George Lucas slams Hollywood for just making sequels and having ‘no original’ ideas

Ryan Price

The Star Wars director criticised the current state of the film industry.

George Lucas has some strong words to share on the state of movies today and where they’re heading.

Lucas, now 80-years-old and retired from directing, is known for creating two of the biggest blockbuster franchises in cinema history – Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

And the American filmmaker had a lot to say when asked about the film industry during a conversation with Brut at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

“What happens now – and it happens in streaming probably more than features, but features, it’s the same thing – nobody knows what to do,” he said.

“The stories they’re telling are just old movies. ‘Let’s do a sequel, let’s do another version of this movie.’

“And it’s not just in movies but in almost everything, there’s no original thinking.”

Interestingly, Star Wars is one of the most notable movie franchises to receive a constant feed of sequels and spinoffs, with a total of five Star Wars movies sent to theaters since the release of Episode VII – The Force Awakens in 2015.

Lucas also directed the Star Wars prequel trilogy, with those films being released between 1999 and 2005.

On the topic of current Hollywood, the writer-director continued to Brut: “It’s like: ‘I saw something, let’s do something like that.’

“It’s also the way that movies are sold. If you go in and say: ‘I’ve got something that you’ve never seen before and you don’t understand it,’ it’s very hard to get a deal.

“The big studios, they don’t want that. They want something that is like something they’ve seen because they don’t have an imagination.”

Many took to social media to dispute Lucas’ comments.

One Twitter user wrote: “I don’t know if I agree with that. Hollywood makes a lot of original movies a year. It’s just they don’t get the attention that the remakes get.”

Another sarcastically said: “It was completely different when Lucas was doing it, though.”

One person, however, agreed with the iconic director.

They commented: “He’s right in the sense that the big movies, studios push are generally established franchises, remakes, action movies or super hero movies.

“There are some new ideas but generally they’re the minority. The Bikeriders is one movie I have my eye on this year.”

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