George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars film series, stepped away from film production in 2012, choosing to focus on building the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art instead. This decision followed his sale of the Star Wars franchise to Disney for $4 billion in 2012, when he was about to turn 70. At the time, Lucas had already begun planning a new trilogy of Star Wars films—Episodes VII, VIII, and IX—but the project was still in the early stages of development. Lucas emphasized that retiring from filmmaking was a difficult choice, especially since he had already written screenplays for the new trilogy and secured the return of original actors like Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher. However, he felt that time was limited and that the museum project needed his full attention. The idea of the museum had been public since at least 2014, and construction officially began in March 2018. The museum, which opened to the public in September 2021, took over 13 years to complete and cost nearly $1 billion of Lucas’s own money—far exceeding the original budget of about $700 million. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is not exclusively focused on Star Wars. While the space saga makes up about 7% of the museum’s collection, the rest includes over 40,000 pieces of narrative art, such as paintings, sculptures, and comics, from around the world. The museum’s location changed multiple times, starting in San Francisco, then Chicago, and finally settling in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park. Lucas’s decision to shift focus was also influenced by personal events, including his 2013 marriage to Mellody Hobson and the birth of their child. According to Hobson, Lucas was deeply involved in every aspect of the museum, from selecting materials to designing lighting for the exhibits. This intense involvement made it difficult for him to manage a major film project at the same time. While Disney released the new Star Wars trilogy between 2015 and 2019, Lucas has since distanced himself from the films, expressing some frustration that his original vision for the trilogy was not followed. Now 82 years old, Lucas has stated that he made the decision to prioritize the museum long ago, and while it is unclear if he still thinks about Disney’s direction of Star Wars, he has accepted that the trilogy is no longer part of his life.