As “The Fabelmans” hits theaters tomorrow, find out which detail of the film is a small event in Steve Spielberg’s career.
Out this Wednesday in cinemas, The Fabelmans is the 34th cinema film directed by Steven Spielberg if we count his participation in the feature film The Fourth Dimension. The filmmaker was inspired this time by his own past and in the light of his filmography, The Fabelmans is a great event. But why ?
Well because it’s the first feature film since 2001 whose screenplay is written by Steven Spielberg himself, who is more used to directing the stories of others. To bring the story of his life to the screen, the director of Jurassic Park took over the writing, helped by Tony Kushner, with whom he had worked on Munich, Lincoln and West Side Story.
What else did he write?
Besides his early youthful shorts, Spielberg wrote or co-wrote the stories that others turned into screenplays, such as that of an aerialist taking his son on a journey with him (Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies, 1973) or that of a woman trying to rebuild her family (Sugarland Express, 1974). Two themes that echo the plot of The Fabelmans.
We will also find Spielberg at the base of the stories of Poltergeist (1982), the Goonies (1985) or two segments of Fantasy Stories (The Mission and Mummy Daddy).
Amblin Entertainment The Goonies
He is, however, the author of the complete screenplay. Although behind the scenes he benefited from the help of various people (including Walter Hill), he alone wrote the screenplay for Rencontres du 3ème type (1977) and alone also that of IA, artificial intelligence (2001), taken from a story originally written for Stanley Kubrick by Ian Watson.
Finally, Spielberg is the initiator of the series High tension (1996 – 1997) which immersed viewers in the life of the police in the suburbs of El Camino in California.
Author… of video games!
Spielberg also became interested in video games by getting involved in The Dig, a point and click by LucasArts released in 1995. The player embodies Commander Boston Low, leader of a team of astronauts responsible for blowing up an asteroid before it does not collide with the Earth. The concept is taken from a plot originally planned to be an episode of Histoiresfantastes.
DreamWorks Interactive LLC
He repeated it the following year with Someone’s in the Kitchen, a new point and click whose goal this time was to produce cooking recipes. Above all, he will be the creator of Medal of Honor (1999), based on an idea he had while filming Saving Private Ryan. The year is 1944, Lieutenant Jimmy Patterson is an undercover agent working to bring down the Nazi regime. A phenomenal success, the game has had 16 sequels at the time of writing.