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Face Palm Moments: Some of History’s Most Embarrassing Mistakes

Khalid Elhassan March 23, 2025 16 min

Mistakes - Cain, by Henri Vidal, in the Tuileries Garden, Paris — Cain, by Henri Vidal, in the Tuileries Garden, Paris. Wikimedia

11. Hollywood Did Not Know What to Make of Star Wars

A 1977 Star Wars movie poster. Pinterest

George Lucas directed American Graffiti in 1973, and it became one of history’s most profitable films. It cost $1.27 million to make and market, and earned over $55 million at the box office. Re-released in 1978 with Dolby sound, it earned another $63 million, for a combined box office of $118 million – equivalent to $785 million in early 2025. Brimming with confidence, Lucas decided that his next project would be a “western in space“. It became one of history’s most successful movie franchises. The first film, Star Wars: A New Hope, grossed $775,398,007 – which was huge back then. By 2025, the Star Wars franchise had grossed more than $10.3 billion in movie sales alone. It seems obvious now that Star Wars was destined for great success. In the 1970s, however, Hollywood was unsure whether Lucas’s “western in space” would resonate with moviegoers, or bomb at the box office.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.