Recently, Steven Spielberg won two Golden Globes for his film ‘The Fabelmans’, which positioned him as a strong contender for new Oscars on March 12, 2023. The story that helped make him a millionaire, however, began back in 1977. At the time, Spielberg was 29 years old and had just released ‘Jaws’, which became the most profitable film in cinema history at that point.
While in Alabama shooting Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg received a call from his best friend, who was feeling completely discouraged. That friend was another young filmmaker he had met a decade earlier at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts: George Lucas. Lucas had just started working on Star Wars, and the production was going badly.
After 15 days of filming in Tunisia, Lucas was disheartened. The extreme heat, sandstorms, and poorly designed R2-D2 and C-3PO costumes, which left actors struggling to breathe after only a few minutes, made the process unbearable. Lucas, who dreamed of creating a grand science-fiction saga, felt like he was making nothing more than a bad children’s movie. To lift his spirits, Spielberg invited him to spend the weekend together.
The visit had the opposite effect. Lucas became even more distressed after seeing Spielberg’s work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Convinced that Spielberg’s film would be the biggest hit of all time while Star Wars would flop, Lucas shared his fears. Spielberg disagreed.
Lucas then proposed a bet. Convinced that Star Wars would not succeed, he offered Spielberg 2.5% of the film’s earnings in exchange for 2.5% of what Close Encounters would make. Spielberg accepted. A few months later, Star Wars was released and dethroned Jaws as the highest-grossing film ever made. Spielberg even paid for a newspaper ad congratulating his friend, featuring an illustration of R2-D2 catching a great white shark on a fishing line.
The wager brought Spielberg around $50 million, and those 2.5% royalties continue to generate income for him to this day. His net worth is now estimated at four billion dollars. Spielberg has proven to be just as talented at making bets as he is at making movies.
