Man, you know that times are tough when even Steven Spielberg can’t get a movie made. The director has pulled the plug on the remake of “Harvey” that he’s been developing for the last six months, telling co-financiers 20th Century Fox earlier in the week (it’s the second remake he’s bailed on in the last few weeks . Variety blames casting problems for this – Spielberg initially approached Tom Hanks, who, as we reported before, turned it down, not wanting to take over a role originated by Jimmy Stewart. Robert Downey Jr was circling for some time, and gave notes on rewrites, but never committed; Variety says that Downey Jr and the director “never found themselves in creative sync on the script.”
There was a pretty virulent fanboy response against Spielberg’s choice of “Harvey” as his next project, so we’re not sure anyone’s going to miss this one – it always risked pandering to the director’s worst instincts as a filmmaker, and we’d rather see him tackle something that’s more of a stretch. Fox are going to continue to develop the project, but we imagine it’ll die on the vine from here.
The question is, what’s Spielberg’s next project going to be?
He seems to have become more careful about his choice of projects of late – he made six films in the first half of this decade, but only one, terrible one in the second half (“The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” wrapped at the start of this year, but still has two years of visual effects work ahead of it), and he clearly decided that, if he couldn’t get the right star for “Harvey,” he wasn’t going to do it. But what are the other options, excluding the proposed remake of “Oldboy” with Will Smith that thankfully also collapsed a few weeks back? Other films he passed on recently include “Matt Helm.” He evidently has a pirate movie in the works (or at least one he’ll executive-produce), but of course we all hope this just gives Spielberg more reason to finally buck up and do his “Lincoln” project already. Let’s take a deeper at what else he has on doc.
— A fifth Indiana Jones installment, which various stars of the franchise have been talking up recently – Shia LaBoeuf claimed that Spielberg had ‘cracked the story’ on a new Indy movie. We, like most, pray that this never happens – “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is far and away the worst movie of Spielberg’s career, and the sense of boredom from the usually inventive director was palpable throughout. But we also sense that Spielberg would rather do something else, particularly having gone from Indy straight on to “Tintin,” another boy’s own adventure.
— “Lincoln,” the long-gestating biopic starring Liam Neeson as the 16th president, being written by Tony Kushner (“Angels in America,” “Munich”). This would seem like the obvious contender, as it apparently came very close to happening last year, but Spielberg’s been putting this one off for years. But you never know, maybe he’ll get it together at “Munich” speed and it’ll go head to head with Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator” at the Oscars next year?
— “Interstellar” the sci-fi movie that the Beard tapped “Dark Knight” co-writer Jonathan Nolan to write a few years back. Apparently focusing on black holes and wormholes, there’s been no movement on this for at least two years, and we reckon it’s been consigned to a dusty drawer somewhere.
— Dreamworks bought the rights to a Martin Luther King biopic, with the full approval of the King estate, earlier in the year, which Spielberg will produce? Could he direct too? Hmm. We feel that the material should probably be in the hands of an African-American director, but that didn’t stop him with “The Color Purple.” As far as we know, though, no writer’s been appointed to this one, so it’s unlikely to be ready to go in the timeframe.
— There was a report a year ago that Spielberg’s go-to writer, Jeff Nathanson, was adapting the children’s book series “The 39 Clues,” with Spielberg likely to direct. The series follows a group of adventurers searching for clues hidden throughout history that will show the source of the power of a famous family. But goddamnit, how many globe-trotting adventures can one man make?
We feel that either the director will finally take the plunge on “Lincoln,” or there’ll be an entirely new project emerging after the holidays – Spielberg can still pretty much pick and choose his scripts, so maybe something on the Black List will take his fancy? If not, ‘Bourne 4’ is always hiring… What would you like to see the great director tackle next?