New interviews are emerging for his premiere next month. He predicts superhero flicks are doomed.
Is there a place where we discussed his and Lucas's predictions 2 yeas ago of doom for Hollywood?AP: You caused a stir two years ago when you predicted Hollywood was headed toward an "implosion" because of the over-abundance of mega-budget movies. Do you still feel that way?
Spielberg: We were around when the Western died and there will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western. It doesn't mean there won't be another occasion where the Western comes back and the superhero movie someday returns. Of course, right now the superhero movie is alive and thriving. I'm only saying that these cycles have a finite time in popular culture. There will come a day when the mythological stories are supplanted by some other genre that possibly some young filmmaker is just thinking about discovering for all of us.
Spielberg: The big danger goes back to what I do everyday and it's this: with all these computers, platforms and competing entertainment opportunities vying for those 24 hours, we're at the point where a studio would rather invest $250m in one film for a real shot at the brass ring, than make a whole bunch of really interesting, deeply personal and even maybe historical projects that may get lost in the shuffle.
Lucas: [Studios] are going for the gold, but that isn't gonna work forever. As a result, they're getting narrower and narrower in their focus, and people are gonna get tired of it [but] they're not gonna know how to do anything else. So you need to have these quirky things, and the quirky world is getting bigger and bigger and bigger, because you can actually [distribute them] either via little houses or just put them on Netflix, and you can actually make your money back.
Spielberg: The great thing about cable [is that] when you can't sell your script to the studios, if it's good, you can get a good cable sale. A lot of these young filmmakers that are taking their stuff to television would like to be making movies, but some of their ideas are too fringey for the movies and you need a big film festival to recognise your art in order to get a wider distribution [and] a chance for people to watch your movie. So that's the big danger and there's eventually gonna be an implosion or a big meltdown. There's gonna be an implosion where three or four, maybe even a half a dozen of these mega-budgeted movies are going to go crashing into the ground and that's going change the paradigm again.
Last edited: