MOVIES - Jan. 30, 1987

Mega-millionaire producer-director George Lucas has a few choice words for the “gray-flannel types” who run Hollywood studios. “The only thing they care about is money,” Lucas, 42, told the Associated Press. “I ask them, ‘What are you going to do with all that money?’ Myself, I put all of my money into my company and my ranch up north. What good is money is you don’t build something with it?” Lucas also expressed concern about today’s film economics: “You make a movie for $30 million, and then they put their overhead on it, then prints and advertising, and you find that you’ve got a $60-million cost to get back. It’s madness.” Lucas, who dropped about $32 million making 1986’s big box-office bomb “Howard the Duck,” said the film has done well in Japan and Europe and will, ultimately, recoup its production budget.