Back-to-back Spielberg in December 2011

By Sarah Sluis

Steven Spielberg hasn't directed anything for over two years. His last film, in case you can't remember, was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a taut throwback to his earlier work but greeted rather tepidly by critics--and myself. He now has two films coming out: The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, which he's been working on for years, and War Horse, which only started production. Both films, it turns out, will release within five days of each other during December 2011.

Why so close?

-DreamWorks, which only has a financial stake in War Horse, made the decision to move the Disney release. They don't care about Tintin as much. But Spielberg probably does, and they also don't want to upset Sony and Paramount, the distributors of Tintin. The fact that Tintin will release first, followed by War Horse, seems like a concession of sorts. Tintin will be first out of the gate, and that can make a difference at the box office.

-War Horse "felt like a holiday movie," according to DreamWorks executive Stacey Snider. The movie centers on a young WWI soldier trying to find his horse, which is a rather Spielberg-y project; wars, young boys all alone, etc. The material is rather dark, especially if you look at the pictures of the stage production, so it makes sense that the movie will release during the holiday movie season, and not the more popcorn-y summer season. In fact, it makes me wonder if that was the plan all along.

In other news, literary adaptation The Help was moved to the spot vacated by War Horse, August 25th. Plans are to market this as an event film along the lines of Eat Pray Love or Julie & Julia. I enjoyed this novel, which was popular among book clubs. The premise has some similarities to the Fox Searchlight movie The Secret Life of Bees--a movie that opened to $10 million but made $37 million on an $11 million production budget. Both books center on white characters in black worlds in the South. Emma Stone, Viola Davis and Bryce Dallas Howard lead the cast, and I have high hopes for the film.

DreamWorks has an impressive slate planned, which includes other films like Real Steel (from Night of the Museum's Shawn Levy). I look forward to seeing the studio step up and turn out more of the "elevated genre" pictures (their wording) they plan on producing.