Summary
Carrie Fisher did not expectStar Warsto succeed when she first began production. Fisher, who became an integral part oftheStar Warsmovie universeas Princess Leia, was just 19 years old when she began playing Leia. She starred in the originalStar Warsalongside Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew, and Alec Guinness. While she hardly expected the movie to be anything successful, it earned an initial $410 million on a budget of $11 million and has earned $775 million after its various re-releases.
Griffin Dunne, Fisher’s best friend, spoke toThe Sunday Timesabout Fisher’s earliest days inStar Warsand her initial frustration with the franchise. She found the script “really stupid” and was constantly infuriated about acting alongside Chewbacca and R2-D2.Fisher believed that the movie would be “a f—ing disaster"and did not foresee any of its success. Check out Dunne’s explanation below:
It was 1976 and one day Carrie said offhandedly that she had landed a job in some science-fiction movie shooting in England. “Is there a part in it for me?” I asked, oblivious to what a normal person would say, like “Congrats” or “That’s great!” [Fisher said,] “The only one you would have been right for is being played by Mark somebody.It’s a really stupid script and you would have turned it down, I promise… I’m acting with an eight-foot yeti and a four-foot Brit in a rolling trash can! We shoot at s–t we can’t see on green screens with ray guns that don’t even have a trigger. This movie is going to be a f—ing disaster.
Carrie Fisher Really Wasn’t Expecting Star Wars To Be A Hit
No One Could Have Predicted Star Wars' Success
Fisher never expected to see much success fromthe firstStar Warsmovie, and she was not alone in having those doubts. No one expected to see much from the franchise, as even the optimisticSteven Spielberg underestimatedStar Wars.George Lucas expected to make $15-20 million, which would make profitability a challenge for the $11 million movie. Instead, it launched a decades-spanning franchise that has already earned $10 billion at the box office when accounting for standalone movies.
$775 million
$538 million
Return of the Jedi (1983)
$475 million
$1 billion
Attack of the Clones (2002)
$654 million
Revenge of the Sith (2005)
$868 million
$2 billion
$1.3 billion
The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
The reasons forStar Wars' success has to do with theoriginalStar Warstrilogy’s incredible cast, the compelling characters, the inventive narrative, and the expansive lore of the universe. At the time that it was being made, however,the movie seemed destined to fail. Fisher indicated the absurdity of acting alongside droids, an enormous hairy man incapable of speaking English, and the laser blasts that the actors could not even see. Green screens also made performances challenging for performances.
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Despite Fisher’s doubts, the movies have gone on to achieve mass appeal worldwide. It was so successful that there have been severalversions of the original trilogy, a prequel and a sequel trilogy, and multiple spin-off movies and shows. The universe now has books, comics, and a dedicated theme park, and all share the same origin in the very movie Fisher expected to be a disaster. Everything spawned from a movie that even its cast expected to fail.Star Warstruly exceeded Fisher’s wildest imagination.
Source:The Sunday Times
Star Wars
Star Wars is a multimedia franchise that started in 1977 by creator George Lucas. After the release of Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope (originally just titled Star Wars), the franchise quickly exploded, spawning multiple sequels, prequels, TV shows, video games, comics, and much more. After Disney acquired the rights to the franchise, they quickly expanded the universe on Disney+, starting with The Mandalorian.
