Hello Comics SF Fantasy UPDATE RHPS Dr.who Print Issues

Copyright © 2023 Rick and Ruth Coy

For those who were born after 1977 will never understand the impact Star Wars had on SF movies. Up till then SF movies with a very few exceptions were “B” movies - seen in double feature “B” houses and drive-in’s. SFX were stop motion at best and Spaceships were jokes (Major exceptions:”Day the Earth Stood Still” and “Forbidden Planet”) At the time that Star Wars came out we had theaters that showed 70mm films. This was a very large screen (when they started making the multi-plegs they could get three theatres out of one 70mm) Ruth and I saw Star Wars the first day it came out (it didn’t become “A New Hope” till much latter) This was a movie many were waiting for and going the first day looked like a long wait in line, but I notice the local theater didn’t list a six showing where on should be, so we decided to give it a try and sure enough we go right in along with a bunch who had come for the 9pm show early.

This came out at a time that theaters bid on show by offering a percentage of box office to the releasing company. For a block buster like Star Wars the bidding was high. Talking to the manager of the Theater we saw it in a few months latter (the show was still running) to get it they bid 98% of ticket sales. The tickets were around $2 each, which gave the theater four cents a person. I asked “How did you manage to stay open?” He said “we seated 2000 people four times a day and five on weekends and it averaged that each person spent about $5 in concessions”  And as the weeks went by the percentage would drop. In fact the high amount was just for opening weekends (why that is such an important figure to the movie companies) By the time the movie left 12 month latter the Theaters were making about 90% of ticket sales. (Which is why FOX pulled it 12 month after it was released and no one had it for 30 days, then they re-released it as a lease film- where they charged a set fee per showing - it may have gone on for two years if they hadn’t ended the original release - this is also why Star Wars is not the highest grossing film of all time. The lines never got shorter and was making big money for the theatres, but not for FOX. (A lot of sources do believe it to be Highest)

Now why this film is such an important part of SF movies - why it changed movies - why SF would never be a “B” movie just because of it genre again.

George Lucas was a genius. His film is an homage to some of the worse made movies ever - the serial. BUT, what would they have been like with good acting and good SFX.  The story we have seen a lot of times, it wasn’t new, but we had never seen it like this. ILM. The existing SFX of 1977 wouldn’t work for this movie. So a company was created to make them. Stop motion wouldn’t work. They didn’t use any of the Wizards of the time - because they wouldn’t believe what he wanted could be done…

Now most of the money that was raised would have to go to SFX…he was able to get Alex Guinness for points…he himself worked for the rights to merchandising (something that wasn’t very big at that time) and points.

Fox did the show figuring it was going to fail, and they would be able to declare a bankruptcy that would help them regroup.

Now back to the day Ruth and I are for there for the non-advertised 6PM showing. We go in. The titles WOW…but they are just the titles.  Then the largest spaceship I’ve ever seen in a movies is on the screen. WOW  It was huge!!!! Then the Star Destroyer comes up behind it!!!!!. The ride that was called Star Wars started and it didn’t stop till the last scene…. When leaving the theater the only thing we could think about was when we could see it again.  I believe in the original run we saw it at least 20 times, that is more than once a month. There were other people who saw it Many more times than we did….

Lucas became Rich from the merchandising, FOX didn’t have to declare bankruptcy, and the actors who took points are still making money off of it today.  Now much of this is from memory of things I had read when it first came out. Newer articles today say different things, including Lucas though it would flop (not in any of his Star Log and other SF mag interview did he ever act as though it would flop, and why would you put everything into it being a huge hit - if you didn’t believe in it?)