Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope - Releases

Releases

Charles Lippincott was hired by Lucas's production company, Lucasfilm Ltd., as marketing director for Star Wars. As 20th Century Fox gave little support for marketing beyond licensing T-shirts and posters, Lippincott was forced to look elsewhere. He secured deals with Stan Lee, Roy Thomas and Marvel Comics for a comic book adaptation and with Del Rey Books for a novelization. A fan of science fiction, he used his contacts to promote the film at the San Diego Comic-Con and elsewhere within fandom. Worried that Star Wars would be beaten out by other summer films, such as Smokey and the Bandit, 20th Century Fox moved the release date to the Wednesday before Memorial Day: May 25, 1977. However, fewer than forty theaters ordered the film to be shown. In response, 20th Century Fox demanded that theaters order Star Wars if they wanted an eagerly anticipated film based on a best-selling novel titled The Other Side of Midnight. Lucas himself was not able to predict how successful Star Wars would be. After visiting the set of the Steven Spielberg-directed Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Lucas was sure Close Encounters would outperform the yet-to-be-released Star Wars at the box office. Spielberg disagreed, and felt Lucas's Star Wars would be the bigger hit. With each Lucas and Spielberg confident that the other's film would be the bigger hit, Lucas proposed they trade 2.5% of the profit on each other's films. Spielberg took the trade, and still receives 2.5% of the profits from Star Wars.

Within three weeks of the film's release, 20th Century Fox's stock price doubled to a record high. Before 1977, 20th Century Fox's greatest annual profits were $37,000,000; in 1977, the company earned $79,000,000. Although the film's cultural neutrality helped it to gain international success, Ladd became anxious during the premiere in Japan. After the screening, the audience was silent, leading him to fear that the film would be unsuccessful. Ladd was later told that, in Japan, silence was the greatest honor to a film. When Star Wars made an unprecedented second opening at Mann's Chinese Theatre on August 3, 1977 after Sorcerer failed, thousands of people attended a ceremony in which C-3PO, R2-D2, and Darth Vader placed their footprints in the theater's forecourt. Some cinemas continuously screened the film for more than a year.

Little Star Wars merchandise was available for several months after the film's debut; only Kenner Toys had accepted Lippincott's licensing offers. Kenner responded to the sudden demand for toys by selling boxed vouchers in its "empty box" Christmas campaign. Television commercials told children and parents that vouchers within a "Star Wars Early Bird Certificate Package" could be redeemed for toys "between February 1 and June 1".

In 1978, at the height of the film's popularity, Smith-Hemion Productions approached Lucas with the idea of The Star Wars Holiday Special. The result is often considered a failure; Lucas himself disowned it.

The film was originally released as Star Wars, without "Episode IV" or the subtitle A New Hope. The 1980 sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, was numbered "Episode V" in the opening crawl. When the original film was re-released in 1981, Episode IV: A New Hope was added above the original opening crawl. Although Lucas claims that only six films were ever planned, representatives of Lucasfilm discussed plans for nine or twelve possible films in early interviews. The film was re-released theatrically in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, and with additional scenes and enhanced special effects in 1997.

On October 30, 2012, The Walt Disney Company announced a deal to acquire Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, with approximately half in cash and half in shares of Disney stock. Although Disney will now own the rights to all Star Wars films, under a previous deal with Lucasfilm, the distribution rights to A New Hope will remain with Fox "in perpetuity" while the distribution arrangements for the remaining films are set to expire in 2020. This could affect future video box set releases unless Disney and Fox come to an arrangement.