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George Lucas has spent much of his career transporting audiences to galaxies far, far away. Now the man behind Star Wars is preparing to open a reported US$1 billion cultural institution that could give Los Angeles tourism another major draw.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens to the public on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, in Exposition Park. Co-founded by Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the museum is devoted to narrative art, the universal tradition of telling stories through images rather than simply to the filmmaker’s own cinematic legacy.

That distinction matters. Anyone expecting an elaborate Star Wars shrine will certainly find enough spacecraft and familiar faces to keep the Force faithful happy, but the ambition is considerably broader.

The 300,000-square-foot building, designed by Ma Yansong of MAD with Stantec, contains more than 100,000 square feet of gallery space across more than 30 galleries. It sits within a new 13-acre campus incorporating Park and Gardens designed by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA.

Calling it simply a museum feels a little like describing the Millennium Falcon as public transport.

A New Attraction With Global Pulling Power

Los Angeles hardly lacks internationally recognised attractions. Hollywood, Universal Studios Hollywood, the Getty Centre, Griffith Observatory, its beaches, and its formidable dining scene have filled visitor itineraries for decades.

The Lucas Museum, however, adds something different: a major cultural attraction carrying one of cinema’s most recognisable names while deliberately reaching well beyond Hollywood.

Its inaugural exhibitions unfold across 100,000 square feet and feature more than 1,300 works from the museum’s collection. The displays move through painting, illustration, comics, manga, graphic novels, photography, murals and cinema, with artists represented including Vincent van Gogh, Norman Rockwell, Charles Schulz, Takashi Murakami, Gordon Parks, Diego Rivera and Frank Frazetta, alongside works connected with Banksy.

The museum’s central proposition is that popular visual storytelling deserves to sit beside traditional fine art as part of the same human impulse to communicate through images.

Lucas summed up that philosophy ahead of the opening: “The artists in this collection didn’t just create images, they connected our modern imaginations with our ancient emotions.”

Yes, There Is Plenty of Star Wars

For travellers principally motivated by a galaxy far, far away, there is still plenty to justify the pilgrimage.

The inaugural cinema installation, Star Wars in Motion, draws on works from the Lucas Archives and focuses on land vehicles seen in the first six Star Wars films. It includes concept designs, props and costumes associated with vehicles ranging from Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder in A New Hope to the first physical build of General Grievous’s Wheel Bike in Revenge of the Sith.

A Naboo starfighter is suspended in the museum’s South Lobby, while the surrounding grounds contain cinematic sculptures depicting Padmé Amidala, Princess Leia, Yoda and Grogu.

The result should help the museum appeal simultaneously to serious art followers, architecture devotees, cinema enthusiasts and families whose definition of high culture begins with the words “A long time ago”.

Seventeen Years Getting to Los Angeles

The public opening also closes a long and sometimes bruising development story.

The project has been 17 years in the making, with earlier efforts involving San Francisco and Chicago before Los Angeles ultimately became its home. Construction in Exposition Park later encountered pandemic-era delays and supply-chain disruption.

Lucas has acknowledged the strain of the process, saying of the museum: “This one almost broke my will.”

The scale of the opening celebrations underlined the institution’s cultural reach. The museum’s 19 September Opening Night celebration was co-chaired by Julie Bell, Tom Cruise, Greta Gerwig, Jensen Huang, JR, Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro and Pharrell Williams.

The guest list reported by the Los Angeles Times included Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford, Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Hamill, among many others.

If Los Angeles wanted the world to notice its newest cultural heavyweight, subtlety was apparently not part of the brief.

Exposition Park Gets Another Heavyweight

The museum’s location matters for travel planners.

Exposition Park is already home to attractions including the California Science Centre, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Lucas Museum strengthens the precinct as a destination that can occupy a substantial part of a visitor’s day rather than serving as a quick standalone stop.

Outside the galleries, what was previously an asphalt parking lot has been transformed into a landscaped campus featuring indigenous and drought-tolerant planting, more than 300 newly planted trees, a hanging garden, an amphitheatre, a meadow, and a waterfall-style fountain.

Ten monumental outdoor sculptures line accessible walkways, and the Park and Gardens are free and open to the public.

Inside, visitors will also find two state-of-the-art theatres, studio and classroom spaces, a café, a shop, and a free Research Library.

Then there is Skywalker Grill.

The full-service destination restaurant sits atop the museum, is open to museum visitors and the general public, and serves lunch, dinner and weekend brunch with panoramic views over Los Angeles.

Some opportunities are simply too good to leave on the cutting-room floor.

Another Reason to Stay in LA

For Australia’s travel trade, the museum adds a substantial new attraction around which advisors can build longer Los Angeles stays and more compelling stopover itineraries.

That is an editorial opportunity rather than a claim that the museum has already increased visitor nights. Its value lies in widening the range of experiences advisors can put in front of clients: Star Wars, cinema, fine art, comics, architecture, gardens, dining and popular culture in one precinct.

Its intergenerational appeal may prove particularly useful.

Original-trilogy devotees who grew up with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, younger visitors raised on Grogu, film enthusiasts interested in the Lucas Archives, architecture followers drawn by Ma Yansong’s building, and art lovers who may care considerably more about Van Gogh, Rockwell and Rivera than R2-D2.

That breadth could prove one of the museum’s strongest tourism assets.

Admission is relatively accessible for an attraction of this scale. Adults pay US$25 and seniors aged 65 and over US$21, while children aged 17 and under enter free. Members, active-duty military personnel and LM37 passholders also receive free admission.

Everyone entering the museum, including members and accompanying children, must reserve a timed-entry ticket in advance. General admission includes the galleries, exhibitions and theatres, while the Park and Gardens, museum store, café and Skywalker Grill are accessible without a museum ticket.

More Than Another Hollywood Stop

The Lucas Museum is attempting something considerably more ambitious than displaying memorabilia from one of cinema’s most successful franchises.

It wants comics, illustration, cinema, photography, murals, fantasy art, fine art and popular culture to occupy the same conversation. That proposition will inevitably give critics plenty to discuss.

Travellers may have a simpler response.

After 17 years, a reported US$1 billion and one extraordinary building in the middle of Los Angeles, George Lucas has finally completed another epic.

This time, visitors don’t need a spaceship to see it.

Plan Your Visit

Heading to Los Angeles? Consider adding the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art to a Los Angeles stopover or multi-night itinerary and allow enough time to explore both its galleries and the surrounding Park and Gardens.

The museum opens to the public on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, at One Lucas Plaza in Exposition Park, Los Angeles. For subsequent visits, check current opening hours before travelling: the museum’s regular published weekly timetable currently lists Tuesdays as closed.

Timed-entry tickets are required for museum admission. The Park and Gardens, store, café and Skywalker Grill do not require a museum admission ticket.

Ready to experience George Lucas’ newest epic for yourself? Check current opening hours, visitor information and secure timed-entry tickets through the official Lucas Museum of Narrative Art website.

For further information, visit: Plan your visit and secure Lucas Museum tickets.