Steven Spielberg has Covid. Given that, the 75-year-old director missed his planned introduction of the Michelle Williams tribute at the Gotham Awards tonight in Manhattan.
10.11.2022 - 04:21 / deadline.com
Director Steven Spielberg hates the way streaming services – and HBO Max in particular – are treating filmmakers.
Speaking to the New York Times, Spielberg said moving theatrical releases to streamers in the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 may have changed the film industry forever.
“The pandemic created an opportunity for streaming platforms to raise their subscriptions to record-breaking levels and also throw some of my best filmmaker friends under the bus as their movies were unceremoniously not given theatrical releases,” Spielberg said. “They were paid-off and the films were suddenly relegated to, in this case, HBO Max. The case I’m talking about. And then everything started to change.”
He took particular aim at Warner Bros. and its HBO Max streaming service, which released its entire 2021 slate in theaters and on the streamer at the same time. But he lamented the loss of a special experience if theaters are permanently shuttered.
“I think older audiences were relieved that they didn’t have to step on sticky popcorn,” Spielberg said. “But I really believe those same older audiences, once they got into the theater, the magic of being in a social situation with a bunch of strangers is a tonic…it’s up to the movies to be good enough to get all the audiences to say that to each other when the lights come back up.”
Spielberg did point to signs that going to a theater still has some legs.
“I found it encouraging that ‘Elvis’ broke $100 million at the domestic box office,” Spielberg said. “A lot of older people went to see that film, and that gave me hope that people were starting to come back to the movies as the pandemic becomes an endemic. I think movies are going to come back. I really do.”
Steven
Steven Spielberg has Covid. Given that, the 75-year-old director missed his planned introduction of the Michelle Williams tribute at the Gotham Awards tonight in Manhattan.
Legendary’s ‘Dune” franchise is steadily growing. Denis Villeneuve is returning to helm “Dune: Part Two,” the second half of the first Frank Herbert novel, with tentative plans to potentially adapt the second book “Dune Messiah” to round out a trilogy.
EXCLUSIVE: As HBO Max’s Dune: The Sisterhood (wt) moves into production, series creator and writer Diane Ademu-John is stepping down as co-showrunner. She will remain creatively involved in the prequel as executive producer but will focus on other commitments. Veteran TV writer-producer Alison Schapker, who has served as co-showrunner with Ademu-John, will now be the sole showrunner for the series.
Few directors have reached the upper echelon in which names like Steven Spielberg reside, and “The Fabelmans” gives viewers insight into how the great movie-making mind came to be. Spielberg’s origin story springs off the page from a script co-written by the director and Tony Kushner, the “Angels in America” playwright and a frequent collaborator of Spielberg’s.
EXCLUSIVE: Ana Ortiz (Ugly Betty; Love, Victor) is finalizing a deal to lead the cast of the HBO Max drama pilot More, from Amy Chozick, Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television. Ortiz, who will star alongside Christian Serratos, replaces Veronica Falcón, who originally was tapped for the role. The recasting decision was made after the table read, I hear.
Steven Spielberg will be feted with a special homage at the 73rd edition of the Berlin International Film Festival next February.
There was something particularly nerve-racking about playing a young Steven Spielberg in The Fabelmans, the director’s semi-autobiographical movie base on his own family and upbringing. For starters, star Gabriel LaBelle said during an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles awards-season event that he never actually sat down with the director to get the 411 on what Spielberg was like as a young kid.
Projects come and go, some get announced and never happen, and sometimes filmmakers lose interest. But Steven Spielberg’s remake of Steve McQueen’s action car chase classic “Bullitt” (1968) looks like it is not only moving forward, but his next film as Bradley Cooper has been cast in the lead role.
EXCLUSIVE: Steven Spielberg looks to have found his Frank Bullitt as sources tell Deadline Bradley Cooper has closed a deal to play the no-nonsense San Francisco cop in the new original Bullitt story centered on the classic character famously played by Steven McQueen in the 1968 thriller, which is set up at Warner Bros. Cooper will also produce the pic along with Spielberg and his producing partner Kristie Macosko Krieger (marking their second collaboration after Maestro), with Josh Singer on board to pen the script. Steve McQueen’s son, Chad ,and granddaughter Molly McQueen will exec produce the new movie.
Veteran PR executive Karen Jones is stepping down as EVP and Head of Communications for HBO and HBO Max. She will be leaving HBO — and likely the entertainment business — early next year and is exploring opportunities in educational access.
At just 19 years of age (reportedly), Gabriel LaBelle is already at the pinacle of Hollywood cinema. The relatively unknown Canadian actor is turning heads as Sammy Fableman, a fictional version of the legendary director Steven Spielberg in the new period drama “The Fabelmans.” A movie that is arguably the frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar and will put LaBelle under a massive global spotlight in the weeks and months to come.
Merhan Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian man who lived for 18 years in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport and inspired the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks film The Terminal, died Saturday at the airport, officials said. He was believed to be 80 years old.
Universal Pictures is giving Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans a platform release starting with four locations in NYC (Lincoln Square, Union Square) and LA (The Grove, Century City) with a robust media campaign aimed at cinephiles, but also capitalizing on the broad appeal of a Spielberg production, testament to unusual pedigree of the semiautobiographical film.
Steven Spielberg‘s latest movie, “The Fabelmans,” is all about the power of film and the theatrical experience. But in a new interview with The New York Times in the leadup to the film’s release, Spielberg argued the magic of moviegoing took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Warner Bros.
Since it launched in May 2020, HBO Max has quietly boasted some stellar original programming, including “Tokyo Vice,” “The Flight Attendant,” “And Just Like That…” and more. But there’s plenty of more original series on the way.
EXCLUSIVE: David Iacono (The Flight Attendant, The Summer I Turned Pretty) has been tapped for a key recurring role opposite George Rexstrew, Jayden Revri and Kassius Nelson in Dead Boy Detectives, HBO Max’s upcoming drama series based on the DC Comics characters created by Neil Gaiman. The series hails from The Flight Attendant’s Steve Yockey, Doom Patrol’s Jeremy Carver, Berlanti Productions, and Warner Bros. Television.
Steven Spielberg‘s latest movie, “The Fabelmans,” is all about the power of film and the theatrical experience. But in a new interview with The New York Times in the leadup to the film’s release, Spielberg argued the magic of moviegoing took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Warner Bros.
At just 19 years of age (reportedly), Gabriel LaBelle is already at the pinacle of Hollywood cinema. The relatively unknown Canadian actor is turning heads as Sammy Fableman, a fictional version of the legendary director Steven Spielberg in the new period drama “The Fablemans.” A movie that is arguably the frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar and will put LaBelle under a massive global spotlight in the weeks and months to come.