The filmmaker is thrilled that Elvis has grossed over $150 million in US theaters. A success which, according to him, demonstrates that cinema can still be attractive, even outside of the big sagas (Marvel, Star Wars, etc.) and animated films for the whole family.
The New York Times publishes a long interview with Steven Spielberg, on the occasion of the upcoming release of his very personal film, The Fabelmans. It is precisely on this angle that the interview is directed, the director of Jurassic Park and Schindler's Listexplaining from the outset that he finally decided to tell his own childhood in a film during confinement. It was when his own children were at home for several weeks, as in their youth, that he had the courage to reflect on a crucial period of his life: between the ages of 8 and 18, when he fell cinema lover. Filming his relatives in Super 8 all the time, he one day caught a heavy secret from his mother. He tried to tell this story in the cinema for decades, but kept pushing the project back, until confinement, therefore, where he agreed to embark on this introspection with screenwriter Tony Kuscher (with whom he notably collaborated on Lincoln and West Side Story).
During this captivating interview, read here in English, Steven Spielberg goes into detail on the major evolution of streaming since the pandemic, without being totally pessimistic either about the future of cinema. Openly criticizing the policy of Warner Bros, which decided to release all its 2021 films in parallel on the big screen and on HBO Max (after arbitrarily offering blockbusters only for streaming the year before), he adds that he was pleasantly surprised by the success of Elvis, by Baz Luhrmann, produced by this same studio, which is not a franchise film, and which nevertheless earned more than 150 million greenbacks in the USA alone.
Seth Rogen reveals that Steven Spielberg has cried a lot on the set of The Fabelmans
We translate much of what he said below:
“The pandemic has created an opportunity for streaming platforms to increase their subscriptions to record levels, but it has also sacrificed, thrown under the bus, a large part of my director friends, because their films could not be offered a movie release, and it was done unceremoniously. Once paid for, their films could be relegated to HBO Max, in the example I'm thinking of (which he won't cite). From that moment, everything started to change.”
“I think older audiences were relieved that they didn't have to walk on sticky popcorn. But I also believe that that same older audience, once they're in the cinema, feels that magic of having a social event with a handful of people. 'strangers. It's an invigorating feeling, and it's up to the movies to be good enough to make viewers want to talk about it once the lights come back on.”
“I found it encouraging thatElvispasses the $100 million mark in domestic revenue. Loads of older people made the trip to see this film, and it gave me hope that audiences would return to theaters once the pandemic was over. I believe the movies will come back. I strongly believe in it.”
“I made The Pentagon Papers as a political film about our time, which was reflected in the administration of Nixon, and we found that this parallel was important to show to people, so that they understand what was happening in our country. If I had been offered it after the pandemic, I don't know if I could have chosen to do it for Netflix or Apple and have to do without millions of people at the cinema. Because this film was addressed to them, to these millions of people, and we would not have succeeded in bringing so many people into the theaters to make this kind of difference. Things have changed, enough for me to tell you that.”
Trailer for The Fabelmans, which will be released on the 25th January 2023. In theaters:
