Questioning the System

After the unfortunate disaster of THX 1138, Lucas felt bitter towards the Hollywood studio system. In a 1971 PBS interview he said, "Making film is an art. Selling film is a business. The trouble is they don't know how to sell films. As a result, they try to make you films that people will go to without them having to be sold. This is the real key to the problem. If they can't put a film in a theater and have people rush to the door, they're not interested." During this time Coppola challenged Lucas into developing a project that would satisfy the studio, a standard film. This project would become American Graffiti.