Steven Spielberg

Often film sequels are slam dunks at the box office, a seamless continuation from where a previous hit left off. But as the new installment of the 15-year-old franchise "Men in Black" proves, getting to the big screen isn't always a cakewalk. One of the most troubled productions in recent Hollywood memory, Sony Pictures' latest movie in the Will Smith-Tommy Lee Jones sci-fi-comedy franchise encountered multiple script rewrites, a discontented star and a three-month production shutdown as writers and studio executives scrambled to fix a project that nearly fell apart . By the time it was over, the studio had run up a tab of nearly $250 million - making "Men in Black 3" one of the most expensive releases of the summer.

Filmmakers are natural raconteurs — they have to be — at least when talking about their films. There are the money men who must be convinced to invest, the studios they need to sign on for distribution, the actors they want to hire and the press and public they hope will see the finished film and like it. The American Film Institute captures all that and more in "Conversations at the American Film Institute with the Great Moviemakers: The...

The poster for the new movie "Super 8" is dominated not by an image but by two equally prominent names: writer-director J.J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg. Hybrids may be all the rage for cars, but this melding of two cinematic sensibilities, though effective at moments, is finally not as exciting or involving as it we'd like it to be. The story of what happens when half a dozen middle-school kids set out to make a student film in 1979 Ohio and end up enmeshed in something much bigger and scarier, "Super 8" does not lack for potent elements.

Chinese filmgoers have had their choice of two war epics recently: Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" and Zhang Yimou's "The Flowers of War. " Although "Flowers" has outperformed "Horse" at the box office in China, filmgoers seem to be more impressed with Spielberg's film, at least judging by the comments of movie fans online. "War Horse," a tear-jerker tale of a boy and his horse in World War I, has won kudos for its touching story and Hollywood sheen. By comparison, some believe that Zhang sold out with "The Flowers of War," starring Christian Bale as a Westerner trying to save a group of women in a church during Japan's siege of Nanking in 1937.

The quietest room in Hollywood may be the office where John Williams composes. In a bungalow on the Universal Studios lot, steps from the production company of his most frequent collaborator, director Steven Spielberg, Williams works alone at a 90-year-old Steinway grand piano, with fistfuls of pencils and stacks of composition paper nearby, and worn books of poetry by Robert Frost and William Wordsworth piled on the coffee table. "My relationship with Steven is the result of a lot of very compatible dissimilarities," Williams said in a late December interview during a week that saw the U.S. releases of both of the duo's latest joint efforts, the comic-book adaptation "The Adventures of Tintin" and the World War I epic "War Horse.

There are plenty of stories with Hollywood endings -- this is one with a Hollywood beginning. A new J.J. Abrams film called "Super 8" reaches theaters on June 10 with a coming-of-age story about young, amateur filmmakers who film a spidery space alien on the loose in Ohio during summer 1979. For people who know the 44-year-old Abrams, that plot seems only slightly more fantastic than the real-life, three-decade story that led to the film. "The craziest thing is that it's true, it actually did happen," says Damon Lindelof, who collaborated with Abrams on the landmark ABC series "Lost" and the hit 2009 film "Star Trek.

Director Steven Spielberg will be honored with the 1994 Chaim Weizmann Award for Philanthropic Leadership at a fund-raising dinner Saturday in Beverly Hills. The event, sponsored by the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, will honor Spielberg for his philanthropy and for raising awareness about the Holocaust. The Israeli-based Weizmann Institute, founded in 1934, is a science and medical research organization.

One time-tested way to measure the worth of anyone in Hollywood is to honor that person at the annual Moving Picture Ball. The ball's organizers pride themselves on tapping the hottest talent of the moment--Robin Williams last year; Bette Midler in 1987, and Eddie Murphy in 1986. If Steven Spielberg's ability to draw ticket buyers is any indication of his worth, he is hotter than Williams, Midler or Murphy.

Steven Spielberg is at it again, this time playing with dinosaurs. The Huck Finn of Hollywood has always found time for toys: trailer-sized sharks, laser-lit spaceships, cuddly-beyond-belief extraterrestrials and now, a gang of prehistoric monsters, some nice, some not-so-nice, some huge, some not-so-huge. "Jurassic Park" may be Spielberg's biggest plaything yet.

A day after the Oscars, and mom's little restaurant was buzzing--mom being Steven Spielberg's mother, Leah Adler.

If you serendipitously end up in an elevator with Steven Spielberg, make an impression. British actor David Thewlis did, though it may not have been quite the one he wanted. In 1994, Thewlis was leaving an award ceremony in New York after accepting a prize for his lead role in Mike Leigh's working-class dramedy "Naked. " He found himself riding down with Spielberg, who had just received an award for "Schindler's List," and the two had a brief, unremarkable exchange. But a few months later, Spielberg called him with an odd request: The director wanted Thewlis to play a man who turned into a dog. "Is it something about my character in 'Naked' that makes you think I'd be good in that?"

The quietest room in Hollywood may be the office where John Williams composes. In a bungalow on the Universal Studios lot, steps from the production company of his most frequent collaborator, director Steven Spielberg, Williams works alone at a 90-year-old Steinway grand piano, with fistfuls of pencils and stacks of composition paper nearby, and worn books of poetry by Robert Frost and William Wordsworth piled on the coffee table. "My relationship with Steven is the result of a lot of very compatible dissimilarities," Williams said in a late December interview during a week that saw the U.S. releases of both of the duo's latest joint efforts, the comic-book adaptation "The Adventures of Tintin" and the World War I epic "War Horse.

World War II has inspired far more movies than any other war, which is understandable, given the sharp demarcation between good and evil that characterized the battle against Hitler and his allies. By contrast, World War I is rarely depicted on the screen. It doesn't offer the same moral clarity as the fight against fascist tyranny. In one of the best World War I movies, Peter Weir's "Gallipoli," a hermit living in the Australian outback asks the young hero how the war started. "I don't know exactly," the eager recruit replies, "but it was the Germans' fault.

Think of "The Adventures of Tintin" as a song of innocence and experience, able to combine a sweet sense of childlike wonder and pureness of heart with the most worldly and sophisticated of modern technology. More than anything, it's just a whole lot of fun. An old-fashioned epic tale of high seas hijinks and derring-do in distant lands, "Tintin" is presented in an up-to-the-minute combination of 3-D computer animation and performance-capture technology and overseen by two filmmakers, director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson, who've always kept their inner children close at hand.

Even before filming was finished, more than a few Hollywood wags and insiders were saying that Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" had the look of a thoroughbred in the annual Hollywood derby known as Oscar season. Spielberg's films had certainly racked up Academy Award nominations in the past when he ventured into wartime epics ("Schindler's List," "Saving Private Ryan"), bookshelf adaptations ("The Color Purple," "Jaws") or an evocative tale of youth and friendship ("E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial")

These have been scrapbook seasons for Tom Hiddleston — over the last two years the 30-year-old British actor has worked with directors Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Kenneth Branagh, Terence Davies and Joss Whedon — but there is one snapshot memory from it all that he says "will be with me until the day I die. " It was during the filming of "War Horse," the Christmas Day release that takes Spielberg back to the epic battlefields of Europe and puts...

More than 20 Norman Rockwell paintings belonging to Steven Spielberg have until next July to get ready for their close-up, which will come when they're hung in a special exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington -- along with more than 30 other Rockwells from the collection of his fellow filmmaker-to-the-masses, George Lucas. Then there's the one sitting in climate-controlled sequestration, somewhere in Las Vegas, and there's no telling when it'll be seen again.

The $1.5 billion Paramount Park in Spain hopes to rival Disneyland Paris as a European tourist destination when the movie theme park debuts in spring 2015. > Photos: Paramount Park Murcia theme park in Spain Located on the Mediterranean coast about 270 miles southeast of Madrid, Paramount Park Murcia will feature 30 attractions with an adjacent shopping center, hotels and casino. Construction is expected to begin in spring 2012 on a 100-acre theme park set around a central lake that will combine the themed lands of Disneyland with the movie backlots of Universal Studios . While not an investor, Paramount Pictures will license movie properties to the developer and provide design direction for the theme park.

The dinosaurs may have roamed in prime time, but Ashton Kutcher's roar was louder. Fox's dino-epic "Terra Nova" got off to a decent if unspectacular start Monday night, proving no match for CBS' "Two and a Half Men," which remained strong in Week 2 with new costar Kutcher. The heavily publicized two-hour premiere of "Terra Nova," the long-anticipated time-travel drama from executive producer Steven Spielberg and already one of the most expensive series in TV history, averaged 9.2 million viewers, according to Nielsen.