From Spielberg to Cronenberg: the legendary directors George Lucas wanted to take over ‘Star Wars’
For a filmmaker responsible for reshaping the entire landscape of Hollywood with a single motion picture and launching a pop culture behemoth that’s reaped billions upon billions in revenue and remains as popular as ever, George Lucas never seemed too keen on the idea of directing Star Wars.
After the opening chapter in the epic sci-fi saga shattered box office records to become the highest-grossing release in cinema history and won eight Academy Awards in addition to further nominations for ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Original Screenplay’, and ‘Best Supporting Actor’, Lucas was a made man.
He had the creative freedom to continue the story however he saw fit, betting big on himself by funding the entire production budget of The Empire Strikes Back out of his own pocket. Of course, bets don’t come much safer, but the creator of a galaxy far, far away went out of his way to ensure he wasn’t the person wielding the megaphone.
Irvin Kershner helmed the follow-up, and Richard Marquand took the reins on Return of the Jedi, but they were far from being the only two names under consideration. In fact, Lucas courted some of the most notable auteurs in the business to try and entice them with the prospect of tackling a Star Wars blockbuster, and that became a recurring trend that followed him right through to the prequel trilogy.
David Cronenberg declined Return of the Jedi to focus on Videodrome because he wasn’t interested in directing material written by other people, with Kershner having already ruled himself out of the running after becoming exhausted by its predecessor. David Lynch also said thanks but no thanks, as did Lucas’ close friend Steven Spielberg.
When Lucas decided that technology had sufficiently caught up to his vision to make a return to Star Wars a viable enterprise almost a decade and a half after Return of the Jedi, he still only ended up wielding the megaphone on The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith because he felt he had to.
Once again, Spielberg was offered the chance to take on a Star Wars flick, and once again, he passed. Casting his eye towards two vastly experienced filmmakers familiar with effects-heavy undertakings, he knew very well from their time spent working with Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic, the plaid-loving world-builder inquired as to whether Robert Zemeckis or Ron Howard could be convinced.
Once again, though, he was knocked back. Zemeckis was too busy with Cast Away and What Lies Beneath, while Howard admitted that “it was an honour” to be hand-selected by Lucas for The Phantom Menace, even if it was “too daunting” an offer for him to accept.
Howard did at least get his shot eventually when he stepped in at the last minute to replace fired directorial duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller on the prequel spinoff Solo, but in the end, Lucas was left with no other viable candidate to direct the fourth, fifth, and sixth Star Wars movies than himself.
