Barry Diller Blasts George Lucas As a “SanCtimonious Hypocrite” in Candid Memoir – ryan

Power Player Barry Diller’s New No-Holds-Barred Memoir Includes a Rather Critical Anecdote About Star Wars Creator George Lucas.

In Diller’s Tell -all, Who knewhe works WORKING WITH LUCAS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIANA FRANDCHISE BACK WANT THE MOGUL WAS CEO OF PARAMOUNT Pictures.

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Diller Recalls Feuding with HIS Studio’s President, Michael Eisner, About Whether to Greenlight the First Film, Raiders of the Lost ArkWhich Had Lucas as Co-Writer and Executive Producer and Steven Spielberg As Director. While making the iconic franchise-launching Movie SEEMS LIKE AN Easy Decision Today, at the Time Spielberg Was Coming off HIS Budget Office Bomb 1941 and Both Spielberg and Lucas Had A Reputation for Driving Up Costs.

Diller, to his credit, admits he was the most skeptical one, not eisner.

“After the first twenty or so SO Pages, where Indiana Jones Gets Chased down the Mountain by a giant rock, though the opening segment alone bet more than any movie we ‘d ever made. “I told eisner that was was going to cost Dangerously High Money and That, Together with the Toughest Terms Ever for by the creaters of a Movie, it was much too risk for us. Steven Spielberg Wold Shoot It Brilliantly, Despite (or Maybe Because of) the fact that his last film, 1941, Was Such a Disaster. ”

The Executives Particularly Want to Avoid Falling Into Same Tap As 20th Century Fox, Which Famously Gave Away Star Wars Merchandising and Sequel Rights to Lucas Wen The Hashed Out The Original for the Film That Wauld Become A New Hope A Few Years Earlier.

“(I wanted to) make -up that if it were successFul, we would be in the position of fox,” he wrote. “I insisted we had the right to make sequels on the Same Terms As (Raiders), gioven that the Terms on the (first movie) were so much higher than anyone else had ever reciaved. I WANTED TO RETCH ONCE, AND THEN NOT HAVE to regurgitate in a new negotiation if the film was a success. And i wanted in the clearest, Most unambiguous language that all the parties aggregated to and understood; There is no new negotiating if George lucas want to do a sequel. ”

AFTER ALL The BACK-AND-FORTH, LUCAS AND SPIELBERG MADE Raiders on schedule and on Budget and it went onto Become a massive blockbuster in 1981. But two years late, wen the party began to have the sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of DoomLucas insisted on a renegotiation for Ma Money, Diller Claims.

“He wanted more,” Diller Writes. “I was enraged. We have had made Such a Big Deal of disgust Having to be put in this position, and un’s that was exactly what was happening. I couldn’t belive it, and thought, Well, maybe this is just the layers out on their for for more Money. I Called George and Said, ‘Can This Be Happening?’ ”

Diller Says Lucas “Responded with Cold Clarity” and confirmed he was Holding Out and the Current Terms Were “Worth it.”

“This Deal, the Most Geneerous in History, isn’t Worth it?” Diller Says he pressed, to which lucas Reportly replied, “No, not really.”

Diller Claims he told lucas, “But you made a legal and moral community to honor these sequel terms. Here you are, someone who doesn’t live in Hollywood you loudly decry the amoral atmosphere of the Company Town, and THEN YOU BRENEGE IN AGREEMENT MADE IN AGREEMENT MADE IN AGREEMENT MADE IN AGREEMENT MADE IN Faith. ”

Again, Acciting to Diller, Lucas Replyed, “Yeah, Well, Its Just Not Worth it for me unless.”

Eventually, diller gave in and renegotiated and the sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doomwas Also a Big Blockbuster. But Diller Had Some Hard Feelings. Concludes Diller: “I hadnn’t expert to find that the hollywood-bashing, take-the-high-grund george lucas was actually a sancuponious, though the talented … hypocrite.”

A representative for lucas had no immediate comment. For Much More About Diller’s New Book, See The Hollywood Reporter‘S Cover Story With Diller.

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