12 Movies You Never Realized Were Made by George Lucas

George Lucas is world famous as the creator and principal architect of Star Wars. He’s also world famous as the co-creator of the Indiana Jones franchise. The guy had a couple solid hits in his day, huh?

Lucas produced all of the Indiana Jones movies, and he produced several of the Star Wars movies he didn’t personally direct. (Irvin Kershner, thank you for your service.) But when asked, Lucas has always insisted he’s more than the sum total of a galaxy far, far away and some raiders of lost arks. For decades, he said that when he finally finished the Star Wars saga he’d use its proceeds to fund the sorts of experimental movies he used to make as a film student at USC. That hasn’t quite worked out, but even during Lucas’ biggest period as working filmmaker (and the leader of his own production company, Lucasfilm) he helped to finance and release movies that had nothing to do with sci-fi or adventure serials or big special effects.

As a producer, Lucas championed some of his favorite directors, a few of his most frequent collaborators, and turned a couple of his own passion projects into reality. Sometimes, he didn’t even get an onscreen credit for his work. The list below details 12 examples of lesser-known (and mostly less-successful) George Lucas productions. They don’t have any X-wings or temples of doom, but if you look closely enough, you may see a few of Lucas’ other cinematic interests sprinkled throughout.

READ MORE: 25 Years Later, Is The Phantom Menace Underrated?