It took forever to find a home, landing not in San Francisco or Chicago but instead heading for the edge of downtown Los Angeles. Now secured, the $1.5bn project is forging ahead and George Lucas, the inspiration behind the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, is to visit the site to break ground on the building.
“Star Wars” creator George Lucas is visiting a galaxy on the edge of downtown Los Angeles to break ground on his $1.5 billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
The institution, scheduled to open in 2021, is envisioned as not just a repository for “Star Wars” memorabilia but a wide-ranging museum representing all forms of visual storytelling from paintings and drawings to comic strips and
digital and traditional films.
The latter will run the gamut from 1927′s futuristic masterpiece “Metropolis” to Orson Welles’ groundbreaking 1941 film “Citizen Kane” to the Lucas-Steven Spielberg collaborations on the “Indiana Jones” movies.
Of course the Force will also be strong with “Star Wars” stuff, including Luke Skywalker’s first lightsaber and Darth Vader’s helmet.
But, Lucas emphasized when the City Council voted 14-0 to approve the project last year that the Lucas Museum for Narrative Art is hardly intended to be a vanity project.
Its wide-ranging collection will also include paintings by Norman Rockwell, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, comic strips by “Peanuts” creator Charles Schulz and underground artist Robert Crumb, animation from films such as “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and special effects from films such as “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”
“The idea is that it’s popular art, it’s art that appeals to people emotionally and tells you something about who you are,” he said.