The Force is with us! It’s a triumph that the George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art elected to settle in Chicago instead of Lucas’ native San Francisco, where he founded Lucas Film in 1971, or LA for “being the capital of entertainment.”
Mayor Emanuel gets two thumbs up for his persistence in making sure the $1 billion museum institution landed here.
The Museum will open in 2018, according to a museum spokeswoman. It will house an incredible array of “Stars Wars” memorabilia, Lucas’ collection of movie posters, said to be largest in the worl and an invaluable collection of Norman Rockwell paintings and so much more, according to a museum spokeswoman.
The location will be on 17 acres of land between Soldier Field and McCormick Place, near the Museum Campus, where it can collaborate with neighboring museums.
The Lucas Museum should be a gigantic boon to our film industry by association (as in “We’re in Chicago, you know, where the George Lucas Museum is located?”) and to the city, adding mightily to our already record-breaking tourism (Chicago: 46 million in 2012 vs. San Francisco, 16.51 million).
LA was the third contender for the museum, making the pitch that being “the capital of entertainment and creativity makes it a natural for a museum focused on building storytellers to be built here in LA.”
