Inside the Star-Studded Opening Night of the Lucas Museum: A New Institution Is Being Born

Before the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens to the public on Tuesday, George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, threw an opening night celebration that will go down in the Hollywood history books.

The pair — with support from their event co-chairs Julie Bell, Tom Cruise, Guillermo del Toro, Greta Gerwig, Lewis Hamilton, Jensen Huang, JR, Steven Spielberg and Pharrell Williams — hosted a star-studded kick-off event on Saturday, giving A-listers a first look at the museum’s over 10,000 square feet of gallery space. It was a night 17 years in the making, with Lucas and Hobson having poured $1 billion into the museum as they showcase everything from Star Wars props and comic book illustrations to works from Norman Rockwell and Frida Kahlo.

Queen Latifah, a close friend of the couple, opened the evening as she told the crowd of stars, “Nobody gets to go to a night like this. No one was in the room when the doors opened at the MoMA, or at the Louvre in 1793, or the Met… so we’ve got to feel the gravity of this moment because this is enormous. When you look around, your inclination may be to catch up with friends tonight; we’re all artists in awe of each other, but I implore you to soak this in. Allow these artists to speak to you.”

She continued that she’d been emotional all day to celebrate the opening, as “for years I’ve watched [Lucas and Hobson] fight for this place. Thousands of meetings, thousands of roadblocks; I’ve seen the heart, the sweat and the time that these two have poured into every curve of this building, and I promise you there’s not one wall in here that they didn’t argue about.” Latifah closed with asking the crowd a few favors: “First, congratulate the hell out of my visionary friends. Two, be here, be right here,” and lastly, to tell everyone that “on Sept. 22, a new institution is being born, and it’s here to change the way we look at art. Paris has the Louvre, New York has the Met, and now L.A. has an artistic equal, the Lucas.”

Architect Ma Yansong spoke briefly before Hobson took the stage, as she teased, “If your husband or spouse comes home and says they want to build a museum, I suggest your response is a hard no.” She explained, “I used to joke with George that at home, one of my jobs as his wife was to serve as a pair of gravity boots; I’d say, ‘George, stay with us,’ as I tried to hold him down. But this time, he pulled me up with him.”

Hobson mused how among the many challenges they hit along the way were “we did not realize how hard it would be to give a city a museum” — they settled in L.A. after previous failed efforts in San Francisco and Chicago — and emphasized that Lucas “was driven to create a space that would showcase the brilliant illustrators that he thought were too often overlooked and ignored. And if critics say a museum on narrative art is too much like a popcorn movie and not enough like an art film, well, we like popcorn movies in our family,” as she dubbed the space “a director’s cut.”

Lucas also made remarks before the guests were set loose to check out the galleries, declaring, “You can’t say this is art and this is not art. Art is in the eye of the beholder. Is it emotional to you? Then it’s art. And of course I’ve been criticized up and down and sideways for that, but I believe it wholeheartedly. You get to decide what art is.”

With that, the stars were off to explore, with an endless number of spottings possible around each corner. Vin Diesel was in deep conversation with Christopher Nolan while Katy Perry introduced Doja Cat to her boyfriend Justin Trudeau and Mark Hamill posed for photos in front of a Luke Skywalker exhibition (and later conversated with Peter Jackson). Jack Black and Keke Palmer caught up with Brian Grazer, Owen Wilson chatted with Bob Iger, Michael B. Jordan and Ludwig Göransson sipped on drinks and Woody Harrelson’s wife took a photo of him with an Indiana Jones statue. Emma Watson posed for pics with Janelle Monáe, Meg Ryan and Jack Quaid had a mother-son night out and Lucas’ Disney family came out strong, with Josh D’Amaro, Dana Walden, Alan Bergman, Kathleen Kennedy and Dave Filoni making the rounds. Gavin Newsom fielded a constant string of handshakes, and Nancy Pelosi and L.A. mayor Karen Bass completed the political contingent.

Not enough? Upstairs on the roof level, where guests were told to meet at 9 p.m. for a special surprise, Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King relaxed at a table, Tyler Perry laughed with Tracy Ellis Ross, Kim Kardashian kept close to boyfriend Lewis Hamilton, Spike Lee bantered with the bartender and Rick Caruso cheersed with Jerry Bruckheimer. In the museum’s Skywalker Grill restaurant, Leonardo DiCaprio held court at a center table with Al Pacino, with Francis Ford Coppola and Jeffrey Katzenberg sitting nearby.

At 9 o’clock, everyone gathered outside on the roof deck, as Oprah and Samuel L. Jackson introduced an immersive drone show that lit up the sky with Star Wars images and images of art on display in the museum. When the crowd made its way back inside, Harrison Ford was seen embracing Lucas — just as the party got a fresh surge of energy with the Black Eyed Peas hopping on stage for a performance that had many in the crowd, including Cynthia Erivo and Orlando Bloom, grooving.

Also rounding out the guest list: Robert De Niro, Nicolas Cage, Denis Villeneuve, Laura Dern, Kerry Washington, Hayden Christensen, Alicia Keys, Nathan Fielder, Eva Longoria, Sofía Vergara, SZA, Camila Cabello, Jon Favreau, George R.R. Martin, Jon M. Chu, Magic Johnson and Ted Sarandos.

Borys Kit contributed to this report.