ILM doc shows Lucas' focus on making 'great movies'

ILM doc shows Lucas' focus on making 'great movies'

SAN FRANCISCO--When George Lucas talks about the raison d'etre of his award-winning visual effects studio, Industrial Light & Magic, his logic might strike some in the bottom line-obsessed world of Hollywood as heretical.

"I started ILM to help make great movies," Lucas told CNET recently. "That's what we're here for. We're not here as a big moneymaking organization. We're not here as a business. We're here to make great movies."

Of course, any filmmaker would probably want to say something like that, but Lucas may well be the one person for whom such a sentiment is legitimate.

"Obviously there are financial constraints that have to be adhered to" in working on a film, Lucas continued, "which are [difficult for outside filmmakers who hire ILM] because they have a real hard budget. When I do it, I'm in charge of the budget, so I can decide on a day-to-day basis what we're going to spend money on and what we're not...Nobody else can say that, because...I own the company, and I also am making the movie."