George Lucas surprised by career success

George Lucas ”never expected to be successful”.

The 70-year-old director – who is best known for creating the ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones’ franchises – says he’s always followed his instincts when it comes to film-making.

He explained: ”My motivation has always been just doing what I want to do and making a movie that I think will be interesting, and that’s just been the way I’ve done it my whole life.

”I never expected to be successful – it’s just one of those things that happened. It happened that the stuff I like everybody else liked.”

Lucas’ latest project is the animated musical ‘Strange Magic’, which is set to open later this month, but he insists that his biggest priority is caring for his 17-month-old daughter Everest with wife Mellody Hobson.

He told USA Today: ”By the time she’s five, she’ll have her own career going and being in school and talking about her friends and her homework.

”The fun, goofy time will fall into place in reality, as opposed to right now, (when) she doesn’t have much else to do but hang out with her father.”

Despite this, ‘Strange Magic’ director Gary Rydstrom insists Lucas remains a brilliant film-maker.

Rydstrom said: ”He’s such a natural filmmaker that when you work with him, you get down to filmmaking. It’s not about being a fan or any of that. It’s about making something cool.”