67-year-old “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas tells The New York Times that this week’s “Red Tails” marks his (supposed) last venture into blockbuster filmmaking.
“I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff” Lucas told the paper, but apparently was careful enough to leave himself an out clause for a fifth “Indiana Jones” film. As for further “Star Wars” films? “Why would I make any more when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”
His producing partner Rick McCallum says “Once this [“Red Tails”] is finished, he’s done everything he’s ever wanted to do. He will have completed his task as a man and a filmmaker.” Lucas now plans to focus on personal films that will be “small in scope, esoteric in subject and screened mostly in art houses”.
While Fox is distributing “Red Tails”, they’re not saddling any of the costs with Lucas himself paying for the entire production, marketing and distribution out of his own pocket.
Steven Spielberg previously accepted the blame for the ‘nuke the fridge’ moment in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. Asked about that, Lucas says “It’s not true. He’s trying to protect me”. He goes on to say initially Spielberg didn’t believe the scene would work until Lucas put together a six-inch thick dossier proving Indy could survive such an event – “The odds of surviving that refrigerator — from a lot of scientists — are about 50-50.”
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