrilla (profile), 6 Nov 2012 @ 8:47am

Re: Re:
*just* happened to catch this movie the other night, and while it wasn't awful, it wasn't nearly as good as the other Tuskeegee Airmen movie which covered a lot of the same ground (air?)...
not saying he shouldn't be proud he did a movie about that (but, um, it was *already* done, and done well), but maybe if he paid attention to the actual movie rather than HIS 'pride' of 'doing good', he would have shot a better film...
just sayin'...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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orbitalinsertion (profile), 6 Nov 2012 @ 9:37am

Quick, someone hide the internet from Lucas.
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orbitalinsertion (profile), 6 Nov 2012 @ 9:40am

Re: Re:
They can keep all sorts of Star Wars copyrights extended forever! Immortality!
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minijedimaster (profile), 6 Nov 2012 @ 11:23am

Why can't he just go buy an island and bring food to the poor in Africa like all the other has been sell out retirees do.
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