At 78, Steven Spielberg declared he has no plans to retire, making the promise Thursday night in Los Angeles during an exclusive event where Universal Pictures unveiled a new state-of-the-art screening room bearing his name.
I’m making a lot of movies, and I have no plans ever to retire.
Hardly a shock coming from someone who’s devoted nearly five decades to turning filmmaking into both career and obsession. In fact, Spielberg has a new film hitting theaters next summer, and at last night’s event, he premiered the first action-packed footage (via Variety). Here’s a description of what was on-screen.
Black cars were seen chasing Emily Blunt's character. Her busted sedan collides with a speeding train. She and Josh O’Connor's character attempt an escape through the broken windshield as the vehicle gets chewed alive between screeching metal and the tracks. Eve Hewson and Colman Domingo’s characters weren’t clearly defined in the footage, though they’re on the business end of a cat-and-mouse game that explodes through farmhouses and terrorizes pedestrians.
In a separate interview with THR, Spielberg made it clear that he’s already thinking about his next project, which comes from “an appetite [to make] a Western,” which is “something that’s eluded me for all of these decades.”
With a filmography that spans six decades and more than 40 films, Spielberg’s landmark career has been that rarest of beasts, mixing commercial success with resounding artistic merits. His last film, “The Fabelmans,” released in 2022, was the most personal project of his career; It garnered strong reviews and earned seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress.
“Hope,” Na’s first film in ten years — his last one being the exemplary “The Wailing” —is a gloriously messy, blood-soaked sci-fi epic that may become a cult classic despite—or because of—its polarizing nature.