Famed director George Lucas is worth more than 7 billion dollars thanks to his films like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. But he wasn’t getting to the money when he first started.
George Lucas’ path to movie billions began rather humbly and can be seen in the hidden vaults of Warner Bros. Corporate Archive, a facility kept away from most prying eyes deep in the Valley.
Lucas first joined Warners’ payroll when Francis Ford Coppola brought his friend on board as an assistant on 1968’s Finian’s Rainbow. Studio payroll memos highlight how Lucas was getting paid $110 a week and was even bumped up to $125 per week.
Warners’ internal memos between executives highlight the young Lucas’ interest in sci-fi. A year later, Warners came aboard to distribute Lucas’ THX 1138, paying him $2,500 in installments.
The financial memo was among the movie treasures The Hollywood Reporter saw as it was allowed an extremely rare peek into the workings of the little-known but hugely important division, whose facility houses decades’ worth of costumes, props, scripts, correspondence, memos and animation art — almost anything to do with a Warners movie and, more recently, a Warners-made television show — is saved and stored.
Watch a BTS video that the magazine was able to capture here
Source: THX
Notes From The Underground 