The STAR WARS Bet That Made Spielberg Millions

We all know George Lucas was stressing out about Star Wars while he was making it, and how he thought it was going to fail. What we didn't know is that fear led to a bet between he and Steven Spielberg. A bet that Spielberg has made millions of dollars off of over the years, and he's still collecting on it! I wish I would have been able to get in on that action! It all started when Lucas took a break from the post-production work on Star Wars to visit Spielberg on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Here’s Spielberg’s account of how it all went down...

George came back from Star Wars a nervous wreck. He didn’t feel Star Wars came up to the vision he initially had. He felt he had just made this little kids’ movie. He came to Mobile, Alabama where I was shooting Close Encounters on this humongous set, and hung out with me for a couple of days.

He said, ‘Oh my God, your movie is going to be so much more successful than Star Wars. This is gonna be the biggest hit of all time’. He said, ‘You want to trade some points? I’ll give you two and a half per cent of Star Wars if you give me two and a half per cent of Close Encounters.’ I said, ‘Sure, I’ll gamble with that, great.’ Close Encounters made so much money and rescued Columbia from bankruptcy. It was the most money I ever made, but it was a meager success story. Star Wars was a phenomenon and I was the happy beneficiary of a couple of points from that movie which I am still seeing money on today.

How freakin' awesome is that?! You can head on over to Celebritynetworth to read the full story.