‘Star Wars’ producer Gary Kurtz: ‘Film franchise wouldn’t be a success today’

Gary Kurtz says the world may have changed too much to launch something as big as 'Star Wars' now

The producer of Star Wars has suggested that the film’s phenomenal success would not be possible today.

Looking back at the 1977 original, Gary Kurtz described his surprise when the film he made with George Lucas “captured a generation” and blew away all of their expectations of what it could achieve.

Writing for The Guardian, Kurtz suggested that it would difficult to replicate such a phenomenon in the present day, stating: “Could Star Wars happen again today? It’s hard to say because things were so different back then. The biggest difference is that now it’s impossible to keep anything secret because there’s too much information surrounding a film before anyone has even seen it. Even screenplays are published online prior to release.”

Kurtz went onto say that he thinks Star Wars‘ success was down to its word-of-mouth popularity.

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“In 1977 only a few thousand people knew about Star Wars when it first arrived in cinemas, but it spread like wildfire and soon there were queues everywhere. These days you would never see that because everybody gets into the first screening they want to get into, even if the movie us doing really well. Back then a film opened in just a few cinemas nationwide. When I lived in New York we used to drive around and see if there were any queues for the latest Ingmar Bergman. If there was nobody outside you wondered if it wasn’t any good.”

Kurtz hosts a two-day Anatomy Of Star Wars masterclass for The Guardian at London‘s Renoir Cinema next month.

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