George Lucas Just Made It Possible For Kids To Get Into The Academy Museum For Free

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has been working on building a new museum in Los Angeles, and it's set to open later this year. Information on how much it will cost to gain entry hasn't been revealed yet, but thanks to a new "transformative grant" from the George Lucas Family Foundation, all children 17 years old and younger will get in for free – forever.

According to Deadline, the Lucas foundation has given such a sizable donation that kids will be able to get in for free "in perpetuity." There's no word yet about the exact amount of that grant, but it must have been a hefty chunk of change.

Kerry Brougher, the director of the museum, explained that they are "committed to helping educate our youngest visitors: the children and teens who will be the next generation of filmmakers, writers, and visual artists. To succeed, though, we must break down the financial barriers that make it difficult for families, students and teens to visit cultural institutions. ... Although not every child who visits the Academy Museum will embark on a career in filmmaking, each young person deserves to be inspired by the new perspectives and ideas that come through their exposure to the arts."

What a cool thing for Lucas's foundation to do – and keep in mind that the Star Wars creator is also developing his own huge-scale museum in Los Angeles.

For more about what to expect from the Academy Museum when it opens later in 2019, check out this interview with Brougher laying out the details: