Each year on May 4, Star Wars fans worldwide celebrate Star Wars Day as it lands on a day homonymous to main word in the franchise’s iconic phrase, “May the force be with you.” Currently, the Star Wars franchise sits as the fourth highest-grossing media franchise. Its net worth value is listed at over $46.7 billion. It should come as shocking news then that Star Wars was almost never made.

George Lucas, now hailed as the great mind behind bringing the sci-fi epic to life, originally never meant to make Star Wars. Lucas at the time was a rising director who had found great success in his directorial debut THX 1138. Through the guidance of Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now), Lucas went on to master the craft and put together a coming-of-age film that became a hit among mainstream audiences, American Graffiti.

Before American Graffiti took off, however, he was broke. He had to shop around for studios willing to fund a space opera movie he had been thinking of. Originally, he was hoping to make his own Flash Gordon film but he was denied the rights. Feeling defeated, he decided to work on making his own space opera epic. He wrote a large part of it and realized he would have to cut the story into three parts. Although it seemed impossible to find any film studios willing to take a gamble on signing him on to make the first film and its succeeding sequels, 20th Century Fox decided to take Lucas in.

Working on a small budget, Lucas and his team were forced to cut corners while filming. It was through the hard work of his team that they were able to come up with workarounds. As harrowing as it seemed for them at the time, these changes would eventually be for the best. After all, it was some of these happy mistakes that made the film all the more memorable. For instance, Han Solo’s iconic ship, the Millennium Falcon, was redesigned entirely in just one day after the effects crew realized its original look was too similar to a spaceship from another movie. The Death Star’s trench that Luke Skywalker and his team of rebel pilots had to navigate to find the ship’s exhaust port, was also made by accident. As revealed by the film’s concept artist Colin Cantwell, the Death Star’s trench was the result of him messing up with the mold. Even some of its stars had doubts about the film. Sir Alec Guinness, who played the aged Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original trilogy, was known to have a disdain for the dialogue of the films. In his written journal entries, he would talk about how he found the script to be “rubbish” and had only taken the role after 20th Century Fox offered him a lot of money. Originally, he had no interest in reprising his role for Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi but he did so as a favor to Lucas.

After many delays and many shooting issues, Star Wars premiered on May 25, 1977. It was an instant hit, garnering over $775 million worldwide much to Lucas’ surprise. At the time he thought it would be a flop since only his friend, Steven Spielberg, had faith in his film. After the success of the original trilogy, Lucas would then return to put out another trilogy of Star Wars films (referred to as the prequel trilogy). While views on the prequels were mixed, they were still a massive hit at the box office. In 2012, Disney decided to buy Star Wars from George Lucas by buying Lucasfilm for over $4 billion. The company went on to create another trilogy (referred to as the sequel trilogy), two spin-off films (Solo, Rogue One), and several live-action and animated series set in the world of Star Wars (The Mandalorian, Andor, Clone Wars, etc.). As we celebrate nearly 50 years of George Lucas’ passion project, it’s exciting to see that the franchise continues to find new fans over the years as more exciting stories unfold in the world of Star Wars.

May the force be with us all!