Spielberg’s The Fabelmans: That little detail that makes it an event movie

Out in theaters this Wednesday, The Fabelmans is Steven Spielberg’s 34th feature film, including his feature film The Fourth Dimension. The filmmaker this time was inspired by his own past and in the background of his filmography, Fabelmans is a big event. But why ?

Well, because it’s the first feature film since 2001 to be written by Steven Spielberg himself, who is more used to directing other people’s stories. To bring his life story to the screen, the Jurassic Park director took on the writing, assisted by Tony Kushner, with whom he worked on Munich, Lincoln and West Side Story.

What else did he write?

In addition to the early youth shorts, Spielberg wrote or co-wrote stories that others adapted into screenplays, such as the story of an aerialist who takes his son on a trip with him (Ace Eli and Roger in the Sky, 1973) or A Woman’s Story. tries to rebuild his family (Sugarland Express, 1974). Two themes echoing the Fabelmans plot.

We also find Spielberg in Poltergeist (1982), Goons (1985) or two segments of fantasy stories (Mission and Mummy Dad).

He is a complete screenwriter though. Although he benefited from the help of various people behind the scenes (including Walter Hill), he wrote the screenplay for Rencontres du 3ème type (1977) and IA, Artificial Intelligence (2001) alone, which was taken from the originally written story. Ian Watson for Stanley Kubrick.

Finally, Spielberg is the initiator of the series High Tension (1996 – 1997), which immersed the audience in the life of the police in the suburb of El Camino, California.

Video game author!

Spielberg also became interested in video games when he became involved with The Dig, a point-and-click game by LucasArts that was released in 1995. The player takes on the role of Commander Boston Lowe, the leader of a team of astronauts responsible for blasting an asteroid until it crashes. Earth. The concept was taken from a plot originally planned as an episode of Histoiresfantastes.

He repeated the following year with Someone’s in the Kitchen, a new point-and-click game that this time focused on cooking recipes. First of all, he would be the creator of Medal of Honor (1999), based on an idea he had while filming Private Ryan. The year is 1944 and Lieutenant Jimmy Patterson is a secret agent working to overthrow the Nazi regime. A phenomenal success, the game had 16 sequels at the time of writing.