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RIP Drew Struzan. You've seen his work. You may have had a poster of his in your bedroom or den.


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Drew Struzan - Wikipedia

Drew Struzan, Iconic Movie Poster Artist and Favorite of Spielberg and Lucas, Dies at 78

Iconic movie poster artist Drew Struzan - who created the iconic marketing art for an enormous number of popular films - has died at the age of 78. Struzan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease several years ago and retreated from public life.

Struzan's official Instagram account announced the news on Tuesday: "It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that Drew Struzan has moved on from this world as of yesterday, October 13th. I feel it is important that you all know how many times he expressed to me the joy he felt knowing how much you appreciated his art."

Struzan was once dubbed the "one-sheet wonder," a go-to artist for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas who created the posters for films such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Risky Business, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Back to the Future, The Goonies, The Thing and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

The artist's signature style was bold, dramatic and colorful. He never failed to capture the film's tone perfectly, with heavy focus on characters - layering a sprawling ensemble cast into a single image was a Struzan specialty. Spielberg once called him "my favorite movie artist" and later added, "I had to almost live up to the art that we later were going to ask Drew to create for the poster."

At a tribute to Struzan back in 2018, the artist said, "I'm thinking about my childhood and how I never had a birthday party, never had a good meal, everywhere I went, I worked my ass off. Nothing was ever given to me before, except by these lovely people" - referring to the directors who hired him over the years.

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Edited by atomheartbevo
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Posted (edited)

Edit: Well fuck me, this is Roger Kastel.  Who is also dead.

My absolute favorite movie poster of all time, had this as a kid in my bedroom.  So much going on there, yet fairly simple.  Just magical to the young me.

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Edited by atomheartbevo
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IIRC, my parents had an Empire Strikes Back poster that was supposed to be pretty valuable because the first printing didn't have Billy Dee (Lando) on it.  I can't recall if it was a simple mistake or the result of a lawsuit, but it got updated.  I wonder if that's it (above) as I don't see Lando.

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

IIRC, my parents had an Empire Strikes Back poster that was supposed to be pretty valuable because the first printing didn't have Billy Dee (Lando) on it.  I can't recall if it was a simple mistake or the result of a lawsuit, but it got updated.  I wonder if that's it (above) as I don't see Lando.

Most of the ones I've seen all look like that or are different and have Lando on them.

That one above had his name on it in some printings, but not Yoda.

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Would be wild if mine was valuable. Need to dig it out because now I can't remember if Yoda was on it.

Edited by atomheartbevo
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2 hours ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

IIRC, my parents had an Empire Strikes Back poster that was supposed to be pretty valuable because the first printing didn't have Billy Dee (Lando) on it.  I can't recall if it was a simple mistake or the result of a lawsuit, but it got updated.  I wonder if that's it (above) as I don't see Lando.

So that poster is Roger Kastel's print, based on the 1974 Gone with the Wind re-issue.  And originally he included a bunch of stuff as seen below, including Lando, but LucasFilm made him take out a bunch of elements because of spoilers, so the poster above is basically covering only the first few minutes of Empire Strikes Back.

world_record-26400_empire_strikes_back__

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22 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

So that poster is Roger Kastel's print, based on the 1974 Gone with the Wind re-issue.  And originally he included a bunch of stuff as seen below, including Lando, but LucasFilm made him take out a bunch of elements because of spoilers, so the poster above is basically covering only the first few minutes of Empire Strikes Back.

world_record-26400_empire_strikes_back__

Thanks for researching that.  I was going by 40 year word of mouth.  I had thought the reprint had something to do with Billy Dee being pissed about being left out.

Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

Thanks for researching that.  I was going by 40 year word of mouth.  I had thought the reprint had something to do with Billy Dee being pissed about being left out.

We might be talking about different posters, but all of the ones I found that came out later had Lando. That one we are discussing, with Lando, Boba, Dagobah, etc. in it was the "concept" poster, which was released well after the theatrical poster. The "clean" one without those features is the theatrical poster.  Billy Dee might have been pissed, but if you deep dive, Lucas was paranoid about leaks and literally gave out scripts with misleading lines/names, etc. and actors weren't told specific things until they were in front of the camera.  The theatrical posters were stripped down since they went to the theaters well ahead of the release (aka "coming soon").

Struzan did the re-release posters and the prequels.

Regardless, movie posters of that era were magical, and it looks like all of the major artists from that era have now passed with Struzan being basically the last.

Edited by atomheartbevo
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