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Showtime’s announcement of an exclusive output deal with Disney that includes up to 35 DreamWorks films through 2015 begs the question: will Steven Spielberg get behind the camera and deliver one before that deal is up? A flirtation with Paramount to do Matt Helm with Jon Hamm cratered, as did an attempt to do Harvey with Robert Downey Jr. at Fox 2000. Since then, guessing Spielberg’s next move has become a parlor game at the agencies.
The latest title gaining steam among speculators is Robopocalypse, now that Cloverfield screenwriter Drew Goddard has been hired to adapt the Daniel H Wilson epic about the human race’s attempt to survive an apocalyptic robot uprising. Wilson hasn’t finished the book yet, but word is Goddard has gotten underway and that it’s a serious candidate. Let’s face it, a big ticket Spielberg-directed tent pole would be a smashing way to start DreamWorks’ new partnership with Reliance. There continues to be a lot of chatter about War Horse, which started when Spielberg traveled to London recently to see the stage adaptation of the Michael Morpugo novel . DreamWorks acquired the book last year and hired Lee Hall to write the script. Fading on the speculation meter is Gershwin, which had way more buzz a month ago when Deadline revealed Zachary Quinto–the Star Trek and Heroes star–would play the composer. Studio insiders say Spielberg hasn’t chosen, and candidates like The 39 Clues, and the Lincoln Civil War project should not be dismissed. “We’re all waiting, we’d all love to know,” said the source.
The Spielberg-directed The Adventures of Tin Tin: The Secret of the Unicorn won’t be part of the Showtime deal, because the film was financed by Paramount and Sony. Because Paramount has domestic distribution, Tin Tin will be an Epix title. The first DreamWorks film in the new Showtime contract will be Real Steel, with Hugh Jackman starring and Shawn Levy directing.
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We all know the robot uprising is coming. My toaster has been giving me evil looks… time to bow down to my new master.
I’m a little new to the game of Hollywood, so how exactly does someone sign a contract saying they’re going to do a movie or TV show or whatever… and then that person proceeds to not do anything and still gets all the money? I can’t imagine someone that works at a video store saying “if you give me this job I’ll mop the floors and restock shelves.” Then that person may fill the mop bucket up, may open the boxes with the new dvds in them… but he never mops, and he never puts anything on the shelves. Would that person still get paid? I don’t think so.
I’m not trying to be a smart ass, but I really don’t understand how this is okay in Hollywood. I’ve watched it happen several times with my own eyes. A friend of mine got a development deal with a network, he never shot anything, he never wrote anything, and whenever the network came to him with a project he’d turn it down. Yet he got pain an obscene amount of money, and slept in till 2pm every day. Seriously, someone explain this to me.
Welcome to Hollywood!
Perfect analogy. A stock boy/janitor is just like Spielberg.
Your friend probably never got a development deal at that network/studio again.
The presumption is that you’re going to make a good-faith effort to keep your end of the deal, and most people do, because they actually want to work. When you don’t keep your end, the deals dry up quickly.
As for Spielberg, he gets almost all his money on the back end, so no movie = no money, aside from a very modest (for him) development fee.
This practice is sometimes is used to insure that a person does NOT create a product. No, that person isn’t working for that studio, but by the same stroke said person is not working for any other studio; thus, the paying studio’s competitors aren’t benefiting from that creator’s output.
My suggestion to understanding it might be to not look at a video store analogy, and instead compare it to agricultural subsidy programs where the reasoning and logic are closer for comparison…
Ummm… cant he find better material than something that sounds alot like…The Terminator? Spielberg is done in my book, he hasnt put out much to enjoy since Saving Private Ryan – long, long ago. The latest Indy outing was horrid, the Mummy and National Treasure films were superior, and that’s pretty sad.
If the project easily fits in Spielberg’s obsession with sons trying to win their absent/distant fathers’ love, then it’s got a chance.
How can anyone now say that Spielberg’s still interested in the Lincoln/Civil War project (with Liam Neesum) when he’s doing everything humanly possible to put it behind him – interviewing new writers, reading new manuscripts, seeing new plays, developing a script based on wormholes, etc etc?? It seems he’s doing anything he can to show that he’s no longer interested in the Lincoln project. And as Spielberg has often shown in the past – when he feigns interest with a project for years, he never does it.
I’d consider the Lincoln movie dead, unless he can find a writer who can shoehorn in a subplot of Lincoln’s dad leaving the family, mom opening up a restaurant keep them all together, while one of the kids meets an alien in the barn . . .
He’s Steven Speilberg. He can do what he likes, whenever it suits him. I think what you perceive as a lack of interest, is more likely a lack of urgency. He certainly doesn’t need the money (contrary to what most people think, a lot of successful directors are actually continually cash strapped), so he takes his time deciding which projects he will direct. To the consternation of many of the people who work with and for him.
Why doesn’t Spielberg just direct the Viewmaster Project? That has success written all over it.
Spiel jumped the shark.
Thank you.
Wish he would do Interstellar and Chocky! He should pass the Lincoln project off to Rob Marshall or Ron Howard just so that it gets done. Robots are overdone he already made AI and we have IRobot and terminater salvation and transformers, robocop ! We dont need anymore robots. As long as David Koepp doesnt write the thing theyre may be a chance. Afterall KOTCS and WOTW EVEN JP2 are all his fault I dont blame Steve!
spielberg jumped the shark? when exactly did this happen? and dont say the last indiana jones movie. the guy’s film resume is solid and im pumped everytime a new spielberg project goes into production.
as for lincoln, lets not forget that spielberg was offered schindlers list in the early eighties but waited until he was in the right mind set to direct that film. lincoln is going to happen he just has to be in the right place to direct it. it could also be scheduling conflicts with various cast and crew that is also delaying lincoln.
anyways, despite the nasayers spielberg is the bomb and no one does it better than him. whether its robopocalypse, lincoln or the next indian jones, i will be there opening night with a huge smile on my face. keep them coming mr.spielberg.
“spielberg jumped the shark? when exactly did this happen? and dont say the last indiana jones movie. the guy’s film resume is solid and im pumped everytime a new spielberg project goes into production.”
Really? I’m as big a Spielberg fan as any but the last 10 years or so have produced just a lot of disappointments. WAR OF THE WORLDS, A.I., the new INDIANA JONES, THE TERMINAL — maybe some of you liked those, but I was let down by all of them. MUNICH was good, not great, and had some weird elements in it. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, now that one was solid, outside of it not having a really strong third act.
But overall, he’s become less consistent over the last decade, no question. There aren’t nearly the amount of quality films there that littered his filmography in the ’70s and ’80s.
A Spielberg movie today, IMO, doesn’t mean nearly what it used to. Sad, but true.
A ROBOT APOCALYPSE film — whatever. Been there, done that. A.I. and all the TERMINATOR movies have that covered already…
As long as HBO doesn’t try and pay him enough to prevent that from happening, a Showtime project might not be far off.
What does that mean you idiot? Spielberg is already in business with Showtime on TARA and also on his broadway show. HBO isn’t getting people to work with them because they’re overpaying them. Sounds as if you’re bored in Iowa.
In regards to War Horse– this potentially epic adaptation comes from one source… Dr. Drew Casper at USC cinema. About five months ago Spielberg came to USC to speak at Dr. Casper’s very own and highly anticipated Spielberg class which was entirely devoted to the study of his body of work. The last class of the semester, Spielberg actually came in and I was invited as a guest for the event. I can still remember sitting in the back of the room and watching Casper beg and plead for Spielberg to see War Horse the next time he was in London saying, “The whole time I was watching it I kept thinking to myself, ‘Spielberg, Spielberg, Spielberg! He has to do this!’”After the speech, Spielberg did say he was going to look into it…pretty incredible that nearly five months later its already been acquired by DreamWorks and in development.
kind of amazing…
That’s a neat story.
Whoa! I was soo sad I missed that class that day. But I did get to See Spielberg in the halls of my school, everyone was talking about what he said. Dr. Casper is Amazing BTW sit in on a class and prepare to be dazzled. Spielberg comes every 3 years, I guess I have to wait a while to see him again.
Oh and to the Spielberg haters, keep on hating because he is still cashing his checks and doing what he loves while you sit on your couching griping about it.
I want Interstellar!!
“WAR HORSE” would be an excellent project for Spielberg. A complete innocent thrust into a universe beyond their comprehension? It even fits his ouvre. An animal trying to survive in a world of mechanized warfare? Timely, brilliant, Epic.
We all know of Steven’s recent interest in Eastern European cinema and this reminds me of Andrzej Wajda’s “LOTNA.” A beloved show horse is drawn into a doomed cavalry unit during the Nazi invasion of Poland… Put it on your Netflix list, people.
Look, folks, if it doesn’t have a father-son relationship that’s enduring some sort of strain, separation, etc., Spielberg’s not going to make the project. All his films for the last decade have had that as their core theme. He’s dropped any project that doesn’t have the father-son relationship at its core: Memoirs of a Geisha, the Chicago Seven project, The Lovely Bones (sorry – daughters don’t count in Spielberg’s world), etc., etc. Tintin, which combine the crowd-pleasing Robert Zemeckis-style motion capture with an 80-year-old Belgian comic strip, will also feature Spielberg’s standard “son looking for absent father” trope.
If the project doesn’t center around a father-son relationship at its core, Spielberg’s not going to make the film.
Why does it say ‘Wilson hasn’t finished the book yet’ if it was published in 2005 ?????
Yes, while there is “a reason” for development deals, it is still insanity. we aren’t talking about feeding a nation, this is extravagant amounts of money & entertainment. I was amused by David Letterman’s development deal with Disney – he loudly proclaimed on his show that Disney paid him millions of dollars for movies he has no intention of making. That’s good business sense on the part of Letterman. Disney thought it was doing the right thing by keeping a potential moneymaker like Letterman from making movies elsewhere, but you have to admit it is really, really creepy to see an entertainer paid millions for nothing.
If he screws up the Gershwin pic with Zachary Quinto I’ll hate him until the day he dies. It sucks to screw with people like he does.
That looks fantastic. But that horse better damn well make it back.