'Star Wars' Creator George Lucas' Museum in Chicago Delayed Over Lawsuit

Star Wars creator and billionaire George Lucas has been trying to build a museum for years, taking his project first to his native San Francisco and, when that failed, to Chicago. While the city has approved the lakeside Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the filmmaker has found a new bump on the way: a civil lawsuit trying to halt it will proceed.

According to NBC Chicago, last Thursday Judge John W. Darrah ruled that a lawsuit to stop building on the planned museum could proceed. While this doesn't mean that the project won't happen, it certainly can't continue to be built when there's legal controversy surrounding it.

As AV Club reports, nonprofit group Friends of the Parks filed the suit last November, seeking to stop construction of the massive $400 million project over how the building would "degrade" and "emasculate" the lakefront view. In their suit, the group claims that the massive 300,00-square-foot museum would be in violation of laws restricting construction along Lake Michigan.

Introducing the cutting-edge design concept for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. https://t.co/ykYjHk9D1z pic.twitter.com/u67QhljXmY

— Lucas Museum (@lucasmuseum) November 3, 2014

The city has approved construction of the site, and in fact Lucas moved the museum to the Windy City because authorities were keenly interested in the project while San Francisco officials were "doodling around" in negotiations that led nowhere for years. Back in October, the Chicago City Council ratified their decision to have it built near Soldier Field and the Shedd Aquarium, with all zoning permits approved.

However, in 2014 a judge issued an order to the City of Chicago that they weren't allowed to even begin building it until civil complaints were settled, so it's hard to say whether the project will be completed by 2018 as previously stated.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art won't be focused solely on the filmmaker's career, but rather on cinema as an art as well as other forms of storytelling. Lucas has been trying to get the project going for years but has stumbled into numerous bumps along the road.