Friday 23 July 2010

JJ Abrams spills a few Super-8 details

At San Diego Comic-Con yesterday JJ Abrams took to the stage at Entertainment Weekly's Visionaries panel and spoke about Super-8 his upcoming collaboration with Steven Spielberg.

While revealing nothing about the top-secret project's storyline, he does confirm that the film will hark back to the days of Spielberg's Amblin output from the 1980s and also reveals that he was once hired by Spielberg at the age of 16.

Cinematical has the story, and provided quotes from the panel.

"When I was 16 years old, Matt Reeves and I did a Super-8 film festival in LA," Abrams the crowd in Comic-Con's Hall H. "The LA Times wrote a story about it that came out the next day, and we got a phone call that day from Steven Spielberg's assistant, who at the time was Kathleen Kennedy." He explained that Spielberg wanted the duo to repair some of his childhood films whose splices had fallen into disrepair over the years. "We said, we've got finals, but we could probably make time to repair Steven Spielberg's movies. So we repaired the movies and they gave us $300, which was when I knew why they got us to do it."

Abrams indicated that he brought Super-8 to Spielberg precisely because he knew the seasoned filmmaker honed his talents using the format. "A couple of years ago, I called Steven and I had an idea for a movie called Super-8 and I pitched it to him and he was very excited about it, which I knew having in a weird way working on those movies. I had a sense what he had done as a kid.

"I would love to show you footage but we haven't shot any," he said. "My favorite thing about the movie though is that someone will go to the theater and see the trailer and hopefully go, oh my God, that looks bitchin', and have no idea they will be starring in it."

Abrams described Spielberg as "beyond helpful" and hinted about the tone of the film: "It's impossible to work with him and not constantly reference the work he has done. You don't want to sound like a sycophant, but it's been incredible. Constantly referencing Spielberg's work. He's been beyond helpful, and movie is very much in the spirit of those Amblin films."

Read the full report here

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