ABSTRACT
The cinema century ended on May 19, 1999, with the premiere of George Lucas’s much-awaited Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace. More than one month before its premiere (22 years after Lucas’ original Star Wars opened) fans began to line up. For his $ 115 million cost, producer and director George Lucas took 90% of the money Twentieth Century-Fox collected from box office revenues, after a distribution fee. Toy maker Hasbro paid Lucas a quarter of a billion dollars in licensing fees plus stock options; PepsiCo agreed to spend $2 billion to promote Episode I—The Phantom Menace and two future sequels along with its soft drinks. Pepsi guaranteed at 3,000 screens across the United States that it would sell toys and other merchandise in the lobby. (Indeed, even before the movie premiered, retailers reported selling out of the new toys and action figures.) Collectors stood in line for hours in order to buy action figures of the movie’s villain, Darth Maul, and Wall Street bid up the prices of Hasbro stock. That this motion picture defined popular entertainment for the early Summer 1999 is testament to the power of Hollywood motion pictures. 1
