Drew Struzan—the artist who dazzled generations of moviegoers with iconic and lifelike posters for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, John Carpenter’s The Thing, Blade Runner, E.T., Back to the Future, The Goonies, Big Trouble in Little China, Harry Potter, and countless other film titles—has passed away at the age of 78.
The news of his passing confirmed on Struzan’s official Instagram account on Oct. 13.
“It is with a heavy heart that I must tell you that Drew Struzan has moved on from this world as of yesterday, October 13th,” read the caption. “I feel it is important that you all know how many times he expressed to me the joy he felt knowing how much you appreciated his art.”
His family made a second Instagram post not long after, writing: “Drew was a force of nature. Like a whirlwind, he could not be stopped nor tamed nor manipulated. His power never waned.”
The artist’s passing comes less than a year after Drew’s wife of 60 years, Dylan Struzan, announced via social media that her husband had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s several years ago, with the neurodegenerative disease advancing to the point where he could no longer paint or write.
“Drew has left a strong legacy of love and joy in the form of his work. It has always been a love letter of sorts,” she wrote at the time on Instagram. “His aim was to make the Earth a better place in which to live by creating something beautiful. But like a flower, his season is ending.”
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Born in Oregon City on March 18, 1947, Struzan attended Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles where he gained a degree in illustration, according to Movie Poster Hub. His career out of university began not with movie posters, but with album covers for bands such as Black Sabbath and The Beach Boys.
By the mid-70s, he was running an illustration company called Pencil Pushers with a friend and began churning out poster art for B-movies like the schlocky Empire of the Ants, per Indieground. Struzan’s breakthrough into mainstream studio blockbusters came when a close friend and colleague, Charles White III, asked for help on a poster for the 1978 re-release of the original Star Wars.
From there, he went on to craft instantly recognizable promotional artwork for several cinematic milestone of the 1980s: Temple of Doom, Last Crusade, Back to the Future, Return to Oz, *batteries not included, and The Goonies to name a few. Even when he had no access to footage or a script—as was the case with John Carpenter’s The Thing—he still managed to turn out something unforgettable.
His one-sheets were not more than just images on paper, they breathed with extraordinary life and transported us to exciting new worlds long before the project that inspired it arrived on the big screen.
“I think that the trouble with a lot of early movie posters is that they looked too much like classic illustration, which feels like it’s telling the whole story,” Struzan told Slash Film in 2021. “I didn’t want to do that. I felt that art was more than just telling the story. In fact, telling the story in a poster is wrong for a movie. I wasn’t looking to tell a story. I’m looking to give a person a feeling about something they could hope for. I asked as the directors what they’re doing and why they were doing it. I try to find the best in what they are doing. Then I paint that way.”
By the time he retired in 2008, Struzan had crafted over 150 movie posters and won the admiration of celebrated filmmakers across the industry. Celebrated filmmakers like Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg, who once labeled him as “my favorite movie artist.”
In The Man Behind the Poster, Erik Sharkey’s 2013 documentary on Struzan’s life and career, Spielberg also remarked: “I had to almost live up to the art that we later were going to ask Drew to create for the poster.”
Struzan’s work also included pieces for the 1997 Special Edition release of The Empire Strikes Back, the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the DVD box art for Ridley Scott’s preferred cut of Blade Runner, the first Harry Potter adaptation, Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy, the 25th anniversary re-release of The Shawshank Redemption, the Special Edition DVD for The Green Mile, and the 35th anniversary of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Legendary film poster artist Drew Struzan dies at 78
Struzan was mourned in the comments section by contemporary artistic luminaries like DC Comics Chief Creative Officer Jim Lee, Hot Fuzz actor Simon Pegg, and veteran comic book artists J. Scott Campbell and Doug Mahnke.
“A giant among giants,” wrote Lee. “His work captured the humanity, power and emotion of his subjects in ways not seen since. Thank you for bringing to life all the tentpole moments of my childhood and beyond. Rest in Peace.”
Campbell added: “Very heartbreaking to read this and to wrap my mind around the finality of it all, of an amazing man and the legacy of incredible work. He has left us all with so much beauty to enjoy for generations to come. I know the past few years have been especially difficult and I can only hope that this gives him and all of his loved ones some sense of peace.”
