Steven Spielberg On ‘Fabelmans’ Oscar Noms, His First Screenplay Nod, ‘Indiana Jones’ Series & Why Theatrical B.O. “Will Come Back”

deadline.com:

Steven Spielberg’s autobiopic The Fabelmans notched seven Oscar nominations today including Best Picture and the filmmaker’s ninth directing nod.

And while Spielberg already counts three Oscar wins –two for directing Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List and Best Picture for the latter– today the blockbuster filmmaker of Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park celebrated his first screenplay nomination ever, in the original category, for The Fabelmans. “I just recently turned 76, where they say, ‘What’s left to accomplish?’ I suddenly get nominated for the first time in my career by the Academy as a co-author of Best screenplay — it made me feel like all those English and creative writing classes paid off!” While Lincoln scribe, Tony Kushner, encouraged Spielberg to start putting his memories down on paper, the project didn’t come to life until after the death of the Jaws director’s parents, plus the onset of the pandemic.

That long delay for The Fabelmans in Spielberg’s career was never due to writers’ block nor the need to paint the most perfect portrait of his life. “I had to be ready to tell the story and I wasn’t for a long time and for a lot of reasons.

I guarded my privacy jealously,” the director says who has put parts of his life in his blockbuster movies “through the smokescreen of science fiction, adventure or historical fiction.” Soon after his parents passed, Spielberg got the urge. “When you’re orphaned, you don’t know what that feels like until it happens,” he says, “It’s profound, it has profound consequences.” Due to the pandemic impact’s on adult moviegoing, The Fabelmans as a drama was a slow-go at the box office, currently counting under $15M domestic (under the $22.2M of Spielberg’s 1987 war movie