Fantasy Fortune$

Kirk Baird

Monday, Nov. 18, 2002 | 9:14 a.m.

When George Lucas first approached Twentieth Century Fox about releasing his space-fantasy epic "Star Wars" in the mid-'70s, the movie studio had little faith in the young director's pet project.

Vietnam and Watergate had hardened U.S. audiences, the studio execs reasoned. No one was in the mood for an intergalactic fairy tale in the same vein of the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials from the '40s and '50s.

So Twentieth Century Fox offered Lucas a fee for writing and directing the movie. An offer, to their surprise, the then-31-year-old Lucas accepted, asking only for the additional rights to future "Star Wars" projects and the majority percentage of any film-related tie-ins, such as posters, games, books, soundtrack albums and related material.

More than 25 years after the movie was made, it is easy to snicker at the studio's shortsightedness and admire Lucas' premonition that this was no ordinary movie.

With the billions of dollars he has reaped from "Star Wars," Lucas has established a film empire and earned a place on this year's Forbes Wealthiest American list at No. 55, with an estimated worth of $3 billion.

Meanwhile Twentieth Century Fox is left to consider the profits that might have been. The studio has so little to do with the "Star Wars" franchise, it had to outbid other studios and negotiate with Lucas for the right to distribute the prequels.

But at least credit Twentieth Century Fox with the foresight to help Lucas make the film. Many studios rejected the director outright on the premise that there simply wasn't a substantial audience for fantasy movies.

Strangely enough, Lucas acknowledged that was still the case several years after the original "Star Wars" trilogy was complete.

In a February 1988 interview in Starlog magazine to promote his more "straightforward fantasy" "Willow," which he wrote and produced and Ron Howard directed, Lucas said up until then there had been no successful traditional fantasy films.

"They've all been pretty large disasters," he said. "('Willow' is) in a genre that has had hard times in the industry, being regarded as a dead genre, like the Western. But I believe fantasy can live and work, and I'm trying to prove it."

Ultimately, though, "Willow" didn't prove his point, grossing only a little more than $57 million in 1988, a disappointment by Lucas' standards. Nevertheless, the writer-producer-director was correct in his belief that fantasy films could be a viable box-office force.

In the past year alone, three of the top 10 films of all time -- "Spider-Man," "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" -- have all been released.

And the top 10 is sure to be challenged even more with a slate of fantasy films geared to the fanboy (slang for geek moviegoers) and casual fan alike:

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" opened Friday, "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" opens Dec. 18, and "The Incredible Hulk," "X2," the "X-Men" sequel, the two "Matrix" sequels and "The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" are all scheduled for release next year.

"It's incredible," said Brandon Gray, founder/editor of boxofficemojo.com, a movie website that tracks almost every facet of box-office activity.

"I've never seen so many fanboy flicks of this order all coming out in such a short timespan ever before. It's part culture and part things lining up. It's a fanboy's delight."

It's also a studio's dream. Witness the success of "Spider-Man."

The web-slinging do-gooder leapt off the comic-book pages and onto the big screen in May for the biggest weekend opening in movie history: nearly $115 million.

The film went on to gross $403.7 million at the box office, making it the fifth-biggest film in U.S. history.

"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" opened in November and December of last year, grossing $317.6 and $313.4, respectively. That's enough to place them at No. 8 and No. 9 on the domestic box-office charts. And worldwide the films have done even better: "Potter" is sitting at No. 2 and "Rings" at No. 5, with $967.2 and $860.8 million, respectively.

And, yes, Lucas continued to show his box-office might with "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones," also released in May, with a $302.1 million haul so far. That's good enough for No. 13 on the all-time domestic chart. And with the film recently re-released in the IMAX format, it should move even closer to the top 10.

Even when adjusted for inflation, all four films still rank in the top 100 films ever. And many of the records still hold up, including "Spider-Man's" record-breaking opening weekend.

"I get a lot of e-mails about 'Spider-Man' where they've been so desensitized to its opening records," Gray said. "But the thing is (the record is) still No. 1 if you adjust if for inflation. It's also the No. 1 superhero movie, even if you adjust for inflation," placing the film ahead of such comic-book movies as "Batman" and "Superman."

Of course, it is easy to write off the success of these movies as a product of studio hype and marketing savvy -- or the fact that they play on more screens than ever before. "Spider-Man," for example, opened on 3,615 screens, compared to this year's surprise smash, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which opened on just 108 screens.

Consider, though, for every "E.T." there's a "Mac and Me," for every "Lord of the Rings" there's a "Dungeons and Dragons," for every "Harry Potter" there's a "Neverending Story," and, yes, for every "Star Wars" there's a "Battlefield Earth."

These box-office duds are grim financial reminders that the genre is not immune to failure.

"One of the biggest fallacies is that sci-fi or fantasy will be very bankable," Gray said. " 'Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within' was a huge bomb. And so was 'Pluto Nash' and 'Howard the Duck.' So many of your classic bombs are of the sci-fi or fantasy genres."

And that is the risk that studios take with fantasy films, he said.

"They tend to be huge blockbuster hits, or they tend to be the biggest bombs of the year or ever."

Ultimately, for a fantasy movie to be successful beyond its niche audience, it needs to reach out beyond the genre's fans.

This summer's dragons-as-the-apocalypse fantasy-drama, "Reign of Fire," benefited from early Internet buzz. But when it came time to filling theaters, the audience for the movie never came through.

To date, "Reign of Fire" has grossed $43,061,982 domestically, meaning the high-budget special effects-laden flick has not yet turned a profit.

But both the first "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" films had an audience that went beyond fanboys. The book series have sold millions of copies to both young and old, geek and nongeek alike.

And those fans were hungry to see the big-screen adaption of the films.

"It can be a tricky genre to sell. There has to be something more, a universal seam or universal storyline to it to really get enough people to see it to make it a blockbuster," Gray said. "Otherwise, the actual niche that is the (fantasy) genre, although it may seem very big if you look at the Internet, they're actually not.