Universal Names Theater For Steven Spielberg, Donna Langley’s ‘Terrifying’ Meeting With Him, And How He Celebrated ‘Jaws’ 50th Anniversary Alone – Interview

Immediately after last night’s star-studded dedication of The Steven Spielberg Theater, Universal Studios’ brand-new. state-of-the-art movie showcase, I spoke to the legendary director himself about this moment. He still was stunned by this honor at the studio that started his remarkable career.

“I have never had anything like this before. I have had my name on things but never a movie theater in the home of my career birthplace,” Spielberg told me on the third-floor patio just outside the magnificent new exhibition the studio has created with his films made for Universal. “It is one of the greatest honors ever given to me, to have my name on a theater on this particular film lot because the history of this studio is legendary. I am hoping that every single movie that plays here is a really good movie, but when movies play in this theater that aren’t very good — which I hope will never happen — don’t blame the guy whose name is on the door.”

Heavy stuff when you consider he already has three Oscars plus a Thalberg Award, an AFI Life Achievement and Kennedy Center Honor, plus countless other awards in a career that started on the Universal lot in 1968, directing none other than Joan Crawford in an episode of Night Gallery, and continues to this day with his Amblin Studios compound situated right in the center of Universal City. It is pretty impressive that Spielberg considers this still to be something, well, otherworldly.

Located in the heart of the studio’s new commons building in the long-planned Campus Project that Spielberg has been a leading voice in its development and execution. The new 250-seat showcase is one of only 50 in the state of California to include key technological elements including Dolby Vision 4K, Laser 4K, 35MM and 70MM projection, an audio system in Atmos 9, Meyer speakers, Imax, playback in DCPs, Avid, Quicktime, BouRay, Tape, feeds from any StudioPost and system, and Computer HDMI output.

And then there is that aforementioned exhibit that saw numerous (and famous) Spielberg friends, colleagues and stars wandering through at the reception following the dedication Thursday night. They were all there — from Jeffrey Katzenberg to Ke Huy Quan, Vin Diesel, John Travolta, Ava DuVernay, Dakota Fanning, Seth Rogen, Colman Domingo, Marc Platt and countless others. I even spotted Jeff Goldblum standing in front of the Jurassic Park installation.

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This all included Spielberg himself, and I asked him if he felt his life passing before his eyes as he walked through it. “It’s like driving backward to 80 miles an hour in a souped-up DeLorean,” he told me. “It was a real out-of-body experience to walk into that exhibit of all the films I have made here at the studio. I was very emotional walking through it — emotional because it sent me back down memory lane. I am proud of my nostalgia, I am not ashamed of it. And I looked at all the pictures of myself, and I just thought, ‘What happened to all my beautiful hair?’”

I asked if he still watches all the movies he has made. He said he doesn’t ever do that except for just one last week. “I did watch Jaws. I don’t watch my movies, but I was alone, nobody was with me, and I ran a really good print of Jaws on the 20th of June. I wanted to see the movie on the day it originally opened [in 1975] and see if I could get through the movie, get to the end of the movie without reliving the nightmares of making the movie. And I have to say, by the time I got to the end it was the first time I ever watched Jaws as an audience, not as a filmmaker,” he said.

So I asked him how it was, and his reply was simple and enthusiastic: “I liked it!”

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Jaws is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, a film that started the “summer movie” and blockbuster phenomenon as well as being a cultural touchstone for its generation and many more since. But it was a notoriously difficult production, especially in getting that shark to work as the film was the first big Hollywood production to actually shoot out in the open waters. “I had no idea it was going to have that kind of life. I didn’t think it had much life expectancy when I was making it. I thought it was going to be stillborn, or it would be released and I would be stillborn. That’s how hard it was to make the film,” he recalls. “But once it took off with audiences, I couldn’t predict people would still be talking about it and celebrating it for five decades, so has been a beautiful occasion I will never forget.”

For this occasion, which also included a sneak peek at his top-secret untitled new film (not coming out until next summer), the big guns came out including Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and Comcast President Mike Cavanaugh, as well as NBCUniversal Entertainment & Studios Chairman Donna Langley, who opened the proceedings after a dazzling reel of Spielberg’s work played. “It is such an honor to have Steven as the name on this theater, and our hope and dream is that it’s not just the place that is founded on his extraordinary legacy, but it is the place of future hopes and dreams of filmmakers and storytellers who are going to take this company into the next 100 years and the 100 years after that, people who come with a hope and a dream, people who have been inspired by Steven and others,” she said before telling a story of being “terrified” when first meeting him. “You know, it’s funny, so I have written remarks here, and it says, you know, ‘the first time I remember I met Steven?’ Well, I’m going to tell you I don’t remember the first time, not because it wasn’t memorable, but because it was terrifying, he’s Steven Spielberg!. He is a myth. He’s a legend. And I don’t, I don’t remember. I just left my body a couple of hours after the meeting.”

Roberts followed with a touching story about meeting Universal’s Sid Sheinberg in 1993 by happenstance with a friend who needed to drop by Sheinberg’s house. When they got there, Sheinberg was in the process of writing a letter to Steven about the greatness of his upcoming Schindler’s List, with the idea that he also hoped to turn it into a trade ad. It simply said, “Steven, if the only film you ever made was Schindler’s List, that would be enough.” Eighteen years later Comcast would buy the studio and, in speaking to Spielberg about helping out for a Shoah Foundation event, he first mentioned that encounter with Sheinberg all those years ago. It floored the director, who said he was staring at that letter on his desk right then, one of his most cherished possessions. “From that moment, I think we had an instant connection. … You are the world’s treasure, but you’re also our treasure, and you’ve transformed the culture of this Universal campus and this Universal company,” Roberts said before introducing Spielberg.

“I just believe in home. I used to say to Kate [Capshaw], every time I leave home I come home,” Spielberg said. “And when I leave my home here, I come home there. Universal is the exact birthplace of my entire career, and I will never forget the people that made that possible, and the people who continue to welcome me and make me feel there is no place like home.”

As he wrapped his remarks to the packed audience, Spielberg added that he hoped they would see the exhibit. “My son said, ‘Dad, now that Jaws is 50 years old, you are like a museum piece.’ And that’s true. I am a bit of a museum piece, and there’s proof of that when you walk through this exhibit of my films at Universal for which they did an amazing job,” he said.

Langley ended the dedication with a surprise, the first-ever look at Spielberg’s next film. She admitted even she hadn’t seen the footage to be shown. It was for a future featurette on the making of the movie that stars Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor and Colman Domingo (who was there wearing a special baseball cap from the set), and what we saw was a big car-chase sequence being made with Spielberg checking things out behind the camera. When the action-filled scene was in the can, you can see Spielberg’s absolute joy and glee at getting the shot, exactly probably the way he looked after getting that first shot on his very first film.

He is still going strong and definitely not a museum piece, as he assured the crowd, “I will never retire.”