When Star Wars overtook the box office gross of Jaws, Steven Spielberg took out a full-page ad in Variety to congratulate George Lucas. This began a tradition between the directors of the biggest box office champs of all time.
There was a tradition going on with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg where they’d congratulate each other as each of their movies would top the others’ – ‘Jaws‘ to ‘Star Wars‘,thereafter, E.T. beat Star Wars and held the record for a while; I can’t find the ad Lucas bought congratulating Spielberg for that, but it exists.
But Star Wars Special Edition reclaimed #1 in 1997.The result? Another full page-ad in which E.T. puts a crown on R2D2’s head.
In 1998, Titanic topped Star Wars as the #1 box office movie of all time. In congratulations, George Lucas bought this full-page ad inVariety, in which the Star Warscrew jumps out of the sinking ship and into the ocean of second place.
The sad thing is that the tradition couldn’t be continued because Cameron would have to take out an ad congratulating himself…