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New Spielberg movie: The Fabelmans (2022)


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1 minute ago, Stu said:

Part of me is looking forward to the production quality as much as the story and the music.  Spielberg working in mid-century period settings is always just gorgeous to look at.

Apparently they're shooting some of it on 16mm so we can expect some thick Spielberg film grain

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These vague comments (including Williams's own that the film is "very interesting") point toward something either dreadfully pointless or magically original.  I doubt it will just be passible (e.g., The Post).  

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According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film is PG-13 for some violence, language, and drugs.  I guess we get to see a young Spielberg high, coarse, and prone to violence.  

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27 minutes ago, Tom said:

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film is PG-13 for some violence, language, and drugs.  I guess we get to see a young Spielberg high, coarse, and prone to violence.  

I was hoping for my favorite: intense peril

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3 minutes ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Not even some mild peril? Oh dear. My favourite is always “thematic elements” a phrase so vague as to be almost entirely meaningless. They should rate them for having unthematic elements. Like the score to Dunkirk for example. 

Frightening images is my second favorite. Thematic elements is a good one too:lol:

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1 hour ago, Tom said:

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film is PG-13 for some violence, language, and drugs.  I guess we get to see a young Spielberg high, coarse, and prone to violence.  

 

What led you to decide to look up The Fabelmans on Rotten Tomatoes today?

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28 minutes ago, Brando said:

Frightening images is my second favorite. Thematic elements is a good one too:lol:

Well at least a frightening image is something you can imagine (even if what frightens each person is different) but a thematic element basically means anything. I mean, is it possible to make a film that doesn't have thematic elements?!

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1 minute ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Well at least a frightening image is something you can imagine (even if what frightens each person is different) but a thematic element basically means anything. I mean, is it possible to make a film that doesn't have thematic elements?!

Even "The Room" has some thematic elements and that's considered the worst movie ever made. An extreme amount of drama in it:lol:

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

 

What led you to decide to look up The Fabelmans on Rotten Tomatoes today?

The Indy interview (which I posted in that thread) automatically came up in my Youtube feed, which led me to think about the Fabelmans, so I did a news search.  

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Sadly, these days something like this feels more like Netflix project to me. And while I'm looking forward to it, I have a feeling it's not going to exactly light up the box office.

 

Has Spielberg ever had two flops in a row?

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4 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

 

Of course. Wasn't that his last film?

It was, but it was considered a flop? I don't remember hearing much, if any, negativity about it. For a musical I was unfamiliar with, I enjoyed it.

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14 minutes ago, Brando said:

It was, but it was considered a flop? I don't remember hearing much, if any, negativity about it. For a musical I was unfamiliar with, I enjoyed it.


As I said, I was referring to box office. It was praised by critics.

 

But in terms of box office, I think it made around 75 mil worldwide, and had to do north of 300 mil just to break even. A colossal flop, and definitely the Baseball Caps biggest (as far as I know). BFG  was also a flop (though not as big as West Side Story) but was bookended by Bridge of Spies & The Post, which I believe did reasonably well given their relatively small budgets.

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This is rumour control, here are the facts.

Until B.F.G, no Spielberg film had lost money, for any studio.

Even his less profitable films (1941;  EMPIRE OF THE SUN; ALWAYS; AMISTAD etc.) made money. B.F.G. was the first financial hit that he ever took. It must have hurt.

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11 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

A colossal flop, and definitely the Baseball Caps biggest (as far as I know). BFG  was also a flop (though not as big as West Side Story) but was bookended by Bridge of Spies & The Post, which I believe did reasonably well given their relatively small budgets.

 

If he weren't the guy behind the Jurassic Park and Transformers franchises he would have severe problems getting projects off the ground now. Apart from more presidential movies, 'Lincoln' was the only breakout success of his after Indiana Jones 4.

5 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

This is rumour control, here are the facts.

Until B.F.G, no Spielberg film had lost money, for any studio.

 

You got it wrong, in the sense that the numbers on Wikipedia etc. often do not figure in marketing costs. Which might have been neat in the case of '1941', but since the '90s climbed upwards to a point where they sometimes were higher than the actual production costs. I highly doubt 'Amistad' *really* made money, at least not the kind of money Dreamworks needed it to make and it was a case of sour grapes back then: Spielberg delivering a stinker to his own new studio, but made a monster hit for Univrsal (Lost World) the same year.

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I don't think this is the sort of movie anyone expects to make more than $100.  If it takes off and makes more, great; but for it be a flop, I would say it will have to land below $60 million.

 

And, yes, WSS was a massive flop--not in terms of reviews but the BO.  

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Didn't Amistad open alongside Titanic and Tomorrow Never Dies? This may partially explain its flop. Both Titanic and Amistad were historical epics, but the Spielberg movie was much less crowdpleasing.

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10 hours ago, publicist said:

 

If he weren't the guy behind the Jurassic Park and Transformers franchises he would have severe problems getting projects off the ground now. Apart from more presidential movies, 'Lincoln' was the only breakout success of his after Indiana Jones 4.

 

You got it wrong, in the sense that the numbers on Wikipedia etc. often do not figure in marketing costs. Which might have been neat in the case of '1941', but since the '90s climbed upwards to a point where they sometimes were higher than the actual production costs. I highly doubt 'Amistad' *really* made money, at least not the kind of money Dreamworks needed it to make and it was a case of sour grapes back then: Spielberg delivering a stinker to his own new studio, but made a monster hit for Univrsal (Lost World) the same year.

 

Spielberg is able to make passion projects he makes right now because he's Spielberg.  I think the only other director working right now who has this kind of caché is maybe Nolan. But he still makes films that people want to see.

 

7 minutes ago, Tom said:

I don't think this is the sort of movie anyone expects to make more than $100.  If it takes off and makes more, great; but for it be a flop, I would say it will have to land below $60 million.

 

Depends on the budget. Assuming a $50 million production budget, it would have to do north of $100 mil just to break even. 

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6 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:


Spielberg is able to make passion projects he makes right now because he's Spielberg.  I think the only other director working right now who has this kind of caché is maybe Nolan.


It happens, but I remember the tale of woe when he had to pay for the ‚Lincoln‘ crew himself or the production would have been shut down. The 800 pound gorilla days are long gone.

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He's really expressed a lot of resistance to working with streamers, but I think that's the future for the kind of niche films he wants to make. I know Amblin recently inked a deal with Netflix, but I'm not sure if that involves Spielberg actually releasing films he's directed through them, or if it's just a production agreement to develop stuff.

 

I'm sure any streamer would throw stupid money at Spielberg to direct anything he wanted. Apple would finance a sequel called 1942 just to be associated with him.

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6 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

So if a Spielberg bio-pic is the second to last film that John Williams scores, then shouldn't Spielberg return the favour and make a Williams bio-pic be the second to last film Spielberg directs?

 

Seems only fair.  What would be even more fair would be if Williams was around to compose the score for his own bio-pic! 

Oh man, what would a JW score to a movie about his life be like? It's an autobio-score. What would we be treated to from JW?

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22 minutes ago, artguy360 said:

Oh man, what would a JW score to a movie about his life be like? It's an autobio-score. What would we be treated to from JW?

 

It would be a Goldsmith pastiche.

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39 minutes ago, mstrox said:

He’d probably use that trademark Fabelmans tact to rename The character to John Musiciams

 

Johnny "Baby" Jazzman.

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