George Lucas could have asked Fox for $1 million to make Star Wars. He took $125,000 and asked for the sequel and merchandising rights instead. Fox let him have both. By his own account, the studio thought it was giving away half of nothing. Everyone calls that contract genius. He says he was only protecting himself. He had just made American Graffiti and was the hottest director in Hollywood. Fox was on the ropes and sure he would ask for a million, which no director had ever been paid. He signed the memo for his salary. Everything it did not mention stayed open. Licensing barely existed. A toy takes a year or two to make, and a movie is gone in 6 weeks, so no studio wanted it. In the video below, he says it himself. Watch the part about the t-shirts and posters. "Everybody thought I was really brilliant but I was really just protecting myself." He had already written three movies. If the first flopped, Fox would own the rights and could tell him he could not make the rest. It did not flop. He went to a toy company, helped them build little action figures, and the money came from there. "Movies don't make money. I got news for you." Decades later he sold Lucasfilm to Disney for about $4 billion. The studio kept the movie. He kept everything that came after it. Was Fox cheated, or did it sell what it honestly called worthless?