|
Steven
Spielberg
|
Spielberg in July 2011 |
|
Born |
December 18, 1946
(1946-12-18)
(age 65)[1]
Cincinnati,
Ohio, U.S. |
|
Nationality |
American |
|
Education |
Saratoga High School |
|
Alma mater |
California State
University, Long Beach |
|
Years active |
1963–present |
|
Notable works |
Raiders of the Lost Ark,
Jurassic Park,
E.T. the Extra Terrestrial,
Saving Private Ryan,
Schindler's List,
Jaws,
Munich,
War Horse |
|
Influenced by |
Stanley Kubrick,
Alfred Hitchcock,
Frank Capra,
Ingmar Bergman,
John Frankenheimer |
|
Net worth |
 $3.0 billion
(2011)[2] |
|
Religion |
Judaism |
|
Spouse |
Amy Irving
(m. 1985–1989)
«start: (1985)–end+1: (1990)»"Marriage:
Amy Irving
to Steven Spielberg" Location:
(linkback://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Spielberg)
Kate Capshaw
(m. 1991)
«start: (1991)»"Marriage:
Kate Capshaw
to Steven Spielberg" Location:
(linkback://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Spielberg)[3] |
|
Children |
6 |
Steven Allan Spielberg,
KBE (honorary), (born December
18, 1946)[4]
is an American
film director,
screenwriter,
producer,
video game designer, and studio
entrepreneur. In a career of more
than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and
genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were
seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In
later years, his films began addressing such issues as
the Holocaust, slavery, war and
terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential
filmmakers in the history of cinema.[5]
He is also one of the co-founders of the
DreamWorks movie studio.
HIDE TEXT
Spielberg won the
Academy Award for Best Director
for
Schindler's List
(1993) and
Saving Private Ryan
(1998). Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws
(1975),
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
(1982), and
Jurassic Park
(1993)—achieved
box
office
records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time.
To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films
exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide.
Forbes
puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion.[2]
Early life
Spielberg was born in
Cincinnati,
Ohio, to a Jewish family. His mother, Leah Adler, was a restaurateur
and concert pianist, and his father, Arnold Spielberg, was an
electrical engineer involved in the development of computers.[6]
He spent his childhood in
Haddon
Township,
New Jersey, where he saw one of his first films in a theater, as well
as in
Scottsdale,
Arizona.[7]
Throughout his early teens, Spielberg made amateur 8 mm "adventure"
films with his friends, the first of which he shot at the Pinnacle
Peak Patio restaurant in Scottsdale. He charged admission (25 cents)
to his home films (which involved the wrecks he staged with his Lionel
train set) while his sister sold popcorn.
In
1958, he became a
Boy
Scout,
and fulfilled a requirement for the
photography merit badge
by making a nine-minute 8 mm film entitled The Last Gunfight.[8]
Spielberg recalled years later to a magazine interviewer, "My dad's
still-camera was broken, so I asked the scoutmaster if I could tell a
story with my father's movie camera. He said yes, and I got an idea to
do a Western. I made it and got my merit badge. That was how it all
started."[9]
At age 13, Spielberg won a prize for a 40-minute war film he titled
Escape to Nowhere which was based on a battle in east Africa. In
1963, at age 16, Spielberg wrote and directed his first independent
film, a 140-minute science fiction adventure called
Firelight
(which would later inspire Close Encounters). The film, which
had a budget of US$500, was shown in his local cinema and generated a
profit of $1.[10]
He also made several WWII films inspired by his father's war stories.
After
his parents divorced, he moved to
Saratoga,
California with his father. His three sisters and mother remained in
Arizona. Although he attended
Arcadia High School
in Phoenix, Arizona for three years, Spielberg ended up graduating
from
Saratoga High School
in 1965. It was during this time Spielberg attained the rank of
Eagle
Scout.
Spielberg attended synagogue as a young boy in
Haddon
Heights, NJ,
an area which did not allow Jews before World War II.[citation
needed]
He attended Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957, in classes taught by
Rabbi
Albert
L. Lewis,[11]
who would later be memorialized as the main character in Mitch Albom's
Have a Little Faith.
As a
child, Spielberg faced difficulty reconciling being an Orthodox Jew
with the perception of him by other children he played with. "It isn't
something I enjoy admitting," he once said, "but when I was 7, 8, 9
years old, God forgive me, I was embarrassed because we were Orthodox
Jews. I was embarrassed by the outward perception of my parents'
Jewish practices. I was never really ashamed to be Jewish, but I was
uneasy at times. My grandfather always wore a long black coat, black
hat and long white beard. I was embarrassed to invite my friends over
to the house, because he might be in a corner davening [praying], and
I wouldn't know how to explain this to my
WASP
friends."[12]
Spielberg also said he suffered from acts of
anti-Semitic
prejudice in his early life: he later said, "In high school, I got
smacked and kicked around. Two bloody noses. It was horrible."[13]
After
moving to California, he applied to attend the film school at
University of Southern California
School of Theater, Film and Television two separate times, but was
unsuccessful. He was a student subsequently of
California State University, Long Beach.
While attending Long Beach State in the 1960s, Spielberg became a
member of
Theta
Chi Fraternity.
His actual career began when he returned to Universal Studios as an
unpaid, seven-day-a-week intern and guest of the editing department
(uncredited). After Spielberg became famous, USC awarded him an
honorary degree in 1994, and in 1996 he became a trustee of the
university.[14][15]
In 2002, thirty-five years after starting college, Spielberg finished
his degree via independent projects at CSULB, and was awarded a B.A.
in Film Production and Electronic Arts with an option in Film/Video
Production.[15]
As an
intern and guest of Universal Studios, Spielberg made his first short
film for theatrical release, the 26-minute
Amblin'
(1968),[6]
the title of which Spielberg later took as the name of his production
company,
Amblin
Entertainment.
After Sidney Sheinberg, then the vice-president of production for
Universal's TV arm, saw the film, Spielberg became the youngest
director ever to be signed for a long-term deal with a major Hollywood
studio (Universal). He dropped out of Long Beach State in 1969 to take
up the television director contract at Universal Studios and began his
career as a professional director.[citation
needed]
In 1969,
Variety
announced that Spielberg would direct his first full length film,
Malcolm Winkler, written by Claudia Salter, produced by John
Orland, with Frank Price being the executive producer. However,
because of the difficulty in casting the key male role, the film was
not made. Steven Spielberg also attended Brookdale Community College
for undergrad.
Career
Early career (1969–75)
His
first professional TV job came when he was hired to do one of the
segments for the 1969 pilot episode of
Night Gallery.
The segment, "Eyes," starred
Joan
Crawford,
and she and Spielberg were reportedly close friends until her death.
The episode is unusual in his body of work, in that the camerawork is
more highly stylized than his later, more "mature" films. After this,
and an episode of
Marcus Welby, M.D.,
Spielberg got his first feature-length assignment: an episode of
The
Name of the Game
called "L.A.
2017".
This futuristic science fiction episode impressed Universal Studios
and they signed him to a short contract. He did another segment on
Night Gallery and did some work for shows such as
Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law
and The Psychiatrist before landing the first series episode of
Columbo
(previous episodes were actually TV films).
Based
on the strength of his work, Universal signed Spielberg to do four TV
films. The first was a
Richard Matheson
adaptation called
Duel.
The film is about a psychotic
Peterbilt 281
tanker
truck
driver who chases a terrified driver (Dennis
Weaver)
of a small
Plymouth Valiant
and tries to run him off the road. Special praise of this film by the
influential British critic
Dilys
Powell
was highly significant to Spielberg's career. Another TV film (Something
Evil)
was made and released to capitalize on the popularity of
The
Exorcist,
then a major best-selling book which had not yet been released as a
film. He fulfilled his contract by directing the TV film length pilot
of a show called Savage, starring
Martin
Landau.
Spielberg's debut feature film was
The
Sugarland Express,
about a married couple who are chased by police as the couple tries to
regain custody of their baby. Spielberg's cinematography for the
police chase was praised by reviewers, and
The
Hollywood Reporter
stated that "a major new director is on the horizon."[16]
However, the film fared poorly at the box office and received a
limited release.
Studio
producers
Richard D. Zanuck
and
David
Brown
offered Spielberg the director's chair for
Jaws,
a thriller-horror film based on the
Peter
Benchley
novel about an enormous killer shark. Spielberg has often referred to
the gruelling shoot as his professional crucible. Despite the film's
ultimate, enormous success, it was nearly shut down due to delays and
budget over-runs.
But
Spielberg persevered and finished the film. It was an enormous hit,
winning three Academy Awards (for editing, original score and sound)
and grossing more than $470 million worldwide at the box office. It
also set the domestic record for box office gross, leading to what the
press described as "Jawsmania."[17]
Jaws made him a
household name, as well as one of America's youngest
multi-millionaires, and allowed Spielberg a great deal of autonomy for
his future projects.[18]
It was nominated for Best Picture and featured Spielberg's first of
three collaborations with actor
Richard Dreyfuss.
Mainstream breakthrough (1975–93)
Rejecting offers to direct
Jaws 2,[19]
King Kong
and
Superman,
Spielberg and actor Richard Dreyfuss re-convened to work on a film
about
UFOs,
which became
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
(1977). One of the rare films both written and directed by Spielberg,
Close Encounters was a critical and box office hit, giving
Spielberg his first Best Director nomination from the Academy as well
as earning six other
Academy Awards
nominations. It won Oscars in two categories (Cinematography,
Vilmos
Zsigmond,
and a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing, Frank E.
Warner). This second blockbuster helped to secure Spielberg's rise.
His next film,
1941,
a big-budgeted World War II farce, was not nearly as successful and
though it grossed over $92.4 million dollars worldwide (and did make a
small profit for co-producing studios Columbia and Universal) it was
seen as a disappointment, mainly with the critics.
Spielberg then revisited his Close Encounters project and, with
financial backing from Columbia Pictures, released Close
Encounters: The Special Edition in 1980. For this, Spielberg fixed
some of the flaws he thought impeded the original 1977 version of the
film and also, at the behest of Columbia, and as a condition of
Spielberg revising the film, shot additional footage showing the
audience the interior of the mothership seen at the end of the film (a
decision Spielberg would later regret as he felt the interior of the
mothership should have remained a mystery). Nevertheless, the
re-release was a moderate success, while the 2001 DVD release of the
film restored the original ending.
Next,
Spielberg teamed with
Star Wars
creator and friend
George
Lucas
on an action adventure film,
Raiders of the Lost Ark,
the first of the
Indiana Jones
films. The archaeologist and adventurer hero Indiana Jones was played
by
Harrison Ford
(whom Lucas had previously cast in his
Star Wars
films as
Han
Solo).
The film was considered an homage to the cliffhanger serials of the
Golden
Age of Hollywood.
It became the biggest film at the box office in 1981, and the
recipient of numerous Oscar nominations including Best Director
(Spielberg's second nomination) and Best Picture (the second Spielberg
film to be nominated for Best Picture). Raiders is still
considered a landmark example of the action-adventure genre. The film
also led to Ford's casting in
Ridley
Scott's
Blade Runner.[20]
Steven
Spielberg with President
Ronald
Reagan
and
Nancy
Reagan
after a showing of E.T. at the White House
A year
later, Spielberg returned to the science fiction genre with
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
It was the story of a young boy and the alien he befriends, who was
accidentally left behind by his companions and is attempting to return
home. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial went on to become the
top-grossing film of all time. E.T. was also nominated for nine
Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
Between 1982 and 1985, Spielberg produced three high-grossing films:
Poltergeist
(for which he also co-wrote the screenplay), a big-screen adaptation
of
The
Twilight Zone
(for which he directed the segment "Kick The Can"),[21]
and
The
Goonies
(Spielberg, executive producer, also wrote the story on which the
screenplay was based).[22]
His
next directorial feature was the Raiders prequel
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Teaming up once again with Lucas and Ford, the film was plagued with
uncertainty for the material and script. This film and the
Spielberg-produced
Gremlins
led to the creation of the
PG-13
rating
due to the high level of violence in films targeted at younger
audiences. In spite of this, Temple of Doom is rated PG by the
MPAA, even though it is the darkest and, possibly, most violent Indy
film. Nonetheless, the film was still a huge blockbuster hit in 1984.
It was on this project that Spielberg also met his future wife,
actress
Kate
Capshaw.
In
1985, Spielberg released
The
Color Purple,
an adaptation of
Alice
Walker's
Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel
of the same name,
about a generation of empowered African-American women during
depression-era America. Starring
Whoopi
Goldberg
and future talk-show superstar
Oprah
Winfrey,
the film was a box office smash and critics hailed Spielberg's
successful foray into the dramatic genre.
Roger
Ebert
proclaimed it the best film of the year and later entered it into his
Great Films archive. The film received eleven
Academy Award
nominations, including two for Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey.
However, much to the surprise of many, Spielberg did not get a Best
Director nomination. The Color Purple is the second of two
Spielberg films not to be scored by
John
Williams,
the first being Duel.
In
1987, as China began opening to Western capital investment, Spielberg
shot the first American film in Shanghai since the 1930s, an
adaptation of
J. G.
Ballard's
autobiographical novel
Empire of the Sun,
starring
John
Malkovich
and a young
Christian Bale.
The film garnered much praise from critics and was nominated for
several Oscars, but did not yield substantial box office revenues.
Reviewer
Andrew
Sarris
called it the best film of the year and later included it among the
best films of the decade.[23]
After
two forays into more serious dramatic films, Spielberg then directed
the third Indiana Jones film, 1989's
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Once again teaming up with Lucas and Ford, Spielberg also cast actor
Sean
Connery
in a supporting role as Indy's father. The film earned generally
positive reviews and was another box office success, becoming the
highest grossing film worldwide that year; its total box office
receipts even topped those of Tim Burton's much-anticipated film
Batman,
which had been the bigger hit domestically. Also in 1989, he re-united
with actor
Richard Dreyfuss
for the romantic comedy-drama
Always,
about a daredevil pilot who extinguishes forest fires. Spielberg's
first romantic film, Always was only a moderate success and had
mixed reviews.
In
1991, Spielberg directed
Hook,
about a middle-aged
Peter
Pan,
played by
Robin
Williams,
who returns to
Neverland.
Despite innumerable rewrites and creative changes coupled with mixed
reviews, the film proved popular with audiences, making over
$300 million worldwide (from a $70 million budget).
In
1993, Spielberg returned to the adventure genre with the film version
of
Michael Crichton's
novel
Jurassic Park,
about a theme park with genetically engineered dinosaurs. With
revolutionary special effects provided by friend
George
Lucas's
Industrial Light & Magic
company, the film would eventually become the highest grossing film of
all time (at the worldwide box office) with $914.7 million. This would
be the third time that one of Spielberg's films became the highest
grossing film ever.
Spielberg's next film,
Schindler's List,
was based on the true story of
Oskar
Schindler,
a man who risked his life to save 1,100 Jews from the Holocaust.[24]
Schindler's List
earned Spielberg his first
Academy Award
for
Best
Director
(it also won
Best
Picture).
With the film a huge success at the box office, Spielberg used the
profits to set up the
Shoah
Foundation,
a non-profit organization that archives filmed testimony of Holocaust
survivors. In 1997, the
American Film Institute
listed it among the 10 Greatest American Films ever Made (#9) which
moved up to (#8) when the list was remade in 2007.
1994–present
Spielberg in 1990
In
1994, Spielberg took a hiatus from directing to spend more time with
his family and build his new studio,
DreamWorks,[25]
with partners
Jeffrey Katzenberg
and
David
Geffen.
In 1997, he helmed the sequel to 1993's Jurassic Park with
The
Lost World: Jurassic Park,
which generated over $618 million worldwide despite mixed reviews, and
was the second biggest hit of 1997 behind
James
Cameron's
Titanic
(which topped the original Jurassic Park to become the new
recordholder for box office receipts).
His
next film,
Amistad,
was based on a true story (like Schindler's List), specifically
about an African slave rebellion. Despite decent reviews from critics,
it did not do well at the box office. Spielberg released Amistad
under DreamWorks Pictures,[26]
which issued all of his films from Amistad until
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
in May 2008 (see
below).
In
1998, Spielberg re-visited Close Encounters yet again, this
time for a more definitive 137-minute "Collector's Edition" that puts
more emphasis on the original 1977 release, while adding some elements
of the previous 1980 "Special Edition," but deleting the latter
version's "Mothership Finale," which Spielberg regretted shooting in
the first place, feeling it should have remained ambiguous in the
minds of viewers.
His
next theatrical release in that same year was the World War II film
Saving Private Ryan,
about a group of U.S. soldiers led by Capt. Miller (Tom
Hanks)
sent to bring home a
paratrooper
whose three older brothers were killed in the last twenty four hours
of action in France. The film was a huge box office success, grossing
over $481 million worldwide and was the biggest film of the year at
the North American box office (worldwide it made second place after
Michael Bay's
Armageddon).
Spielberg won his second Academy Award for his direction. The film's
graphic, realistic depiction of combat violence influenced later war
films such as
Black Hawk Down
and
Enemy at the Gates.
The film was also the first major hit for DreamWorks, which
co-produced the film with
Paramount Pictures
(as such, it was Spielberg's first release from the latter that was
not part of the Indiana Jones series). Later, Spielberg and
Tom
Hanks
produced a
TV
mini-series
based on
Stephen Ambrose's
book
Band of Brothers.
The ten-part
HBO
mini-series follows Easy Company of the
101st
Airborne Division's
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The series won a number of awards
at the
Golden
Globes
and the
Emmys.
In
2001, Spielberg filmed fellow director and friend
Stanley Kubrick's
final project,
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
which Kubrick was unable to begin during his lifetime. A futuristic
film about a humanoid
android
longing for love, A.I. featured groundbreaking visual effects
and a multi-layered, allegorical storyline, adapted by Spielberg
himself. Though the film's reception in the US was relatively muted,
it performed better overseas for a worldwide total box office gross of
$236 million.
Spielberg and actor
Tom
Cruise
collaborated for the first time for the futuristic
neo-noir
Minority Report,
based upon
the
science fiction short story
written by
Philip
K. Dick
about a Washington D.C. police captain in the year 2054 who has been
foreseen to murder a man he has not yet met. The film received strong
reviews with the review tallying website
Rotten
Tomatoes
giving it a 92% approval rating, reporting that 206 out of the 225
reviews they tallied were positive.[27]
The film earned over $358 million worldwide.
Roger
Ebert,
who named it the best film of 2002, praised its breathtaking vision of
the future as well as for the way Spielberg blended
CGI
with live-action.[28]
Spielberg's 2002 film
Catch Me If You Can
is about the daring adventures of a youthful con artist (played by
Leonardo DiCaprio).
It earned
Christopher Walken
an Academy Award nomination for
Best
Supporting Actor.
The film is known for
John
Williams'
score and its unique
title
sequence.
It was a hit both commercially and critically.
Spielberg collaborated again with Tom Hanks along with
Catherine Zeta-Jones
and
Stanley Tucci
in 2004's
The
Terminal,
a warm-hearted comedy about a man of Eastern European descent who is
stranded in an airport. It received mixed reviews but performed
relatively well at the box office. In 2005,
Empire
magazine ranked Spielberg number one on a list of the greatest film
directors of all time.
Also
in 2005, Spielberg directed a modern adaptation of
War
of the Worlds
(a co-production of Paramount and DreamWorks), based on the H. G.
Wells book of the same name (Spielberg had been a huge fan of the book
and the original 1953 film). It starred Tom Cruise and
Dakota
Fanning,
and, as with past Spielberg films,
Industrial Light & Magic
(ILM) provided the
visual
effects.
Unlike E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
which depicted friendly alien visitors, War of the Worlds
featured violent invaders. The film was another huge box office smash,
grossing over $591 million worldwide.
Spielberg in 2011, at the Paris premiere of
The
Adventures of Tintin.
Spielberg's film
Munich,
about the events following the 1972
Munich
Massacre
of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games, was his second film essaying
Jewish relations in the world (the first being Schindler's List).
The film is based on
Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team,
a book by Canadian journalist
George
Jonas.
It was previously adapted into the 1986 made-for-TV film
Sword of Gideon.
The film received strong critical praise, but underperformed at the
U.S. and world box-office; it remains one of Spielberg's most
controversial films to date.[29]
Munich received five Academy Awards nominations, including Best
Picture, Film Editing, Original Music Score (by John Williams), Best
Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director for Spielberg. It was
Spielberg's sixth Best Director nomination and fifth Best Picture
nomination.
Spielberg directed
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,
which wrapped filming in October 2007 and was released on May 22,
2008.[30][31]
This was his first film not to be released by DreamWorks since 1997.
The film received generally positive reviews from critics[32],
and has performed very well in theaters. As of May 10, 2010,
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has grossed
$317 million domestically, and over $786 million worldwide.
In
early 2009, Spielberg shot the first film in a planned trilogy of
motion
capture
films based on
The
Adventures of Tintin,
written by Belgian artist
Hergé,[33]
with
Peter
Jackson.
The
Adventures of Tintin,
was not released until October 2011, due to the complexity of the
computer animation involved. The world premiere took place on October
22, 2011 in
Brussels,
Belgium.[34]
The film was released in North American theaters on December 21, 2011,
in
Digital 3D
and
IMAX.[35]
Jackson has been announced to direct the second film,[36]
which Spielberg will produce.
Spielberg followed that with
War
Horse,
shot in England in the summer of 2010.[37]
It was released just four days after The Adventures of Tintin,
on December 25, 2011. The film, based on the
novel
of the same name written by
Michael Morpurgo
and published in 1982, follows the long friendship between a British
boy and his horse Joey before and during World War I — the novel was
also adapted into a hit
play
in London which is still running there, as well as on Broadway. The
film was released and distributed by
Disney,
with whom DreamWorks has made a 30-picture deal.
Production credits
Since
the mid-1980s, Spielberg has increased his role as a film producer. He
headed up the production team for several cartoons, including the
Warner Brothers hits
Tiny Toon Adventures,
Animaniacs,
Pinky and the Brain,
Toonsylvania,
and
Freakazoid!,
for which he collaborated with
Jean
MacCurdy
and
Tom
Ruegger.
Due to his work on these series, in the official titles, most of them
say, "Steven Spielberg presents" as well as making numerous cameos on
the shows. Spielberg also produced the
Don
Bluth
animated features,
An
American Tail
and
The
Land Before Time,
which were released by
Universal Studios.
He also served as one of the executive producers of
Who
Framed Roger Rabbit
and its three related shorts (Tummy Trouble, Roller Coaster
Rabbit, Trail Mix-Up), which were all released by
Disney,
under both the
Walt
Disney Pictures
and the
Touchstone Pictures
banners. He was furthermore, for a short time, the executive producer
of the long-running medical drama
ER.
In 1989, he brought the concept of
The
Dig
to
LucasArts.
He contributed to the project from that time until 1995 when the game
was released. He also collaborated with software publishers
Knowledge Adventure
on the multimedia game
Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair,
which was released in 1996. Spielberg appears, as himself, in the game
to direct the player. The Spielberg name provided branding for a
Lego
Moviemaker kit, the proceeds of which went to the Starbright
Foundation.
Spielberg at
The
Pentagon
(1999)
In
1993, Spielberg acted as executive producer for the highly anticipated
television series
seaQuest DSV;
a science fiction series set "in the near future" starring
Roy
Scheider
(who Spielberg had directed in Jaws) and
Jonathan Brandis
akin to
Star Trek: The Next Generation
that aired on Sundays at 8:00 pm. on
NBC.
While the first season was moderately successful, the second season
did less well. Spielberg's name no longer appeared in the third season
and the show was cancelled mid way through it.
Spielberg served as an uncredited executive producer on
The
Haunting,
The
Prince of Egypt,
Just Like Heaven,[38]
Shrek,
Road to Perdition,[39]
and
Evolution.
He served as an executive producer for the 1998 film
Men
in Black,
and its sequels,
Men
in Black II
and the upcoming
Men
in Black III.
In 2005, he served as a producer of
Memoirs of a Geisha,
an adaptation of the novel by
Arthur
Golden,
a film he was previously attached to as director. In 2006, Spielberg
co-executive produced with famed filmmaker
Robert
Zemeckis
a CGI children's film called
Monster House,
marking their eighth collaboration since 1990's
Back to the Future Part III.
He also teamed with
Clint
Eastwood
for the first time in their careers, co-producing Eastwood's
Flags of Our Fathers
and
Letters from Iwo Jima
with
Robert
Lorenz
and Eastwood himself. He earned his twelfth Academy Award nomination
for the latter film as it was nominated for Best Picture. Spielberg
served as executive producer for
Disturbia
and the
Transformers
live action film with
Brian
Goldner,
an employee of
Hasbro.
The film was directed by
Michael Bay
and written by
Roberto Orci
and
Alex
Kurtzman,
and Spielberg continued to collaborate on the sequels,
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
and
Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
In 2011, he produced the
J. J.
Abrams
science fiction thriller film
Super 8
for
Paramount Pictures.[40]
Other
major television series Spielberg produced were
Band of Brothers,
Taken
and
The
Pacific.
He was an executive producer on the critically acclaimed 2005 TV
miniseries
Into the West
which won two Emmy awards, including one for
Geoff
Zanelli's
score. For his 2010 miniseries
The
Pacific
he teamed up once again with co-producer Tom Hanks,
with
Gary
Goetzman
also co-producing'. The miniseries is believed to have cost
$250 million and is a 10-part war miniseries centered on the battles
in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Writer
Bruce
McKenna,
who penned several installments of (Band
of Brothers),
was the head writer.
In
2007, Steven Spielberg and
Mark
Burnett
co-produced
On
the Lot
a short-lived TV reality show about filmmaking. Despite this, he never
gave up working on television. He currently serves as one of the
executive producers on
United States of Tara,
a show created by
Academy Award
winner
Diablo
Cody
which they developed together (Spielberg is uncredited as creator).
In
2011, Spielberg launched
Falling Skies,
a science fiction television series, on the
TNT
network. He developed the series with
Robert
Rodat
and is credited as an executive producer. Spielberg is also producing
the
Fox
TV series
Terra Nova.
Terra Nova begins in the year 2149 when all life on the planet
Earth is threatened with extinction resulting in scientists opening a
door that allows people to travel back 85 million years to prehistoric
times.[41][42]
Acting credits
Steven
Spielberg had cameo roles in
The
Blues Brothers,
Gremlins,
Vanilla Sky,
and
Austin Powers in Goldmember,
as well as small uncredited cameos in a handful of other films, such
as a life-station worker in Jaws. He also made numerous cameo
roles in the Warner Brothers cartoons he produced, such as Animaniacs,
and even made reference to some of his films. Spielberg voiced himself
in the film
Paul,
and in one episode of
Tiny Toon Adventures
titled Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian.
Involvement in video games
Apart
from being an ardent gamer Spielberg has had a long history of
involvement in video games.[43]
In 2005 the director signed with
Electronic Arts
to collaborate on three games including an action game and an award
winning puzzle game for the
Wii
called
Boom Blox
(and its 2009 sequel:
Boom Blox Bash Party).[44]
Previously, he was involved in creating the scenario for the adventure
game
The
Dig.[45]
In 1996, Spielberg worked on and shot original footage for a
movie-making simulation game called
Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair.
He is the creator of the
Medal of Honor
series by
Electronic Arts.[46]
He is credited in the special thanks section of the 1998 video game
Trespasser.[47]
Upcoming and announced projects
Spielberg is currently directing
Lincoln,
starring
Daniel
Day-Lewis
as
Abraham Lincoln
and
Sally
Field
as
Mary
Todd Lincoln.[48]
Based on
Doris
Kearns Goodwin's
bestseller
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,
the film follows Lincoln's leadership during the final portion of the
American Civil War.
Written by
Tony
Kushner,
the film is being shot in Richmond, Virginia[49]
and will be released at Christmas of 2012 by
Disney's
Touchstone Pictures
division.[50]
He is
set to follow this with a film of
Daniel
H. Wilson's
novel
Robopocalypse,
adapted for the screen by
Drew
Goddard.[51]
It will be released by Disney in the United States and
Fox
overseas on July 3, 2013.[52]
In
2009, Spielberg reportedly tried to obtain the screen rights to make a
film based on
Microsoft's
Halo
series.[53]
In September 2008, Steven Spielberg bought film rights for
John
Wyndham's
novel
Chocky
and is interested in directing it. He is also interested in making an
adaptation of
A
Steady Rain,[54]
Pirate Latitudes,[55]
The
39 Clues,[56]
and
Under the Dome,[57]
along with a remake of
When Worlds Collide.
In May
2009, Steven Spielberg bought the rights to the life story of
Martin
Luther King, Jr..
Spielberg will be involved not only as producer but also as a
director.[58]
However, the purchase was made from the King estate, led by son
Dexter,
while the two other surviving children, the
Reverend Bernice
and
Martin
III,
immediately threatened to sue, not having given their approvals to the
project.[59]
In
June 2006, Steven Spielberg announced he would direct a
scientifically accurate
film about "a group of explorers who travel through a worm hole and
into another dimension",[60]
from a treatment by
Kip
Thorne
and producer
Lynda
Obst.[61]
In January 2007, screenwriter
Jonathan Nolan
met with them to discuss adapting Obst and Thorne's treatment into a
narrative screenplay. The screenwriter suggested the addition of a
"time element" to the treatment's basic idea, which was welcomed by
Obst and Thorne.[61]
In March of that year, Paramount hired Nolan as well as scientists
from
Caltech,
forming a workshop who will begin adapting the treatment after
completing the script for Warner Bros.' The Chicago Fire.[62]
The following July, Kip Thorne said there was a push by people for him
to portray himself in the film Interstellar.[63]
Spielberg will also help produce the upcoming TV series
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