In 1981, Steven Spielberg admitted that filmmaking was a learning experience …
in what you hate.
Spielberg’s first feature was “Duel,” a horror movie based on a short story by Richard Matheson, and it was made on a budget of only $450,000, cheap even for 1971.
He followed that with “The Sugarland Express” in 1973, a crime thriller that he made for only $3 million.
Next came 1975’s “Jaws,” one of the biggest movies of all time, produced with a budget of $9 million.
One can already see the pattern at work.
Spielberg started small, and his productions only got bigger and bigger over the years.
It wouldn’t be until “The Color Purple” in 1985 that Spielberg would break out of his reputation as a maker of mere blockbuster entertainments. Spielberg never set out to achieve that kind of growth.
Indeed, hearing him talk about it, Spielberg always wanted to make multiple small, intimate movies in between the gigantic genre pictures.
Read full article