The Fabelmans (starring Michelle Williams)

[imsounoriginal]

Steven Spielberg, Michelle Williams Teaming for Coming-of-Age Drama

Spielberg wrote the script with frequent collaborator Tony Kushner and will direct the project, which is loosely based on the filmmaker's formative years growing up in Arizona.

Many people have wanted and tried to be the next Steven Spielberg, but now someone may actually be Steven Spielberg… as a teen boy, that is.

According to multiple sources, Spielberg is working on his post-West Side Story movie project, a story rooted in his childhood that he wrote Tony Kushner, a frequent collaborator with whom he worked on films such as Munich and Lincoln, and will direct.

The filmmaking legend is enlisting four-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams as one of the leads and, under the radar, is conducting test screenings for young actors that would star in the modestly-budgeted untitled drama that said to be loosely based by the filmmaker’s formative years and by his relationship with his parents.

A July start date is being scheduled with a plan for a release in 2022.

Plot details for the untitled project are being kept secret but one aspect of the project is a split time period that would focus on the character, who is not being called Steven, according to sources, as a young child and also a teen living in Phoenix, Arizona.

Phoenix is where Spielberg lived in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The filmmaker has spoken numerous times about those years, in which he faced anti-Semitism while also making home movies and adventure movies using his father’s 8 mm camera that he entered into contests. (The latter was a focus on his 2011 collaboration with J.J. Abrams, Super 8.)

Spielberg’s family moved to California while he was still in high school and later his parents divorced, with the budding filmmaker moving in with his father. He has spoken publicly about how he maintained his mother on a pedestal but had a strained relationship with father, a relationship that would inform movies ranging from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial to Hook and Jurassic Park to Lincoln and Catch Me If You Can.

(One aspect that is unclear is whether the project is a period piece.)

Williams, who is in negotiations, is said to be playing the mother while a range of a dozen or so teen and kid roles, two of them leading, are being sought.

Supporting teen and child roles are also a big push as friend characters are also an important focus of the project. (Groups of teens as central to the action were key in the director’s early works such as E.T. and the Spielberg-produced The Goonies.)

From his earliest films, Spielberg has shown an affinity for working with young actors and spotting talent, be in Henry Thomas E.T., Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun, with many of them looked at as stand-ins for Spielberg. Now, finally, Spielberg may find someone to embody him in a project that is as personal as can be without it being a biopic.

Kushner most recently worked with Spielberg on the latter’s remake of West Side Story. The movie, starring Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler, is due to open Dec. 21, 2021, after having been pushed from past year.

Williams won an Emmy and Golden Globe for her work in Fosse/Verdon and returns for Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which will open June 25.

via THR

[HipsterTrash]

Honestly, this sounds like it can go two ways: a simple drama with lots of talented actors, something more akin to Munich or Color Purple; or something grand and larger than life like Always or War Horse or Empire of the Sun.

Either way, I'm stoked.

[Cremildo]

A personal, semi-autobiographical dramatic project > stuff like Ready Player One or The BFG.

I'm 100% in.

[imsounoriginal]

Ready Player One is semi-autobiographical, but ok.

[Monterey Jack]

Wow, Spielberg hasn't had a writing credit on a movie since A.I.. Plus, I'd love to see him back back to making a modest drama and away from megabudget expense. Color me excited.

[Gacivory]

This sounds great to me! And casting Michelle Williams is ace!

[slumcat]

Michelle Williams is one of our best actors.

And Spielberg needs no adjectives. This should be great.

[jeangreyforever]

Excited for this especially with Michelle Williams cast.

[DrWally]

This sounds like it could be Spielberg's 'Roma'.

I'm all in. Interesting that in the past year that he passed on two projects that he had been developing for years (Edgargo Bortera and Indy 5) to alight on this.

[Moviefan2k4]

Call me "cautiously optimistic" about this, since I have no idea what to expect.

[biglou114]

Originally Posted by DrWally

This sounds like it could be Spielberg's 'Roma'.

I'm all in. Interesting that in the past year that he passed on two projects that he had been developing for years (Edgargo Bortera and Indy 5) to alight on this.

I’m assuming that this was written during the pandemic, after polishing off WSS, and developed while talking Kurshner about his past. When it came time to choose what project to do next, this excited him more than the long in-development projects.

[Synchg]

Spielberg once directed a movie called "War Horse"...it was about a horse...in war.
were you guys aware of these facts?

[biglou114]

Originally Posted by Synchg

Spielberg once directed a movie called "War Horse"...it was about a horse...in war.
were you guys aware of these facts?

It was terrific.

[The Swan Returns]

He’s finally making I’ll Be Home. The beard is looking to close shop.

[CyberpunkCentral]

Ready Player One is only the gaming aspect of Spielberg's life.

[The Swan Returns]

I wonder how much of this is due to his friend Marty finding the perfect bookends to his own career (I know he’s working on Killers of the Flower Moon but Silence and The Irishman one after the other is exactly how you end that career.)

Ready Player One is already Spielberg musing on the legacy his blockbusters (he sort of hates it.)

[imsounoriginal]

Originally Posted by The Swan Returns

Ready Player One is already Spielberg musing on the legacy his blockbusters (he sort of hates it.)

He hates the movie about the kid from Ohio who uses his innate talent and encyclopedic knowledge of the greats before him to prove that he’s the best in the world at what he does and changes the system forever?

[klauswhereareyou]

Guess he's finally going to indulge his inner Truffaut.

[Cremildo]

Originally Posted by The Swan Returns

He’s finally making I’ll Be Home. The beard is looking to close shop.

I doubt it.

[Koller70]

This will be probably Spielberg's Amarcord, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Roma, and Radio Days.
I don't know if it will be as good as those films, but yeah like it's been said before, i bet he saw Scorsese's deeply personal late career masterpieces Silence and The Irishman and he must have thought : "****, i have to step up my game".