Hollywood studios lack 'imagination' says guy who bled Star Wars dry for 30 years

Well 37 years, and counting

Christopher Hooton
Tuesday 21 October 2014 15:26 BST
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George Lucas has criticised the major Hollywood film studios, saying they lack "talent" and "imagination" and have been overrun by corporations.

His criticisms might be valid, given that we can soon look forward to Captain America 5: Age of Iron Man v Guardians of Future Past hitting cinemas, if a little hard to swallow from the man who repeatedly re-trod Star Wars, arguably added characters based on merchandising options and eventually sold the franchise to Walt Disney Studios two years ago.

"The problem has always been the studios," Lucas told Charlie Rose on CBS This Morning.

"Although the beginning of the studios, the entrepreneurs who ran the studios were sort of creative guys. They would just take books and turn them into movies and do things like that.

"Suddenly all these corporations were coming in. They didn't know anything about the movie business.

"The studios went back to saying, 'Well we don't trust you people and we think we know how to make movies'," Lucas continued. "The studios change everything all the time. And, unfortunately, they don't have any imagination and they don't have any talent."

In spite of the fairly bleak situation American cinema finds itself in, Lucas did acknowledge that a small amount of talent is still fostered by the studio system, but made it clear he thinks this is now by far in the minority.

Star Wars 7, which is produced by Walt Disney Pictures and directed by JJ Abrams, is set to wrap in the next three weeks.

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