West Side Story director Steven Spielberg says he’s done with directing musicals
The Oscar-winning director will continue to produce the genre with the upcoming adaption of The Color Purple
Aux News Steven Spielberg
Little known director Steven Spielberg has decided he’ll be exiting stage left when it comes to any future musical directing opportunities. After nabbing seven Oscar nominations—including one for Best Director—with his remake of West Side Story, the Jaws director has revealed he doesn’t plan on directing any more musicals, per Variety.
During a breakfast panel ahead of the Producers Guild of America awards ceremony, Spielberg killed our dreams of a musical adaption of Jurassic Park by announcing he’s moving away from directing the genre.
He must have been tired from any future musicals after his attempts to get West Side Story’s rights from Stephen Sondheim. Spielberg opened up about the ordeal to the PGA panel. He recalls being trapped with the famed Broadway lyricist’s dogs sniffing his crotch while being “afraid to push them away [as] I didn’t want to offend him.”
However, this doesn’t mean that he won’t be involved in some high-profile musical films at all. Spielberg will be co-producing, alongside Oprah Winfrey, The Color Purple which is a musical film adaption of the popular Broadway show, starring Danielle Brooks and Fantasia Taylor. Spielberg originally produced and directed the 1985 film, earning eleven Oscar nominations for the Whoopi Goldberg-led movie and Spielberg’s first win at the Director’s Guild of America Awards.
If you’re not a musical fan though, Spielberg’s upcoming film The Fablemans goes back to his success with coming-of-age films. Loosely based on the director’s childhood growing up in Arizona, The Fablemans will have Paul Dano portraying Spielberg’s father, Michelle Williams as his mother, Seth Rogen as his uncle, and a random David Lynch probably doing his Lynchian thing. The sort-of autobiographical flick is set to release November 23, 2022, the perfect time for a post-Thanksgiving family outing.
Ever the busy man, Spielberg is also trying to make a film based on another famous Steve—Steve McQueen’s police detective character Frank Bullitt from the 1968's Bullitt. Goodbye choreographed dance sequences, hello elaborate car chase scenes!
41 Comments
The Academy’s totally snubbing of The Color Purple is one of the odder decisions in Oscar’s history.The worst being Sigourney Weaver not winning for either Gorillas in the Mist or Working Girl (especially the latter IMO).
“The worst being Sigourney Weaver not winning for either [Alien] or [Aliens] (especially the latter IMO).”Fixed it.
It’s not really that odd at all that the very white Academy snubbed one of the Blackest movies of all time. Seems entirely on brand.
It’s not like it’s not in good company though. Giving the best picture oscar to How Green Was My Valley over fucking Citizen Kane (and The Maltese Falcon) sure didn’t age well, and throwing awards at Slumdog Millionaire instead of, well, almost anything that year (including, famously, The Dark Knight, which wasn’t even nominated) still strikes me as among the most egregious.
Shakespeare in Love winning over, among others, Saving Private Ryan was a bit of a travesty.
Plenty of those types of choices to criticize, like Forrest Gump beating out Pulp Fiction and Rocky topping a ridiculously stacked field (including All The President’s Men, Network, and Taxi Driver). I also think The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which wasn’t even nominated) and There Will Be Blood were dramatically better films than No Country for Old Men (though it wasn’t bad by any means). That said, I can see one making a case for all those choices – I personally think Saving Private Ryan was the better film, but Shakespeare in Love is quite good too, albeit ultimately less affecting and unforgettable. (Then again, I’m a Tom Stoppard fan.) Some decisions I just can’t understand, though, like how three hours of Russell Crowe scowling in Gladiator beat Tom Hanks’ breathtaking performance in Cast Away (a movie that, by all rights, should have sucked, yet somehow was great almost entirely because of Hanks). For the life of me, I do not understand how Slumdog Millionaire won – or how The Dark Knight wasn’t nominated – other than the Academy making a misguided attempt at appearing to care about diversity (by giving the award to a film written and directed by white British guys). Like, I get that they are allergic to superhero films for some reason, but come on.I guess at least I should be happy they’ve gotten it right a few times recently (Moonlight, Spotlight, Parasite, etc.).
SS did a heckuva job with West Side Story so this news is disappointing
Eh. Spielberg is basically director royalty, and 75 years old on top of it. I don’t know how many more films he intends to direct or for how long, but I’d rather he only do projects that electrify him.I don’t care about getting another musical out of him. I’d love to see him do just about anything he hasn’t done before.
Agreed. Not that he makes “dangerous” movies, necessarily, but even when you strip away his (incredible) work on spectacle movies, he’s still given us, in the latter half of his career, those all-too-rare movies for adults like “Catch Me If You Can”, “Munich”, “Lincoln” and “Bridge of Spies”. Mileage may vary on appreciation for those, but they’re very well acted, slick as hell and I’m very happy to have them. Let Miranda or whomever do all the musicals, and let this dude crank out a few more glossy and supremely entertaining dramas.
Catch me if you can is one of the most underrated movies
I concur.
He definitely doesn’t take risks or make controversial art, but yeah: Spielberg is rightfully famous for making glossy, well-constructed films, and for having an intuitive grasp on storytelling (with some exceptions like Ready Player One) that just works.Nobody expects something visceral like Scorsese or ponderous like Lynch, but he doesn’t make “bad” movies. So, I’d absolutely love to see his take on, like, a western. Or a horror film. A sword-and-sandals adventure, or a gangster movie.
i don’t even really think he directed ready player one.
Somehow, finding out that Spielberg is now 75 years old makes me a bit sad. To me, he was that invincible dreamer of a director from the 80’s who’d be around forever. Man, we got old so quickly.
Of all my movie watching this pandemic, this is the only 2.75h I want back. I was unfamiliar with the original and found it very …..perfunctory. And expensive looking. And very, very, dated.
Yeah, I wasn’t a fan, either. I was familiar with the original, but I’m in no way nuts about it. Mostly, I found myself wondering why a remake was necessary when all was said and done. It looked great. Ansel Elgort was bad. Rachel Zegler and Ariana DeBose were wonderful. But it lacked purpose and felt date.
“Spielberg killed our dreams of a musical adaption of Jurassic Park” – It’s been done, perhaps unsurprisingly, and it wasn’t amazing but it was mostly fun: https://www.chortle.co.uk/review/2015/05/08/22460/jurassic_lark
What he did with West Side Story was utterly brilliant in almost every regard, so this is a real bummer to hear. There are a number of classic musicals whose film adaptations were real clunkers that I think he could do wonders with – Gypsy, South Pacific, and A Little Night Music are the first that come to mind (I’d say Carousel, too, but I don’t think that book is salvageable).
Escape to Margaritaville?
As much as I thought WSS was brilliantly staged and filmed, SS still has to answer for casting Elgort as Tony. His blandness nearly ruined the film for me.
To be fair to Spielberg, Tony is the most bland and uninteresting part of any production of West Side Story. The only time I’ve seen the character really work was in the (very controversial, but I loved it) Ivo van Hove directed Broadway revival that ran for less than a month in 2020 before being closed due to Covid.
Martin Landau as Lugosi voice: “I’m planning on dying soon!”
When the output is down this much you’d at least hope these articles wouldn’t be first drafts.
Added Spielberg, “It was also really annoying when Sondheim said I couldn’t make the entire cast into aliens.”
“… and then Maria turns on her heart light! It was amazing, but that fucker wouldn’t let me keep it in.”
So I had to settle with surrounding her in impractical and illogical spotlights and floodlights to compensate.
The opening number of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom also counts as 3% of a musical.
Little known director —> Little-known directorThe Color Purple which is a musical film adaption —> The Color Purple, which is a musical film adaption
The writing throughout is terrible, beginning to end. How did you only pick two things to help correct? It’s like wiping urine off a toilet seat but totally ignoring all the shit on the walls and ceiling. Please cover more bases in future proofreading endeavors. Really get in there. May it lead to better writing from “the new” writers ever since any real writers were fired or quit due to the company’s “new direction.”
I only do the really blatant errors
I dunno. Steven Spielberg is known, and he’s a couple inches below average height. He is a little known director.
Julia Butters from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is also in The Fabelman’s in the younger sister role.
Dog sniffs his crotch. SPIELBERG: Life finds a way.
This is somewhat disappointing, as Spielberg has always said he’s a “musical director” at heart and finally makes one in his seventies and it’s a remake of what was already a pretty darn good musical to begin with.Would have been nice to see him tackle another musical. Maybe an original or unfilmed musical or a remake of a stage classic with a crummy filmed version as another posted already suggested.
But, yeah, the clock is ticking, so maybe it’s a good thing if he moves on (as he wisely did from Indy 5.)
Not a fan of musicals. Not a fan of many Spielberg movies. But I also believe there should be the kind of movies for all types of audiences. This isn’t the end of musicals. There will be more on different platforms. On the one hand, I’m sorry that his first time going for a musical bombed horribly. No matter what anyone says, in the end, it was not a financial success. On the other hand Spielberg got to do something he loved at least once. 20th Century studios that is Disney can make up for the financial loss, and Spielberg will be ok.
If he/it wins, this will be a huge, “peace out”, mic drop moment! Directing only a single musical in his career and taking home the gold!
Considering how his West Side Story was such a complete and utter box 0ffice bomb, that was the easiest decision Spielberg ever made.
Time to do a western, Spielberg!
No, please, not an Oklahoma! remake, you Rodgers and Hammerstein fans step back now.
Steven Spielberg’s Avenue Q would have been amazing.
I would enjoy a 2 hour period musical in the style of the “Anything Goes” sequence from Temple of Doom. I say “enjoy”, I’d probably hate it. But I’d like to see him do it.