The following telephone conversation between JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg took place on June 8, 2009....shortly after the release of Abrams' STAR TREK.
(Phone rings)
JJ Abrams: "Dharma Initiative, er, I mean...Bad Robot Productions, this is JJ."
Steven Spielberg: "Abrams! What's up, dude? Steven Spielberg here."
JJ: "Yeah, hi Steve, I was just getting ready to go to a meeting and..."
SS: "Just saw the new Star Trek movie and loved it! So I was thinking, how would you like to do a movie for me?"
JJ: "Um, well...we're kinda behind on the production of our new show Fringe, so I think I..."
SS: "Fantastic! So here's the deal: last night I had a dream."
JJ: "About what? That your buddy George Lucas got committed to a loony bin because of the money he's been taking from the no-life sci-fi geeks who think Star Wars is like Shakespeare?"
SS: "Ha ha, no. That's a good one, though...I'll have to remember that. No, the dream was this: You remember that scene in my movie Close Encounters where Rick Dreyfuss is trapped in his pickup on the railroad tracks with the alien spaceship above him?"
JJ: "Um, yeah."
SS: "Well, it just hit me...why don't we make a movie involving those three things...a pickup truck, a railroad track, and an alien, and you can write and direct it, and I'll produce."
JJ: "Gee, Steve, I don't know...I've been trying to come up with an ending for LOST, and we're all pretty stuck on that, and..."
SS: "And you can throw in all that conspiracy shit you like to do. You know, we'll keep it all a secret until like 8 months before the release, and then we'll make a trailer that hardly shows anything, to get the audience all riled up. Like you did with that one movie, what was it? About the dairy company? Um, uh....MAYFIELD?"
JJ: "Cloverfield."
SS: "Right, right. Yeah, that movie was pretty good, but you used too many old kids in it. In this movie we'll go right for the childhood angle, and..."
JJ: "Oh, for the love of God, Steve...you're not gonna recycle that sad kid, warped childhood angst thing that you always do, are you?"
SS: "Well, YEAH! It's what has kept my career going for so long! I mean, I dabbled in it a little bit with Close Encounters in 1977, but then when I made E.T. in 1982, it was ON!!"
JJ: (with sarcasm) "Sigh, yeah...ok. Sounds great. So what are we going to do with this movie?"
SS: "Hmm, well, let's see. Let's have a bunch of kids who look like they were rejects from that Stephen King miniseries IT...put 'em all in front of a bunch of blue screens.....you know George Lucas taught me that digital blue screens are..."
JJ: "Yes, I know what George told you. He also thinks that the Twilight movies are WELL WRITTEN."
SS: "Right. Well anyway, the premise is there's this one kid who likes to make movies and they start to make a Super 8 film about zombies and then this big explosion happens on a train track with a pickup truck and..."
JJ: "That sounds kinda cool, actually. What else happens?"
SS: "That's where YOU come in, my friend."
JJ: "Hmm, OK. How about just the whole thing be about the alien wanting to get back to his own planet? We'll throw in that guy from Friday Night Lights to play a father who's grieving from some family tragedy and have him sob and sulk the whole movie, have the kids turn into the A-Team, and put a cute girl in there as a love interest who becomes the goal for the main kid to find himself and to save her from the alien? Oh yeah, and we'll put these weird looking objects in it that look like Rice Krispies treats and use 'em as some sort of technology that the alien uses...maybe relate to some sort of water subplot or something."
SS: "Great! That sounds good. And don't worry about it being boring. I'm Steven Spielberg. I've never made a boring movie. Hell, those Transformers movies were pieces of shit and they raked in the DOLLAHS!! You just gotta slap my name on something and people will give me the Benjamins. I learned that from George."
JJ: "Yeah, that's true. OK, Steve..well that sounds great. I'll get started on that screenplay right away. "
SS: "Fantastic. I'm heading to the store to get Harrison Ford one of those new Hover-Round scooters. And the tennis balls on his walker are worn out too, but we gotta have him for Indy 5, so..."
JJ: "Yeah, that's great Steve. Hey, one more thing, you don't think this whole childhood nostalgia premise is getting old, do you?"
(click...dial tone..)
JJ: "Hello? Hello?"
Super 8, (2011), Directed by JJ Abrams
Grade: D+
3 comments:
I think this is the first movie we ever agreed on. Only I would blame JJ more than Steven. I would give it a D- actually, but I liked the dad, and acting wasn't bad so I can accept a D+.
--Diane
This premise can actually go either way. Steven's nostalgia was a major influence for the movie, but JJ succumbed because it was Spielberg and the end product was just a borefest. Such a disappointment because with these two titans involved, it could have been a fantastic film, almost like "THE GOONIES REDUX" for 2011. Oh well.
"I got a better idea Steven. Why don't I repeatedly say in interviews that this movie is an homage to your movies from the 80's (especially E.T.). That way some curmudgeon who hated E.T. can watch the movie already knowing that he's going to hate it. Because he hates anything with sentiment in it because he's miserable all the time....Or...maybe I could have a unicorn and some backwards talking midget so that he will like it..your choice Steven."
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