George Lucas: 'I'm retiring.'

MARIN, Calif., Jan. 22 (UPI) -- George Lucas, snubbed by some film executives said in Marin, Calif., he's "retiring" as producer of blockbusters to make more personal films.

For Lucas, 67, the snubbing by some distributors of his most recent release, "Red Tails," a biopic about the Tuskegee Airmen featuring an all-black cast, was a hit to the solar plexus.

Lucas said executives from one Hollywood studio even declined to attend the screening of "Red Tails" which he financed, produced and distributed himself.

"Isn't their job at least to see movies? It's not like some Sundance kid coming in there and saying, 'I've got this little movie -- would you see it?' If Steven [Spielberg] or I or Jim Cameron or Bob Zemeckis comes in there, and they say, 'We don't even want to bother to see it…'," Lucas said his Skywalker Ranch.

20th Century Fox agreed to domestic distribution but declined to pay any of the costs, The New York Times reported this week.

Except for one final "Indiana Jones" movie he's contractually obligated to make, Lucas said he's finished making big Hollywood productions and will concentrate on movies smaller in scale and esoteric in subject matter.

"I'm retiring," Lucas said. "I'm moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff."

"Once this is finished, he's done everything he's ever wanted to do," said colleague, producer Rick McCallum. "He will have completed his task as a man and a filmmaker."