Director Steven Spielberg says he is developing his first western. The legendary filmmaker is set to release his first musical this month, a genre he hasn't tackled until now in his career of over four decades. Spielberg's West Side Story is a new adaptation of the 1957 musical by Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, and the recently-departed Stephen Sondheim. The new cast consists of Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Rita Moreno, David Alvarez, Brian d'Arcy James, and Mike Faist.
Spielberg has tackled a number of genres throughout his career, kicking off his blockbuster era with Jaws, a thriller, before venturing into dramas (Schindler's List), action/adventure (The Indiana Jones franchise), war (Saving Private Ryan), sci-fi (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), romance (Always), biopic (Lincoln), comedy (The Terminal), and more. Some films are genre mash-ups, while others stay strictly within the genre they're in, but the prolific filmmaker has proven himself reliably versatile. Despite covering the gamut of movie genres, however, Spielberg still has one big one left untouched; the Western.
In a new interview with Yahoo!'s Kevin Polowy, Spielberg addresses the fact that he hasn't directed a Western in his career, before revealing that he has "a few" in development. The director says he may be "putting on spurs someday" but doesn't know which project "would spring to the forefront" as of yet. Spielberg mentions how he was constantly asked throughout the last forty years about which genre he'd like to tackle, always saying musicals, but forgetting to mention Westerns. Here's his full quote:
I was asked that question over the last forty years of my career, if not longer, and I always said a musical was the one thing I haven't done. The thing I neglected to say, which I've never done, and the one genre that I haven't really tackled yet, is the Western. So, who knows, maybe I'll be putting on spurs someday, who knows?
Spielberg recently wrapped The Fablemans, a semi-autobiographical film inspired by his own childhood, which he wrote alongside frequent collaborator Tony Kushner. The film, which stars Seth Rogen, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, and Gabriel LaBelle, is said to trace Spielberg's roots as a boy growing up in Arizona an aspiring filmmaker. Spielberg recently signed a deal with Netflix to create films for the streamer under his Amblin banner, although it's questionable he'll direct any for the platform.
Spielberg's status as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time can't be understated. The prospects of the director venturing into new territory is an exciting one, as there's no telling what type of angle he'd take with a Western. Having grown up at a time when Westerns and war films were the big draw at the box office, Spielberg would have the pulse of the genre in a way that many filmmakers may not. His work in the war genre, from Band of Brothers to Saving Private Ryan to The Pacific, is stunning, so having the director saddle up for an old-fashioned Western would be a welcome addition to his filmography.
Source: Kevin Polowy, Yahoo!
