Business Super Hero of the Month: George Lucas

17 Dec 2015

I don’t know about your office, but ours has been positively buzzing the last week over the new Star Wars film. Today, the fervour is almost out of control.

We have a few who made the effort and went to see a midnight showing, staying up into the wee hours to re-connect with their childhood heroes. These brave few are being studiously avoided by those who decided to wait to see it until a more social hour, a few are out tonight, still more are waiting the extra eternity until the weekend.

Whether you like J.J. Abrams’ new venture and regardless of your feelings on the “prequels,” you have to admit that the original Star Wars trilogy (especially A New Hope) took the world by storm back in 1977.

A little known director created this phenomenon out of seemingly nothing. The story goes that the whole world was against him: the studios didn’t want it made, the toy companies didn’t want to produce the toys, and the critics absolutely panned the films. But the public loved them.

You have to hand it to Lucas, he stuck by his films and got the studios and toy companies (if never the critics) to buy into his world. and the result? Lucas, until very recently, controlled the Star Wars universe. An empire of his own, if you will.

And this empire meant that he could make any film he wanted, his effects company could turn down jobs if they so choose, and continue to make money. By striking the exact tone that the buying public wanted, Lucas gifted his future self a creative freedom that few ever obtain.

And it is this that makes him our Business Superhero of December: George Lucas had a great idea that he saw through right to the end and it paid off a thousand fold.