The Color Purple Blu-Ray in January 2011

Another Steven Spielberg film will soon be hitting stores in high-def, if reports are to be believed.
High Def Disc News are reporting that The Color Purple will be released on January 25 2011 to tie in with Black History Month.

No release specs have been revealed other than it looks like it'll be one of Warners' digi-book releases (ie a 40-page making-of book), with full 1080p Hi-Def video in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio and DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio sound.

High Def Disc News also provide a picture of the trade ad announcing the release of this under-rated Spielberg flick here

The Color Purple would join Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, War of the Worlds, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Twilight Zone: The Movie and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on the list of Spielberg-directed films available in HD. My earlier report about AI: Artificial Intelligence bowing on Blu-Ray on October 15 in Germany has sadly not come to pass...

New War Horse set spy photos

New pictures from the set of Steven Spielberg's new film War Horse have hit the web and reveal a picture postcard English village dressed to look like it would in World War One.

The photos don't show any cast or crew, but they do give a glimpse of the set-dressing in the village of Castle Combe.

According to a spy on Bleeding Cool "all the set dressing was done in ten hours, courtesy of a huge crew and over twenty night time security staff. And filming proper starts this Tuesday (September 21). The dressers have put out all fresh fruit and veg out, have changed door numbers, laid down the dirt road and stuck moss in all the right place. In fact five people were dedicated to moss dressing the sets. Reports are that they’re spending a lot of money making this look just right."

War Horse will be released on August 10, 2011.




Take a look at all the spy shots over at Bleeding Cool.

Judge clears Spielberg in Disturbia lawsuit

A judge has cleared Steven Spielberg of stealing the plot for Disturbia from a short story.

Although the two films definitely share similarities - both are about someone who is confined to his home and becomes convinced that his neighbour is a killer - New York district court judge Laura Taylor Swan ruled that "the main plots are similar only at a high, unprotectable level of generality".

The suit was launched by the Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust, which manages the estate of the late author Cornell Woolrich. The writer's short story It Had to be Murder formed the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954).

The trust filed its complaint against Spielberg, DreamWorks and distributors Paramount Pictures back in 2008 and claimed that the short story's plot had been used without obtaining the Trust's permission.

But Swan added: "Where Disturbia is rife with sub-plots, the short story has none. The setting and mood of the short story are static and tense, whereas the setting and mood of Disturbia are more dynamic and peppered with humour and teen romance."

Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can heading to Broadway in Spring 2011

The musical version of Steven Spielberg's 2002 caper Catch Me If You Can will open on Broadway in the Spring of 2011, according to the producers.
Previews will begin on March 7, 2011 with the opening evening being set for April 10.
Here's Broadway bible Playbill's reporting of the announcement, which was made yesterday:

Catch Me If You Can, the new musical by Tony Award winners Scott Wittman, Marc Shaiman and Terrence McNally, will begin Broadway previews March 7, 2011, at a Nederlander theatre to be announced.
Hairspray songwriters Shaiman and Wittman penned the score to the musical based on the DreamWorks film of the same name (and the autobiography by Frank Abagnale Jr. and Stan Redding). Catch Me If You Can will officially open April 10, 2011.
In addition to Shaiman and Wittman, the musical will reunite several Broadway heavyweights who collaborated on the Tony-winning hit Hairspray, including director Jack O'Brien and choreographer Jerry Mitchell. Catch Me If You Can features a book by Tony Award-winning playwright McNally (Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ragtime, Master Class).
The musical was seen in an earlier incarnation in late 2009 at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, where Hairspray also played its pre-Broadway try-out. Margo Lion and Hal Luftig are lead producers of the Broadway engagement.

Is Spielberg ready to take on Robopocalypse now?

A how-to guide to surviving a robot uprising could be the next film on Steven Spielberg's slate, according to reports today.

Yes, I know, this is all speculation, but the news was first broken by the very reliable Deadline Hollywood in March and now Vulture weighs in with some insider quotes.

According to Vulture's story, Spielberg is very seriously considering making Robopocalypse his next film. Based on the novel by Daniel H Wilson, the screenplay is being penned by Drew Goddard (Cloverfield and the in-limbo Cabin in the Woods).

A source told Vulture: “With DreamWorks, everything is potentially a Steven project - until it’s not. That’s why everyone’s in a frenzy trying to read it.”

The concept sounds like it could make a very cool film - although does it sound a little too much like AI? Has Spielberg already done his robot thang with AI and also, to a certain degree, with Transformers?

Definitely one to keep an eye on though...

Spielberg News is back! Super 8 cast news and set photos!

All long last we actually have some proper Steven Spielberg news to report.

First things first - cast news and some set photos from Super 8. As we all know, none of us know what JJ Abrams' Steven Spielberg-produced film is about except that it involves kids from a small town and aliens or something.

Well now Vulture has broken the news that Friday Night Lights' Kyle Chandler and Elle Fanning (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) have nabbed the first roles in the film, which began shooting yesterday in the Marland Heights area of Weirton, West Virginia.

Aint It Cool posted pictures from around the town, including some shots of 1970s-era buses which seem to confirm that JJ Abrams is going all-out to replicate the feeling of Spielberg's films from the 70s and 80s.

If the Spielbergian (I hate that word) setting is central to the plot like it is in Back to the Future or Gremlins or Poltergiest or ET, then I can think of no better actor than Kyle Chandler. I'm a big fan of Friday Night Lights, so I'm delighted that he's getting a role in such a high-profile film. He's got that spirit of smalltown America in spades. See the rest of the AICN photos here.