The 2012 movie George Lucas had to pay for himself: “We don’t even want to bother to see it”
George Lucas’ greatest passion project had nothing to do with the galaxy far, far away.
George Lucas is so renowned for his work creating the Star Wars franchise, which influenced the industry in unfathomable ways, that he is perhaps a bit underrated for the work he did outside of the galaxy far, far away. While Lucas only directed two-non Star Wars films, THX-1138 and American Graffitti, he revolutionized special effects, sound, and distribution for all of Hollywood, all whilst helping to produce and co-create projects for his friends.
Lucas isn’t always given credit for his role in the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s Tucker: A Man and His Dream, Ron Howard’s Willow, Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior, Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat, or Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal, mostly because of how humble he was. While Lucas was involved in many other projects in the ‘80s and ‘90s, his focus was almost entirely on the Star Wars prequel trilogy during the early 21st century.
One passion project that Lucas had been passionate about since first learning about the story in 1988 was Red Tails, a World War II adventure film based on the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African-American fighter pilots who went on dangerous missions. Although Star Wars was itself somewhat inspired by World War II epics, Red Tails was what Lucas imagined to be a true dogfight film, and one that had an inspirational story that would resonate with the audience. However, Lucas faced difficulties financing the film for over a decade, and had to set it aside when the prequels and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull took up his attention.
Although rounding off the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises finally gave Lucas the time to dedicate all of his attention to Red Tails, he was shocked to find that no studios were interested in the pitch, despite the passion he had. After financing the film itself and handing over directorial duties to Anthony Hemingway, Lucas was astonished to find that executives wouldn’t even show up to see Red Tails.
Lucas has always been a rebel who has spoken out against the creative roadblocks caused by big studios, and his experience with Red Tails crystalized the points that he had been making for years. Lucas famously had to self-finance Star Wars because no studio would take a chance on it, and none of the saga’s success was enough to get investors interested in Red Tails.
He would imply in later interviews that it was a result of racism, as marketing departments would falsely claim that it was impossible to sell a film with an African-American cast in overseas territories. While the success of Sinners and Black Panther obviously proved that to not be true, Red Tails was, at the time of its release, the first action film with an all-Black ensemble.
That Red Tails underperformed at the box office isn’t a surprise, given that it was at a disadvantage marketing itself because it didn’t have the backing of the studio. It obviously didn’t cause Lucas too much harm, as it was later the same year that he sold Lucasfilm to the Walt Disney Company for over $4 billion and officially retired from filmmaking altogether.
Nonetheless, it is unfortunate that the final creative enterprise from one of the most successful filmmakers of all-time was not treated as a significant event.
