Star Wars is now one of the most popular movies ever. However, creator George Lucas actually wanted to make a different film. That didn’t happen, much to the delight of Star Wars fans.
In 1971, Lucas directed his first feature film, THX 1138, which already dealt with the science fiction genre. The second film, American Graffiti, told the story of a group of young people in the USA who spend one last night together.
Only four years later, Star Wars followed and laid the foundation for a franchise that still exists today and enjoys great popularity – despite regular controversies. However, George Lucas originally had other plans; Star Wars was a stopgap at that time. The director would have much preferred to adapt a well-known series for the cinema.
Bad luck for Lucas, good luck for Star Wars
What film did Lucas want to make? The director was a fan of Flash Gordon. It is a space story that originally began as a comic. After that, several cheaply produced films followed.
George Lucas was aware that these films were of low quality. In Michael Kaminski’s book “The Secret History of Star Wars”, he is quoted as saying:
I especially loved the “Flash Gordon” series… Of course, I know now how clumsy and poorly made they were… I loved them so much when they were still so terrible that I wondered what would happen if they were really well made.
George Lucas
In other words: Lucas planned his own film that would be of higher quality than the previous ones.
Unfortunately, there was a problem: The rights for the film adaptation were at that time held by the Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis. He did not want to give the rights to Lucas because he had the great Italian director Federico Fellini in mind for the directing position.
Disappointed, Lucas left a meeting with the producer and reportedly told his friend Francis Ford Coppola (the director of The Godfather) in frustration that he now wanted to plan his own version of a space saga.
Done deal: Rejection can sometimes lead to creative highs, as it did for George Lucas. Instead of filming Flash Gordon, he quickly invented his own story and made film history with Star Wars – even though Lucas feared it would be a flop at first.
And the actual Flash Gordon movie? It only came to fruition years later, in 1980, but without Federico Fellini. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film still holds a rating of 83%.
Do you know Flash Gordon and its films? What do you think of them? Feel free to let us know in the comments. Just a few years after the release of Star Wars, its creator George Lucas got into a dispute with another franchise: George Lucas sued a sci-fi epic over similarities to Star Wars – the legal dispute lasted longer than the series
