Star Wars' First Theater Showings Ended In A $25,000 Fine For 20th Century Fox
In the 1970s, no one expected the first "Star Wars" movie to be such a runaway hit, least of all theater exhibitors. Writer-director George Lucas famously shopped around his script to studios like United Artists, Universal Pictures, and even future Lucasfilm owner Disney, according to Vanity Fair, but he couldn't secure financing with any of them. Though Lucas had already earned two Academy Award nominations for his pre-"Star Wars" masterpiece, "American Graffiti," his previous foray into science fiction, "THX 1138," had fared less successful. It was only 20th Century Fox, led by Alan Ladd Jr. at the time, that was willing to take a chance on Lucas and his space opera.
Getting "Star Wars" made was just the first step for Lucas. Fox had to distribute it next, and as Mental Floss notes, it was afraid the movie would flop if released as part of a packed summer schedule ("A Bridge Too Far," "The Deep," "The Spy Who Loved Me"). This resulted in Fox rescheduling the movie for May 25, 1977, the Friday before Memorial Day, which would go on to become the informal start of the summer movie season, thanks to "Star Wars."
The only problem was, this put the opening of "Star Wars" within two weeks of the opening of another Fox film, "The Other Side of Midnight," based on the New York Times bestselling book by TV-writer-turned-novelist Sidney Sheldon, the creator of "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Hart to Hart." Initially, "The Other Side of Midnight" was expected to be more of a success than "Star Wars," but as moviegoers began lining up around the block to see Lucas's film instead, the studio suddenly found itself having to push for more theaters to show "The Other Side of Midnight."
A wretched hive of scum and block booking
An article in The Montreal Gazette dated September 15, 1978 details how a district court judge punished Fox with a $25,000 fine for engaging in the practice of block booking: a violation of antitrust law, and the kind of thing they'd probably do in "a wretched hive of scum and villainy" like the Mos Eisley spaceport. The court indicted Fox's Boston and Minneapolis offices for forcing theaters to show "The Other Side of Midnight" if they wanted to capitalize on the popularity of "Star Wars" and show it, too.
Even in 1977, $25,000 was a drop in the bucket for "Star Wars," which had made almost $200 million domestically on an $11 million budget by the end of the year (per Box Office Mojo). Since VHS had only just been invented the year before and the home video market had yet to really take off, movies could be expected to enjoy longer theatrical runs than they do now.
By September 1978, "Star Wars" had increased its box-office haul to over a quarter of a billion dollars, becoming the highest-grossing film to date, so Fox could afford to plead no contest to the charges and pay the fine without admitting guilt. However, it wouldn't be the last time that a studio distributing a "Star Wars" film was accused of shady business tactics.
In 2015, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino accused Disney of using "extortionist practices" to force "The Hateful Eight" out of the Cinerama Dome in L.A. so that it could continue showing "The Force Awakens" there, while also monopolizing its own El Capitan Theatre and the nearby TCL Chinese Theater. In the game of theatrical holochess, it seems the distributors of "Star Wars" will do whatever it takes to pull off a commercial checkmate.