In 1977, American director George Lucas released "Star Wars", a wildly successful science fiction film influenced by Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress", among other works. Lucas, like many other New Hollywood directors, revered Kurosawa and considered him a role model, and was shocked to discover that the Japanese filmmaker was unable to secure financing for any new work. The two met in San Francisco in July 1978 to discuss the project Kurosawa considered most financially viable: "Kagemusha", the epic story of a thief hired as the double of a medieval Japanese lord of a great clan. Lucas, enthralled by the screenplay and Kurosawa's illustrations, leveraged his influence over 20th Century Fox to coerce the studio that had fired Kurosawa just ten years earlier to produce "Kagemusha", then recruited fellow fan Francis Ford Coppola as co-producer.