On February 10th we will have Steven Spielberg back on the billboard with ‘Los Fabelmans’. However, many wonder if the director plans to get fully into the world of series in the short term. As he confirmed recently, he would have loved to direct ‘Mare of Easttown’ and ‘Lincoln’ could have been a six-hour series on HBO.
Spielberg on TV
We have already been able to see Spielberg involved as a producer in several television projects before, such as ‘Blood Brothers’ or the sadly missing ‘Smash’. However, as he recently stated in a podcast, the filmmaker Do you intend to direct a series in the near future?.
In fact, Spielberg has remarked ‘Mare of Easttown’ as the type of project that would have made him throw himself fully into TV:
I’d like to try a longer format, and one day I’ll be directing a long-form series. I mean, if someone had offered me ‘Mare of Easttown,’ I would have. I thought it was a beautifully directed story.
The HBO miniseries Created by Brad Ingelsby, directed by Craig Zobel and starring Kate Winsletpremiered in 2021 and was about a detective tasked with investigating the mysterious murders committed in the small town of Easttown.
However, Spielberg could have directed a series for HBO even earlier: the director narrated how was raised to make ‘Lincoln’ as a series of six hours:
I wanted to do ‘Lincoln’ (as a series) in six hours because I couldn’t find the financing. Nobody believed in the film, I went around the city and everyone rejected it. I almost made a deal with HBO to expand it to six hours. Tony Kushner’s first draft was 550 pages, so he had the right pieces! I had the stuff. Although I don’t know if I could have convinced Daniel Day-Lewis to do a six hour one but I almost did.
‘Lincoln’ was finally released in 2012 as a two-and-a-half-hour film and won Oscars for Best Production Design and Best Lead Actor for Day-Lewis. We will have to wait to see if Spielberg fulfills his intention to take over the direction of a series in the near future.