All posts tagged: Spielberg

How ‘Jurassic Park,’ Steven Spielberg Inspired Indie Film on Othering

How ‘Jurassic Park,’ Steven Spielberg Inspired Indie Film on Othering

Published by Daniella Wilson

The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes, the genre-bending Greek feature film debut of writer-director Thanasis Neofotistos, may be set in a time that is not specified. But the auteur and his creative team serve up visual references to the recent past. Eagle-eyed audiences will even notice a tribute to a certain group of extinct reptiles that, it turns out, inspired the filmmaker who will world premiere the movie as part of the Screen Festival of SXSW London 2026 on Thursday, June 4. The Boy With the Light-Blue Eyes, a cinematic allegory for exclusion and the desire for love and freedom, which can also be viewed as a queer coming-of-age story, stars Giorgos Karydis as Petros, a boy forced by his strict grandmother, and the village mayor, to hide behind a mask because he has blue eyes. After all, that eye color is a source of fear and superstition for the locals of the remote mountain village where they live. Co-written by Neofotistos and Grigoris Skarakis, the film features cinematography by Djordje Arambasic, with editing courtesy of Panagiotis Angelopoulos. Gersh is …

‘Jurassic Park’ Screenwriter David Koepp Says Steven Spielberg Wanted ‘Disclosure Day’ to Be His Best Script Yet

‘Jurassic Park’ Screenwriter David Koepp Says Steven Spielberg Wanted ‘Disclosure Day’ to Be His Best Script Yet

Published by Sam Flores

At first, Koepp assumed the director was just after some feedback, writer to writer. Eventually, though, Spielberg asked him, “Do you want to do it?” The result, Disclosure Day, is Koepp’s seventh script for which Spielberg served as either director or producer. It’s a collaboration that stretches back to Jurassic Park—Koepp’s genetic reengineering of the Michael Crichton novel that shot his screenwriting career into the stratosphere—and includes two Indiana Jones movies as well as War of the Worlds. “He’s a good collaborator because he listens as much to me as I do to him,” Spielberg said in an email. Koepp is willing, said Spielberg, to rework a script “including and often through principal photography.” Indeed, Koepp wrote 42 drafts for Disclosure Day—a personal record. “[Spielberg] was more exacting than I’ve ever seen him because he knows he’s worked in this area before,” says Koepp. “He wants this one to be the best one.” Koepp was referring, of course, to Spielberg’s multi-film preoccupation with visitors from outer space. But where Close Encounters of the Third Kind …

Sean Fennessey On Spielberg, Simmons, and Getting Back to Music Writing

Sean Fennessey On Spielberg, Simmons, and Getting Back to Music Writing

Published by Jenni Sidey

For the contemporary movie nerd who consumes films then consumes all the media dissecting and discussing those films, Sean Fennessey looms large. As a host of Spotify x The Ringer’s The Big Picture podcast and a frequent guest across the network’s other hugely proper programming such as The Rewatchables, Sean’s voice and opinion on movies past and present, and the state of the industry, carries heavy weight and travels far—especially at a time when—thanks to IMAX marketing, Letterboxd, and other recent vehicles for movie discourse—cinephilia has never been more mainstream. But for the truly Tapped In, appreciation for Sean’s voice on cultural works of significance stretches back years before he ever sat in front of a camera, when he was a vital pen in the world of music coverage at places like Vibe, Pitchfork, and this very publication. That history made it all the more intriguing when he announced his intentions to get back to the written word earlier this year via Substack, where he recently launched the newsletter Projections. Sean and I caught up …

Steven Spielberg Debuts First Look at Movie’s Alien

Steven Spielberg Debuts First Look at Movie’s Alien

Published by Daniella Wilson

Steven Spielberg took the stage at CinemaCon for the first time in his career to promote his upcoming Universal release, Disclosure Day. After an introduction from star Colman Domingo, the filmmaker received rapturous applause from the annual convention of movie theater owners in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Spielberg accepted the Motion Picture Association’s America250 Award from the group’s chair, Charles Rivkin, in celebration of the director’s work that embraces the nation’s wonders. “I haven’t done a Western yet — that’s next,” the 79-year-old director said. He noted that his first CinemaCon stage appearance had been great: “This will not be my last, I promise.” He recalled his transformative first visit to the cinema: “Nothing could compete with sitting in the first three rows of a movie palace, watching a Cecil B. DeMille epic with color by Technicolor. Nothing would ever be the same.” Spielberg admitted, “Sometimes, it feels to me like a cage fight between the small screen and the big screen.” He noted that the theatergoing experience was “clobbered” by COVID but added, “There …

The 17 worst movies by great filmmakers, from Spielberg to Scorsese

The 17 worst movies by great filmmakers, from Spielberg to Scorsese

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter In every industry and walk of life, even the best of us sometimes fail to hit the mark. For professional filmmakers, however, mistakes can be costly. Unlike most people, their slip-ups can be witnessed by millions of people – a bad film can tar someone’s reputation for years or even decades. This isn’t just a list about bad films, however. This is a tribute to the rare instances when great filmmakers just got it wrong. For every Kelly Reichardt or Paul Thomas Anderson out there – artists who have managed to go their whole careers without ever really letting the quality slide – there are countless others who haven’t quite managed it. Even giants of the medium  have found themselves prone to the occasional bum note. And it’s not just directors either; some of the best actors around have also been …

Steven Spielberg Shares His Love For Dune, Frankenstein, and Weapons

Steven Spielberg Shares His Love For Dune, Frankenstein, and Weapons

Published by Sam Flores

It’s no secret that Steven Spielberg has an affinity for the movies of the Dune trilogy, which “are among my favorite science-fiction movies, not just recently, but of all time. Especially the second film,” he tells Empire in a new interview published April 5. The auteur filmmaker also shared his enthusiasm at the prospect of discovering the third installment, due on December 18, starring returning cast members like Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet alongside new additions including Robert Pattinson. “I think [Part Two] is the best movie Denis has ever made. I cannot wait to see the third one. I’m sure he’ll show it to me early. I’m such a fan of his,” Spielberg added. That would be Denis Villeneuve, whose Dune films are based on the bestsellers by Frank Herbert. “I love the [Dune] books, and I just think his tribute to the books is like Guillermo [del Toro]’s tribute to Mary Shelley with Frankenstein: he honoured Mary Shelley as I think Denis honoured Frank Herbert,” said Spielberg. Not for the first time, the director …

This Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg Blockbuster Is Still Somehow Underrated

This Tom Cruise/Steven Spielberg Blockbuster Is Still Somehow Underrated

Published by Jenni Sidey

This is an edition of the weekly newsletter Tap In, GQ senior associate editor Frazier Tharpe’s final word on the most heated online discourse about music, movies, and TV. Sign up here to get it free. To be The Movie Guy in any given group chat is to open yourself up to the vaguest of texts from your civilian friends: “give me a good movie to watch.” No genre, no reference point, no specifier of any kind—just “a good movie”. There are always unspoken qualifiers that come with this plea, though: nothing “dated” or “too old,” nothing too weird or challenging, but also nothing that’s so populist that it’s syndicated on TNT every other weekend. So when my homie Eliot, one of the biggest “I need a movie” texters in my phone, threw the Bat Signal up the other day, I knew he wanted something conventionally entertaining and ideally 10 years younger than us. I offered Out of Sight with a hard sell (“Trust me”) but he didn’t bite—two years too old to make his …

Steven Spielberg Brings His Granddaughter to the Oscars 2026

Steven Spielberg Brings His Granddaughter to the Oscars 2026

Published by Sam Flores

On the Oscars 2026 red carpet, the nominees typically arrive with their partners or, in the case of Leonardo DiCaprio, their mothers. Steven Spielberg has taken a different approach, arriving on Sunday night for the second time with his granddaughter Eve Gavigan. The 15-year-old wore a light blue dress with a corset and a maroon handbag as she posed with Spielberg at the entrance of the Dolby Theatre. Eve Gavigan and Steven Spielberg attend the 98th Oscars at Dolby Theatre on March 15, 2026 in Hollywood, California. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images This is not the first time that the Jurassic Park director has attended the ceremony with his granddaughter. Gavigan was also in hand in 2024, at 13 years old, and made her red-carpet debut in a brocade dress in another, brighter shade of blue with a princess silhouette. Eve is one of four children of Jessica Capshaw, Spielberg’s stepdaughter, who played Arizona Robbins on Grey’s Anatomy. The actor has been married to businessman Christopher Gavigan since 2004. Capshaw and Gavigan welcomed their first child, a …

Spielberg subtly shades Timothée Chalamet’s controversial opera and ballet remarks

Spielberg subtly shades Timothée Chalamet’s controversial opera and ballet remarks

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Steven Spielberg has become the latest star to weigh in on Timothée Chalamet’s controversial comments about the cultural significance of ballet and opera. The Jaws director was speaking about the importance of visiting movie theaters during a SXSW keynote conversation when he subtly shaded Chalamet’s recent claims that “no one cares” about ballet or opera in the modern world. The Oscar-nominated Marty Supreme actor, 30, found himself in hot water this week after he said in a viral interview: “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera where it’s like, ‘Hey! Keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore.’” Spielberg referenced Chalamet’s comments while speaking about the value of consuming communal entertainment, saying: “At the end of a …

Steven Spielberg says he’s ‘never used AI’ in any of his films

Steven Spielberg says he’s ‘never used AI’ in any of his films

Published by skeptic

Legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg spoke out against the use of AI technology when used in creative endeavors in an interview at the SXSW conference in Austin on Friday. Asked how he viewed AI’s utility as part of the filmmaking process, Spielberg said, “I’ve never used AI on any of my films yet,” to which the audience erupted with cheers and applause. The director/producer/screenwriter, who became a household name for blockbusters like “Jaws,” “E.T.,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and many others, is not anti-technology, necessarily. His own films have imagined worlds filled with technology, for both good and bad, like “Minority Report,” “Ready Player One,” and, of course, “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” to name a few. At SXSW 2026, Spielberg said he didn’t want to go on a rant about AI, noting that he was for the technology “in many disciplines,” but in his writers’ rooms, even in TV, “there’s not an empty chair with a laptop in front of it.” Meaning, he’s not outsourcing creativity to the machine. “I …