7 – Star Wars Rights Given Away by Fox
When the contracts were first drawn up for Star Wars to be made, George Lucas had a hell of a lot more confidence in the idea than 20th Century Fox. In order to ensure that they got away with paying his as little as possible for his director’s role, they agreed to a deal that allowed him to retain merchandising rights to the franchise. This meant a saving for Fox of around $350,000, which doesn’t exactly make for comforting reading when considering the fact that Star Wars licensing and merchandising is now worth in the region of $20 billion globally.
