London Calling: Star Wars in the United Kingdom

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By Lucas Seastrom

On his 27th birthday in 1971, George Lucas flew to London. It had been a tumultuous period. His debut feature film THX 1138 had been released by American Zoetrope and Warner Brothers, and was even selected for the Director’s Circle at the Cannes Film Festival (his reason for going to Europe on a shoestring budget). But the film’s lackluster performance at the box office had combined with existing issues between Zoetrope and Warner’s. On the way to London, Lucas and his then-wife, Marcia, stopped in New York to see Francis Ford Coppola who was directing an adaptation of a popular gangster novel for Paramount, The Godfather (1972). Coppola was directing the film in part to help rescue Zoetrope from its dire financial straits.

Arriving in London on May 14, his first time in the city, Lucas phoned movie executive David Picker from United Artists, and managed to convince him to provide seed money for the project that became American Graffiti (1973). Newly unaffiliated, Lucas was in the process of starting up a company to be named Lucasfilm as a means of shepherding his own projects. Traveling south from London, the young filmmaker arrived in Cannes to meet with Picker, who asked him about any other projects he might have in mind…

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