Star Wars film would be a success – even before his co-stars and 20th Century Fox did. The studio took a massive risk when the first Star Wars movie went into production. Director and writer George Lucas had proven his talents a few years earlier with American Graffiti, but Star Wars was an entirely different ballgame. With massive location shoots and never-before-used special effects, Star Wars was reliant on it all, and not everyone had as much faith in the story as Mark Hamill had before it premiered.

During a recent interview with iHeart’s Politickin’ podcast, Hamill revealed his first impressions of Star Wars and why he believed in George Lucas’ over-the-top concept. As Hamill tells it, when he was asked by Robert Watson, Star Wars’ production manager, what he thought of the “little endeavor [they] were about to embark upon,” Hamill said in response, “I think we’re on a winner.”

"At that point, it was only seven and a half million. It later went up to just under nine. So I did the math and I said, 'We'll only have to make twenty-five to get our money back.' And I thought this thing is so funny and whimsical. I said, 'It's not science fiction. It's like a fairy tale. You've got a farm boy, you've got a pirate, you've got a princess, you got a wizard, it's a fairy tale dressed up as science fiction.' And I said, 'And it's effortlessly feminist. How about the princess? You know she's not a damsel in distress, and she takes over her own rescue and grabs the gun from Luke and Han. You call this a rescue? Give me that gun.'

I said that kind of thing because women overall are not the biggest audience for science fiction. But I said, I just think it's so different, I said, and when I was a kid, I was a Famous Monsters of Film Land kid. I loved all the black-and-white Universal horror films, and so this is right up my alley. I loved science fiction and fantasy, so I was predisposed to like it. And I know, I said, 'Even if I wasn't cast in the movie, I'd still love this movie no matter who played Luke.'"

According to Hamill, even the bigwigs at Fox didn’t truly believe in the film, giving it minimal promotion in the run-up to its May 1977 release. “Not everybody felt that way. Like I say, even to the point where they were about to release it, Fox didn't really believe in it, and we had no poster.” In the end, of course, their gamble paid off handsomely.

Mark Hamill Was Won Over Despite His First Concerns

Despite his generally positive outlook, however, Hamill was skeptical of the film at first, too. He asked the one and only Han Solo, Harrison Ford, who had worked with Lucas previously on American Graffiti, if the Star Wars script was meant to be some kind of spoof. Hamill ed asking Ford: “‘You know George, is this like a comedy or a send-up, like a spoof or... it just can't be serious, right?' He said, 'Hey, you know whatever, let's just get it done.' There's no help, no help at all.” Hamill recalled asking Lucas, “Is this sort of like a parody? Is it like a send-up?”

Without the help of other writers, George Lucas' cast, and his editorial team, it’s unlikely Star Wars would have become the behemoth it is today.

To be fair to Hamill and the rest of the cast and crew, George Lucas’ original ideas were famously much more outlandish and unrefined than what ended up on the big screen. Without the help of other writers, his cast, and his editorial team, it’s unlikely Star Wars would have become the behemoth it is today. George Lucas was and is a creative genius, sure, but he had help.

History Proved Mark Hamill Right

Little did anyone, even Mark Hamill, know just how huge the first Star Wars movie, later retitled A New Hope, would eventually become. During the film’s original release, it made over $300 million at the domestic box office. That’s much more than the $25 million Hamill estimated the film would need to be considered a success, and roughly $1.5 billion today. A New Hope’s sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, is still revered as one of the greatest sequels ever made, but Star Wars is so much more than just movies now.

That little feminist fairy tale about a farmer, a pirate, a princess, and a villain launched a multi-billion-dollar franchise spanning movies, animated shows, live-action TV series, books, comics, audio plays, toys, and more. Star Wars may have stumbled and lost its footing a few times since A New Hope was first released, but there’s no denying the power of its legacy or how the first Star Wars film changed the future of cinema and Hollywood forever.

Source: iHeart