George Lucas 'All Set for Failure' after Star Wars projects

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More from my conversation with George Lucas this past Sunday night (you can read Part 1 of this interview in Monday's column):

The director says he's got plans for his post-Star Wars career. After 30 years of being tied up with the phenomenally successful series, Lucas will set off to make "more personal" films after 2005.

"I'm going to go from complete success to complete failure," he told me, without a wink or a smile. On the contrary, Lucas said he anticipates utter rejection from his fans once Star Wars concludes. "I'm going to make a bunch of movies like THX," he said, referring to his earliest effort. "And if people don't like it, too bad. There will be no Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan for me," he said of pal Steven Spielberg's "serious" movies."There won't be any big dramas or Oscars."

Lucas did tell me that of the current movies in release, he loved Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. "We showed a print of it at the Skywalker Ranch," he said. "I was amazed by what he did with it and where he went. It was terrific."

But Lucas' own career is clearly on his mind these days. He's busy working on Chapter III of Star Wars, which links Attack of the Clones to the original Star Wars.

"I know what I want to do," he said. "It was mapped out from my original writing for 30 years. But still you have these two pieces — Clones and Chapter IV — and you have to make them fit together. You're going to see a lot about Anakin and Luke and Princess Leia's mother, all the adults. And of course Luke and Leia will be infants in it."

I asked him whether he cared about the criticism of Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin in Clones. "Not a bit," Lucas said, "this is a talented kid. Years from now people are going to say, was he always so good, and look at Clones, and realize yes."

Lucas also told me that he and Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson have become good friends, commiserating with each other in Australia and New Zealand on their shoots about making their two series.

"Essentially, Peter is making three three-hour movies out of one book," Lucas said. "And I'm making nine two-hour movies from one book." Of course, Lucas wrote his own book, but the mythology harkens back to Lord of the Rings. "We discuss it a lot because they are similar in nature," said Lucas.

I must say that I've met a few of my heroes in my lifetime and some of them have been disappointments. But George Lucas turned out to be refreshingly candid and enormously pleasant. We don't seem him in New York very often; I hope once Star Wars wraps for good he'll come here more often. And so, yes, "The Force" is with him!

From: Fox News

you guys are weird.

The part that caught my eye is that Lucas said he is doing "9 movies"

I've not been keeping up with Starwars news but last I heard he wasn't going to do episoded 7 - 9. Give more details if you got them.

I certainly hope he does 7-9, but it doesn't sound like it... I suppose we'll just have to see after III comes out.

Even so, I doubt Lucas will ever really FAIL. Even if no one comes to see his movies, which they will, and even if no one enjoys his movies, which some will... he'll never fail. He has enough money from Star Wars to last the rest of his life, and mine, and yours, all comfortably living in Malibu mansions. If he want's to spend the rest of his life making personal movies, let him. He'll have fun and do what he loves, and if the movies bomb and make no money, he'll have a few million left to keep him off the streets.

You know, that's a really good point. The books he wrote 20 years ago include 7-9, so I guess its up to him as to whether he'll build on Return of the Jedi...

either way, your point was something I hadn't thought of...

Yeah, I heard about episodes 7 - 9 but never heard of plans to make them. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Though to think about it... by the time George lucas finishes them, he'll be pretty old, the current Star Wars Movies are coming out pretty slowly considering. And I don't want to wait another 10 years to see the Star Wars DVD box set!

Or more likelly, DVD-RAM or some more sophisticated form of recording medium...

Hey gaboman, is your signature from Crocodile Dundee??