Fuufuuu points out a new article in Business Times that discusses the business model of Hollywood in Singapore, with several paragraphs on Lucas:

Mr Lucas is probably the most innovative film-maker in Hollywood - innovative not in new interpretations of the media, but in the new use of multimedia. In the making of the first episode of Star Wars in 1977, he pioneered computerised special effects. These used miniature models to simulate action, a technique which caught on quickly in Hollywood.

The firm formed by Mr Lucas for the purpose - Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the first firm in the world to use computer graphics in 1982 - is now a huge company whose latest work can be seen in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

Mr Lucas also owns THX, a theatre sound standard so successful it was spun off as an independent company from Lucasfilm in June, so it could expand beyond movies into games, home entertainment and mobile users.

The non-film part of Lucasfilm brought in revenues of US$1.5 billion last year; this figure is expected to grow as more film-makers take the tech route.

Meanwhile, Mr Lucas himself is pushing for a totally digital approach to movie making. He's working with Sony to make the first 10 megapixel digital camera for the next (and final?) episode of Star Wars. 'The camera will produce such superlative quality pictures that no one can afford not to use it,' he says.

Mr Lucas' success in ILM and THX is partly due to his foresight. It's also because Hollywood's film companies are by tradition too conservative to spend money on innovation. Rick Callum, producer of the next Star Wars movie, estimates that, in the last century, these companies spent just US$10 million on R&D.