Spielberg then revisited his
Close Encounters project and, with financial backing from Columbia
Pictures, released Close Encounters : The
Special Edition in 1980. For this, Spielberg fixed some of the
flaws he thought impeded the original 1977 version of the film and also, at the
behest of Columbia, and as a condition of Spielberg revising the film, shot
additional footage showing the audience the interior of the mothership seen at
the end of the film (a decision Spielberg would later regret as he felt the
interior of the mothership should have remained a mystery). Nevertheless, the
re-release was a moderate success, while the 2001 DVD release of the film
restored the original ending.
Next, Spielberg teamed with Star
Wars creator and friend George
Lucas on an action adventure
film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the
first of the Indiana Jones films.
The archaeologist and adventurer hero Indiana
Jones was played by Harrison Ford (whom Lucas had previously cast in his Star Wars films as Han Solo). The film was considered a
homage to the cliffhanger serials of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It became the
biggest film at the box office in 1981, and the recipient of numerous Oscar
nominations including Best Director (Spielberg's second nomination) and Best
Picture (the second Spielberg film to be nominated for Best Picture). Raiders is still considered a landmark
example of the action genre. In 1985, Spielberg released The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, about a
generation of empowered African-American women during depression-era America .
Starring Whoopi Goldberg and future talk-show superstar Oprah
Winfrey, the film was a box office smash and critics hailed Spielberg's
successful foray into the dramatic genre. Roger Ebert proclaimed it the best
film of the year and later entered it into his Great Films archive. The film
received eleven Academy Award nominations, including two for Whoopi
Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. However, much to the surprise of many, Spielberg
did not get a Best Director nomination. The
Color Purple is the second of two Spielberg films not to be scored
by John Williams, the first being
Duel.
In 1987, as China
began opening to the world, Spielberg shot the first American film in Shanghai since the 1930s,
an adaptation of J. G. Ballard's
autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun,
starring John Malkovich and a young Christian Bale. The film garnered much
praise from critics and was nominated for several Oscars, but did not yield
substantial box office revenues. Reviewer Andrew
Sarris called it the best film of
the year and later included it among the best films of the decade.
After two forays into more serious dramatic films, Spielberg then
directed the third Indiana Jones film, 1989's
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Once again teaming up with Lucas and
Ford, Spielberg also cast actor Sean
Connery in a supporting role as
Indy's father. The film earned generally positive reviews and was another box
office success, becoming the highest grossing film worldwide that year; its
total box office receipts even topped those of Tim Burton's much-anticipated
film Batman, which had been the bigger
hit domestically. Also in 1989, he re-united with actor Richard Dreyfuss for the romantic comedy-drama Always, about a daredevil pilot who
extinguishes forest fires. Spielberg's first romantic film, Always was only a moderate success and
had mixed reviews.
In 1991, Spielberg directed Hook,
about a middle-aged Peter Pan,
played by Robin Williams, who
returns to Neverland. Despite
innumerable rewrites and creative changes coupled with mixed reviews, the film
made over $300 million worldwide (from a $70 million budget).
In 1993, Spielberg returned to the adventure genre with the film
version of Michael Crichton's
novel Jurassic Park ,
about a theme park with genetically engineered dinosaurs. With revolutionary special
effects provided by friend George
Lucas's Industrial Light &
Magic company, the film would
eventually become the highest grossing film of all time (at the worldwide box
office) with $914.7 million. This would be the third time that one of
Spielberg's films became the highest grossing film ever.
Spielberg's next film,
Schindler’s List, was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his
life to save 1,100 Jews from the Holocaust. Schindler’s List earned Spielberg his
first Academy Award for Best
Director (it also won Best Picture). With the film a huge
success at the box office, Spielberg used the profits to set up the Shoah Foundation, a non-profit organization that archives filmed testimony of
Holocaust survivors. In 1997, the American
Film Institute listed it among
the 10 Greatest American Films ever Made (#9) which moved up to (#8) when the
list was remade in 2007.
Since 1997 –
In 1994, Spielberg took a hiatus from directing to spend more time
with his family and build his new studio,DreamWorks , with partners Jeffrey Katzenberg and David
Geffin. In 1997, he helmed the sequel to 1993' s Jurassic
Park with The Lost World : Jurassic
Park , which generated over $618
million worldwide despite mixed reviews, and was the second biggest hit of 1997
behind James Cameron 's Titanic (which topped the original Jurassic
Park to
become the new recordholder for box office receipts).
His next film,Amistad,
was based on a true story, specifically about an African slave rebellion.
Despite decent reviews from critics, it did not do well at the box office.
Spielberg released under
DreamWorks Pictures, which issued
all of his films from Amistad until
Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the Crystal
Skull in May 2008 .
In 1998, Spielberg re-visited
Close Encounters yet again, this time for a more definitive
137-minute "Collector's Edition" that puts more emphasis on the
original 1977 release, while adding some elements of the previous 1980
"Special Edition," but deleting the latter version's "Mothership
Finale," which Spielberg regretted shooting in the first place, feeling it
should have remained ambiguous in the minds of viewers.
His next theatrical release in that same year was the World War II film
Saving Private Ryan, about a group of U.S.
soldiers led by Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) sent to bring home a paratrooper
missing in France ,
whose three brothers were killed in action. The film was a huge box office
success, grossing over $481 million worldwide and was the biggest film of the
year at the North American box office (worldwide it made second place after Michael Bay 's Armageddon).
Spielberg won his second Academy Award for his direction. The film's graphic,
realistic depiction of combat violence influenced later war films such as Black Hawk Down and Enemy at the Gates. The film was also the
first major hit for DreamWorks, which co-produced the film with Paramount Pictures (as such, it was Spielberg's first
release from the latter that was not part of the Indiana Jones series). Later,
Spielberg and Hanks produced a TV mini-series based on Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers. The ten-part HBO mini-series
follows Easy Company of the 101st
Airborne Division's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The series won a number
of awards at the Golden Globes and the Emmys.
In 2001, Spielberg filmed fellow director and friend Stanley Kubrick 's final project, A.I. Artificial Intelligence which
Kubrick was unable to begin during his lifetime. A futuristic film about a
humanoid android longing for love, A.I. featured groundbreaking visual
effects and a multi-layered, allegorical storyline, adapted by Spielberg
himself. Though the film's reception in the US was relatively muted, it
performed better overseas for a worldwide total box office gross of $236
million.
Spielberg and actor Tom
Cruise collaborated for the first
time for the futuristic neo-noir Minority Report, based upon the sci-fi
short story written by Philip K.
Dick about a Washington D.C.
police captain in the year 2054 who has been foreseen to murder a man he has
not yet met. The film received strong reviews with the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 92% approval rating, reporting
that 200 out of the 218 reviews they tallied were positive. The film earned over $358 million
worldwide. Roger Ebert, who named
it the best film of 2002, praised its breathtaking vision of the future as well
as for the way Spielberg blended CGI with live-action.
Spielberg's 2002 film Catch Me
If You Can is about the daring adventures of a youthful con artist
(played by Leonardo DiCaprio). It
earned Christipher Walken an
Academy Award nomination for Best
Supporting Actor. The film is known for John
Williams ' score and its unique title
sequence. It was a hit both commercially and critically.
Spielberg collaborated again with Tom Hanks along with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley
Tucci in 2004's The Terminal, a warm-hearted comedy about a
man of Eastern European descent who is stranded in an airport. It received
mixed reviews but performed relatively well at the box office. In 2005, Empire magazine ranked Spielberg number one
on a list of the greatest film directors of all time.
Also in 2005, Spielberg directed a modern adaptation of War of the Worlds (a co-production of Paramount and DreamWorks),
based on the H. G. Wells book of the same name (Spielberg had been a huge fan
of the book and the original 1953 film). It starred Tom Cruise and Dakota
Fanning, and, as with past Spielberg films, Industrial
Light & Music (ILM) provided
the visual effects. Unlike E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third
Kind, which depicted friendly alien visitors,
War of the Worlds featured violent invaders. The film was another
huge box office smash, grossing over $591 million worldwide.