The Toxic Friendship That Built Modern Hollywood
A groundbreaking new book captures the turbulent relationship between three cinematic giants: Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg. Paul Fischer's The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema chronicles how these filmmakers evolved from allies to fierce rivals, ultimately driving a revolution that reshaped popular cinema forever.
Near-Death Experiences and Bruised Beginnings
The story begins with a life-altering moment for George Lucas. In 1962, the 17-year-old crashed his yellow Autobianchi convertible into a walnut tree in Modesto, California. The vehicle was beyond mangled, flipped upside down and twisted like a crushed Coke can. Lucas woke in hospital two weeks later, his heart having nearly stopped, with a new philosophy about his survival.
Coppola and Spielberg arrived in Hollywood with their own scars. Coppola's childhood polio left him bedridden for a year, while Spielberg endured antisemitic bullying that shadowed him into adulthood. Built from testimony of those around them—the three principals declined interviews—Fischer's book chronicles what might be called the Season of New Hollywood Content.
Redrawing the Cinematic Map
Between 1972 and 1977, these three filmmakers smashed box office records and redrew the map of popular cinema. As the old studio system collapsed, Coppola adapted Mario Puzo's The Godfather into the most decorated mob film of all time. Spielberg established the template for the modern summer blockbuster with Jaws. Lucas sculpted Star Wars into a vast and enduring mythology.
Fischer traces how they set out to burn Hollywood down and ended up building the franchise-dominated landscape we still inhabit today. Their fraught, competitive friendship spanned three of cinema's most consequential decades.
A Symbiotic Yet Toxic Triangle
Lucas gravitated toward Coppola as a quiet apprentice during 1968's Finian's Rainbow. Where Coppola was flamboyant and instinctive, Lucas was laconic, technically precise, and happier in the editing room. Spielberg entered the picture during a Godfather wrap party in 1971, when Lucas became transfixed by Spielberg's debut Duel on television.
A triangle formed: symbiotic, dynamic, and ultimately toxic. In 1976, Coppola drove to see Lucas with a proposal to direct Apocalypse Now, a Vietnam film Lucas had spent years developing. Though the script belonged to Coppola's American Zoetrope, Lucas had assumed he'd direct it after Star Wars. "I've got it," Coppola told him. "Let me do it, just to get it off the boards." Lucas relented.
Competition and Resentment
When Spielberg and Lucas swapped profit points—Star Wars for Close Encounters of the Third Kind—Coppola bridled at having no share. Lucas was blunt: "Why should he? He had no connection to the movie."
Publicly, Spielberg appeared generous, but privately he confessed jealousy. American Graffiti made him "jealous as hell," while The Godfather made him want to quit directing entirely. "I thought I'll never be able to make a movie this good," he said. Spielberg even believed Lucas had stolen John Williams's best work when he heard the Star Wars score.
Lucas, still smarting from losing Apocalypse Now, bought vineyards in Napa to rival Coppola's. He also began insisting, with apparent sincerity, that Star Wars was a Vietnam allegory.
The Women Behind the Revolution
Fischer scrupulously acknowledges the women who made their achievements possible. Editor Marcia Lucas, married to George from 1969-1983, saved Star Wars by recutting the film, finding its heart, and winning an Oscar—only to be airbrushed from the record for decades.
Melissa Mathison arrived in the Coppola household as a teenage babysitter, became entangled in his world for seven years, and eventually wrote the screenplay for ET The Extra-Terrestrial. Kathleen Kennedy, who co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Spielberg and later ran Lucasfilm, became the only person in Spielberg's orbit with the nerve to say no to him.
Fischer's nuanced portraits of these women serve as a quiet indictment of a New Hollywood revolution that readily exploited their talents while denying them proper credit.
Behind-the-Scenes Chaos and Legacy
The book glistens with anecdotes, including Michelle Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas yelling "That's my pot dealer!" when Harrison Ford arrived on screen as Han Solo. It excels at revealing the behind-the-scenes chaos of how these iconic films came to be.
So who won the battle for Hollywood's soul? Spielberg conquered the mainstream with everything from Jurassic Park to Minority Report. Lucas became jaded, never directing again, despite dreaming of spare, abstract films. "He's someone who lost his BS detector," Fischer says, "and has drunk his own Kool-Aid."
Coppola lurched between bankruptcy and meditative artistic gambles, later reflecting that "maybe I became too ambitious." Perhaps he stuck closest to independent filmmaking spirit—to the point of implosion, as his self-funded Megalopolis proved.
Lucas, Spielberg, and Coppola changed cinema absolutely. Whether they changed it in the way they intended remains an entirely different question.
