Star Wars, first released on May 25, 1977, was one of the defining motion pictures in cinema history, and, for many people who lived during the era of bewilderment and cynicism following U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon’s resignation and the end of the Vietnam War, seeing the film for the first time became one of the defining moments in their lives. For many moviegoers, this small production, with its groundbreaking special effects and breathtaking action, catapulted the imagination to an ancient distant galaxy filled with wonder, adventure, and much-needed hope.
Over the past 40 years Star Wars and its ongoing franchise have become very successful, but the movie itself had humble beginnings. American director George Lucas, who was only a few years removed from the completion of his film studies at the University of Southern California, decided to put together the first concerted drafts of Star Wars following the unexpected success of American Graffiti (1973), his movie about adolescent American life in the early 1960s. After Lucas wrote four drafts of the story—the second of which was called “gobbledygook” by fellow director and mentor Francis Ford Coppola—he settled on the shooting script in early 1976. Some 18 months later the film was released.
By now millions of people have seen Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope), a film about Luke Skywalker, a young man who finds himself embroiled in an interplanetary war between the authoritarian Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance. But during the first weekend of its original release, Star Wars was showing in only 43 movie theaters. By the end of September, however, after glowing reviews bolstered by word of mouth drove people into the theaters, the demand was great enough to support widening the release to more than 1,000 screens. During that first release, the film took in more than $500 million worldwide, a great return for a project whose budget had been less than $10 million.
Since that day in May 1977, the Star Wars franchise has grown immensely. The original Star Wars was joined by a constellation of sequels (The Empire Strikes Back [1980], The Return of the Jedi [1983], The Force Awakens [2015], and The Last Jedi [to be released in late 2017]), three prequels (The Phantom Menace [1999], Attack of the Clones [2002], and Revenge of the Sith [2005]), and one stand-alone film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016). Ticket sales from the films—along with profits from the sale of toys, books, videocassettes and DVDs, and other merchandise and licensing—have earned the Star Wars franchise more than $30.5 billion. Forty years ago this month, it all began.
Star Wars: Original Trilogy