The three adverts taken out by Spielberg and Lucas to celebrate the successes of each other’s films.
1) Sent from Spielberg to Lucas in 1977 to celebrate Star Wars beating Jaws’s box office record.
2) Sent by Lucas to Spielberg in 1982 to celebrate E.T. beating Star Wars’s box office record.
3) Sent by Spielberg to Lucas in 1997 to celebrate the successful re-release of the Star Wars trilogy.
Spielberg was one of a number of directors considered as a potential director of Return of the Jedi before it went to Richard Marquand. However, he couldn’t accept the role due to George’s Lucas’s ongoing dispute with the Directors’ Guild of America.
More information on this and other films Spielberg almost made can be found in From Director Steven Spielberg’s Lost Spielberg section.
Steven Spielberg visited the set of The Phantom Menace. George Lucas showed him the special effects crew’s latest product - a Battle Droid.
Spielberg then accidentally ripped its arm off.
Following Spielberg’s Jaws-themed ad to Lucas in 1977, and Lucas’s E.T. themed ad for Spielberg in 1982, Spielberg completed the trilogy with this ad for Lucas to celebrate the box office success of the Star Wars Special Editions in 1997.
Source: Reddit
When Star Wars knocked Jaws off its box office throne in 1977, Spielberg published this open letter to George Lucas in Variety to congratulate his friend on his success.
Lucas responded in kind when E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial broke box office records in 1982.
Happy Star Wars Day everybody!
With the Star Wars baton passed to Disney and J.J. Abrams, George Lucas is now turning his attention to other projects, notably the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum that he’s looking to set up in San Francisco.
He’s up against two other projects looking to secure the available land in San Fran, but has a great plan, more than enough money and a very noble aim - to celebrate the art of visual storytelling.
I really hope Lucas gets the go-ahead for this as visual storytelling isn’t celebrated enough and Lucas has a proven track record for innovation that is too often overlooked. Under his stewardship this museum could be very special indeed.
On a personal note, I’ve got a real passion for preserving cultural history; indeed one of the reasons I set up this blog is to preserve and highlight Spielberg’s history. I’ve always wanted to be a curator or archivist and my wild, never-gonna-happen ambition is to perform that role in an official capacity for Spielberg (my email address is on the left if you’re reading, Steven). Hey, a guy can dream can’t he…
The Lucas Cultural Arts Museum is an endeavour well worth supporting and you can do just that by following them on Facebook and Twitter.
An online archive covering all things Steven Spielberg. Interviews, magazine features, reviews, analyses, posters...anything and everything relating to the director of 'Jaws', 'ET', 'Jurassic Park', 'Close Encounters' and a host of other classic films will be covered here.
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From Director Steven Spielberg is written by Paul Bullock. You can follow me on Twitter or get in touch via email.
I am also the author of the book From Director Steven Spielberg: Jurassic Park. It can be downloaded for free from Smashwords or read on my website.
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