Steven Spielberg got his start in television. His first paid gig was directing an episode of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. His first professional film was Duel, a TV movie. He directed the pilot for Columbo, ferchrissakes. None of those jobs are featured in the semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans, but TV was his first home, yet he hasn’t directed for the small screen since helming two episodes of his anthology series Amazing Stories back in the mid-‘80s. Not that he wouldn’t mind returning. In fact, he recently admitted he would have loved to have directed one of the more beloved limited series of the last few years.
During an appearance on the podcast Smartless (as caught by The Playlist), Spielberg — who’s executive produced his share of big shows, including Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, SeaQuest DSV, Band of Brothers, and the new Halo — talked about almost going back to directing television. In fact, one of his biggest hits of the last decade or so began as a TV series.
“I was willing to do Lincoln as a six-hour [show] because I couldn’t raise all the financing for it,” Spielberg revealed. “No one believed in it…I went around town and everyone turned me down.” He wasn’t sure if he could have gotten Daniel Day-Lewis to do six hours of TV, but he was “on the brink” of asking him.
It’s absurd that anyone would have turned down, although maybe it’s less strange that people haven’t confronted him, big-time director of blockbuster big screen motion pictures, to do a lot for a smaller budget. But he has it in him.
“I do have an appetite for long-form, and someday, I will direct a long-form series,” Spielberg said. He even named a show he would have done had anyone bothered to ask. “I mean, if someone would have brought me Mare of Easttown, I would have done that.”
No offense to the person who did direct it, Craig Zobel, though, with Spielberg adding, “That was a beautifully directed story.”
What would a Spielberg-directed Mare of Easttown looked like? Would he have been able to draw upon spending part of his childhood in Jersey to handle a show set outside of Philly? Would it have still spawned a top shelf SNL parody?
Anyway, some hot shot TV honcho get Spielberg on the horn and get him back to directing TV. Anyone who’s seen the Columbo pilot or Duel knows he doesn’t need a billion bucks or even lots of time to make something look a beaut.
(Via The Playlist)