"The audience loved what they saw, but Tanen hated it. "This film is a disaster," he told Lucas in the theater. "I'm so disappointed in you, George." Francis Ford Coppola, Lucas's friend and the film's producer, exploded at Tanen, telling him he should get down on his knees to thank Lucas. Dramatically reaching into his pocket for his checkbook, Coppola offered to buy out the movie rights then and there."
"There was Coppola's over-the-top defense of his friend with a grandiloquent gesture (Tanen declined to sell). There was Lucas's prickly resistance to notes of any kind, which would become his hallmark as he worked to upend the studio system. Spielberg, meanwhile, wasn't even there; safely above the fray, he could enjoy telling the story without worrying about stray fire. Unlike his restless friends, he would learn to work inside Hollywood rather than seeking to destroy it."
"The '70s were fulcrum years that saw the rise of both the auteur filmmaker and the big blockbuster-sometimes in the same combustible package. At one point in 1976, Coppola was shooting Apocalypse Now while Lucas was filming Star Wars and Spielberg was making Close Encounters of the Third Kind-a remarkable Venn diagram of artistic daring and commercial possibility. Lucas and Spielberg exchanged profit points on their two movies, literally investing in each other's success."
In January 1973, George Lucas screened a preview of American Graffiti at San Francisco's Northpoint Theatre before hundreds of fans and Universal executive Ned Tanen. The audience loved the film, but Tanen declared, "This film is a disaster" and told Lucas, "I'm so disappointed in you, George." Francis Ford Coppola, the film's producer, angrily defended Lucas and offered to buy the movie rights on the spot. Lucas resisted studio notes and pursued changes that challenged the studio system. Spielberg remained more willing to work inside Hollywood. The 1970s combined auteur filmmaking with the rise of the blockbuster, exemplified by simultaneous productions like Apocalypse Now, Star Wars, and Close Encounters; Lucas and Spielberg even exchanged profit points.
Read at The Atlantic
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