George Lucas walked away from directing even though he still had plans to make three more “Star Wars” movies — a decision he says came down to time.
Now 82, the filmmaker told Norah O’Donnell on “CBS Sunday Morning” that he believed he was running out of time and chose instead to build the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. “I decided to retire from making movies, which was a big deal because I had three more ‘Star Wars’ to make,” he said. “But I realized that I was running out of time, and I did want to make this museum.”
The Los Angeles museum is valued at $1.5 billion and holds 1,200 works from Lucas’ private collection. Its 300,000 square feet include 35 galleries across a 13-acre campus, with paintings, photography, sculpture, and original props, costumes, and vehicles from the “Star Wars” films.
Plans were announced in 2013, with San Francisco and Chicago considered before Los Angeles was chosen. Lucas remained closely involved in the design, down to telling the team that some inscriptions needed better lighting.
His wife and business partner, Mellody Hobson, said Lucas took on more of the details as the project developed because others struggled to understand the vision he was describing. “Now he won’t work at this level of detail forever because this nearly killed him,” she said.
Lucas wrote, directed, and executive produced the “Star Wars” prequel trilogy. “Revenge of the Sith,” released in 2005, remains his final directing credit. Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4 billion in 2012, and Lucas wasn’t involved in the sequel trilogy released during the 2010s.
