George Lucas is filling in some details on his planned art and movie memorabilia museum, including how the California native settled on Chicago as a location over San Francisco.
It was his wife's idea.
The "Star Wars" creator told the Chicago Ideas Week forum on Friday that wife Mellody Hobson, a Chicago native and prominent businesswoman, had enough after four years of what he described as "doodling around" by San Francisco.
"Don't worry. I'll talk to the mayor. I'm sure he'll love it," she told him, according to Lucas.
And she was right. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has publicly embraced the idea, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is set to take its place in the Museum Campus on the city's lakefront.
The filmmaker announced in June that he had picked Chicago.
At the forum this week, he also discussed what the museum will look like.
"It's going to be organic architecture, connected to the ground. And it will look like a living thing," he said in the conversation with interviewer Charlie Rose at the Cadillac Palace Theatre.
Lucas wants a showcase for his collection of popular art, including illustrations by Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and N.C. Wyeth as well as works by Lucas's visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, and other companies.
The museum will also feature art linked to film and digital media, as well as a theater that will screen films and host lectures and workshops.
Lucas, who has collected art since he was in college, explained that by "narrative art" he means "art that tells a story."
"Illustrative art and narrative art has been short-shrifted," he said. "Critics weren't dealing with narrative art. They were interested in modern."
The city will provide the land, but Lucas said he would bankroll construction and the endowment to maintain it.
"I pay for the whole thing and the endowment, and everything," Lucas said.
"You can afford a museum?" Rose asked.
"Yeah, I can," Lucas answered.
California governor signs law to protect children from social media addiction
California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Friday.
California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform's algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children's access to social media, but they have faced challenges in court.
The California law will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world. Similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years, but Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law in 2022 barring online platforms from using users' personal information in ways that could harm children. It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impacts of social media on the well-being of children.
"Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night," Newsom said in a statement. "With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits."
The law bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children's accounts to private by default.
Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their... Read More