Steven Spielberg Rushed This Tom Hanks Led War Thriller in Just 6 Months and Got an Oscar Nomination for It
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In 2017, Steven Spielberg felt a fire inside of him, and it pushed him to rush a movie into production so fast that it came out before the one he had already filmed. Despite the fast turnaround, the film raked in Academy Award nominations, a sizable box office gross, and critical acclaim. It turned out to be one of Spielberg’s best late-period works, and it stands as a true testament to Spielberg’s efficiency in storytelling and ability to bring together a wide span of industry legends like Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep to get a movie off the ground.
The Post is a dramatization of the publishing of the Pentagon Papers, a series of classified documents that were leaked to the press in an effort to reveal the Nixon administration’s intentional misleading of the public with regard to the war in Vietnam. The film specifically centers around The Washington Post’s crisis of deciding whether to publish them or not, drawing eyes to a time in American history when the government attacked the free press for considering the interests of the American people. Spielberg saw parallels between Nixon’s admin and the rapidly spreading corruption of Donald Trump’s first term, and this led him on an urgent mission to get The Post out into the world in just a few months.
Steven Spielberg Made ‘The Post’ in the Middle of ‘Ready Player One’s Post-Production
Spielberg working on two movies simultaneously was not an anomaly, as he had done so before with a handful of features. Most notably, he continued post-production on Jurassic Park while filming Schindler’s List. This started a short but lively period in his career, where he would often make two films that would be released within a year of each other. But what makes The Post stand out is that the film went into production after Ready Player One and was completed so quickly that it was released months before the sci-fi adventure adaptation hit theaters.
The Post began shooting in May 2017, and it was released in theaters in December of that year, making the active production span only six months. That is a rapid turnaround for nearly any major movie, but especially one with an ensemble cast this rich and a ton of heavy hitters behind the scenes. It speaks to Spielberg’s strength as an industry figure that he could assemble Hanks, Streep, the dozens of recognizable character actors who bulk up the movie, John Williams, and more of his frequent collaborators to all coordinate and get this movie done in such a rapid fashion.
The result is a surprisingly smooth newspaper drama that goes down easily as a reminder of the kinds of star-driven issue dramas that used to be so commonplace. We don’t see as many movies like The Post anymore, and it is an especially precious one when a filmmaking master like Spielberg is involved. He leveraged his name to tell a story that spoke to the current moment, and it turned out to be one of the best films he’s made in the latter half of his career.
‘The Post’ is Just One of Many Later Career Films that Prove Spielberg Never Lost His Magic Touch
When you have Jaws, E.T., and Indiana Jones under your belt, all in the first half of your career, it might seem easy to look at what comes next as the descent after the peak. And sure, Spielberg’s movies are not instant pop-cultural artifacts now, but you’d be wrong to assert that he hasn’t been putting out some of his greatest works over the last ten years. West Side Story and The Fabelmans are two big, ambitious projects that would handily be the best thing most directors could ever make. The Post is smaller, more intimate, and more directly responsive to a moment in time than most of Spielberg’s movies, but it still stands tall.
The newspaper genre has given us a few classics, and The Post certainly joins the ranks of those films. It may not surpass the enduring legacy of All the President’s Men, a movie that Spielberg cheekily sets up with a stinger that connects this story directly to Watergate right at the end. You could watch one right after the other as if it was always meant to be that way. But The Post also stands on its own as a simple, down-the-middle adult drama with great performances and a sense of sincere care towards the story being told. This is all the more impressive considering how quickly the film came together, but with Spielberg at the helm, it is no great shock that even his rush jobs can be fantastic.
The Post is available to rent on Amazon in the U.S.
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