This news has gone viral out of the Academy luncheon so rather than keep thanking people who send it my way (thanks Wayman, etc) I will instead echo it here. The headlines read:
Steven Spielberg Overheard Telling Tom Cruise He “Saved Hollywood’s A**” With ‘Top Gun: Maverick
And the video:
Steven Spielberg to Tom Cruise at the #Oscars luncheon: “You saved Hollywood’s ass… you might have saved theatrical distribution.”
(via @marisatomay)
pic.twitter.com/0tkBwqVQLU— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) February 14, 2023
First off, I love Steven Spielberg. There will never be another. We’re all very lucky to have lived in the era where he was making movies because I promise you, that will never be repeated. From Jaws all the way to the Fabelmans — aka my entire lifetime — the man has SHOWN UP.
Top Gun Maverick is the Jaws of 2023. I didn’t know that Joseph Kosinski was a great director before this but he is, indeed, a great director. You don’t get a success like that unless the writing, the directing and the acting is top notch. And it is. It’s a perfect 10. When I watch movies on Amazon I always look at the rating. I’ve never seen anything like this:
Sometimes you get it just right. It doesn’t happen often – in fact, it never happens. Movies like that don’t win Best Picture – they hardly ever have. But it’s the kind of thing that happens once in a blue moon.
It isn’t just an action movie. It’s a love story. It isn’t just a love story between Maverick and Penny, it’s also a love story between Maverick and Rooster and Maverick and Iceman. It’s also a love story between the entire team tasked with getting along and flying the mission. It’s a story of making good on the promise to a best friend to look out for his
As a friend of mine said, these were the kinds of movies we used to get every week in the 1990s. And it’s true. We did. If a single one of those movies was made and released in theaters now, people would flock to them just like they did Top Gun Maverick. It’s especially so now. People say movies and movie theaters are over? They aren’t over. They’re still a fun thing to do if THEY’RE FUN. Not if they’re fast food franchise movies that barely move the needle and blur into one another but if they’re original stories that take you somewhere.
All of those superhero and franchise movies got really depressing, didn’t they? It was like all of a sudden everyone thought it was their job to BUM US OUT for eternity. And then the clouds parted.
I mean….
It’s like crawling through a frozen landscape, an apocalypse and coming upon a crackling blazing fire with an ice cream machine and a hot tub. SIGN ME UP. Our country might be screwed up in a lot of ways but one thing we can do like no one else? Movies like this.
So yeah, Spielberg knows what he’s talking about because he knows everything.
It’s so good it even works with a cat.
