George Lucas

George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. He created the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founded Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic, and THX. Lucas served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. Nominated for four Academy Awards, Lucas is a key figure of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement. Despite significant success in Hollywood, he has mostly been an independent filmmaker.

Lucas graduated from the University of Southern California in 1967 and co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. His first significant success was American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his early life in Modesto, California. Lucas then moved onto the epic space opera Star Wars (1977), which despite a difficult production process became a worldwide phenomenon. His next work included the sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). Lucas also collaborated with Spielberg to create, produce and co-write Indiana Jones movies. He later returned to the Star Wars universe with a prequel trilogy comprising The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). Lucas is also known for his collaboration with composer John Williams.

Lucas is one of the most financially successful filmmakers in history. He is a significant figure in the development of big-budget films in the U.S., especially from the late 1980s to the 2012 Disney sale. Apart from his career as a filmmaker, Lucas has been a strong supporter of education and the arts, including the George Lucas Educational Foundation and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, in collaboration with his wife, Mellody Hobson.