George Lucas Was Blunt About His Expectations For Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
One of the things that gets lost when you look back on the incredible history of "Star Wars" as a franchise was just how precarious the whole Lucasfilm empire (no pun intended) was between the release of the original 1977 classic and its first sequel "The Empire Strikes Back." George Lucas is a genius for about a billion different reasons, but how he navigated Lucasfilm through this time period and somehow ended up not only controlling the rights to his creation but also producing the (arguably) best installment of the entire franchise is about the height of his business acumen.
Remember, Fox owned "Star Wars." They bought the pitch from Lucas and funded it, which meant Fox owned "Star Wars," not George Lucas. What Lucas was able to do in those original contracts with the studio was to claim a few key points that most folks ignored in their deal memos, most notably more control over the sequels and total control over merchandising.
As he explained to AFI in 2000, Fox was overjoyed to make that deal because they didn't really think the movie was going to blow up the way it did, and by giving Lucas those points in the contract, they saved themselves a significant amount of upfront money.
Lucas put his money where he mouth was
Now, when "Star Wars" became the phenomenon that it did, that's when things got tricky. The short version of how things shook out for the "Star Wars" sequel is that Lucas once again appealed to the studio's natural hesitance to spend money and offered to fund the sequel himself if they gave him total control of the rights. He'd sell them the distribution rights, but that was so low a risk for them that if "Star Wars" proved to be a one-hit wonder, they wouldn't be taken to the cleaners. Lucas would be the one to lose the bank, not Fox.
It's easy to look back now and see the multi-billion dollars Fox lost out on, but you also have to consider that if Fox had been steadfast and retained the sequel rights, there's no guarantee Lucas would have stayed involved and "Star Wars" could have gone the way of, say, "Jaws 2" after the auteur left and fizzled out.
But Lucas bet the farm (or, more accurately, the ranch) on his "Star Wars" sequel, which he was able to do because of the huge profits from merchandising on that first film, and the rest is history.
The business maneuvering complete, that just left one very crucial step: delivering a good sequel.
The future of Star Wars lived or died on the success of its first sequel
In the year 2023 we can confidently look back and say Lucas had nothing to worry about, but the man gambled everything he'd earned and built from "American Graffiti," "THX 1138," and "Star Wars" on whether or not audiences wanted more from this surprise hit — not to mention if he could make them happy even if they did show up.
It's easier said than done to make a good sequel. Just look at, like, 90% of the Part 2s that have failed miserably. Add on to that the fact that Lucas himself wasn't directing, and you had all the makings of a real shoot and a miss from team Lucasfilm.
This pressure was felt by the whole creative team. In a 2000 interview with "Star Wars Insider," director Irvin Kershner said that Lucas was very blunt with him about what was at stake when he took this job:
"When I talked to George about it before I took the movie, he explained something. He said, 'Look, the second film of the 'Star Wars' trilogy, if it isn't as good or better than 'Star Wars,' it won't be a series. It'll die right there. It's got to stand up to the original and go beyond it, if possible.' George wanted me to make a better picture than 'Star Wars.' But of course he did the original groundwork, and what I did was make it as good as possible."
Can you imagine that pressure? "Oh, nothing. You just have to make a movie as good or better than one of the most beloved movies ever made or we're all screwed."
Thankfully, Kershner was able to pull it off thanks to the talented cast and crew and we, the fans, got one of the best movies of the whole series out of this incredibly pressure cooker of a situation.