Clint Eastwood was able to take advantage of Steven Spielberg’s abandonment: this film was the biggest success of his career

Culture news Clint Eastwood was able to take advantage of Steven Spielberg’s abandonment: this film was the biggest success of his career

Spielberg’s screenplay must be saved

Based on the memoirs of an American soldier, Chris Kyle, a sniper with 255 deaths nicknamed Al-Shaitan” (the devil), the film American Sniper experienced several twists and turns during its production. Screenwriter and producer Jason Hall, who had developed a bond with the former soldier, is convinced that the story of this character could make an excellent film. However, in 2013, Hollywood is not enthusiastic about bringing the Iraq War to the screen, an unpopular war that still divides the United States. To add arguments to his project, Hall managed to convince Bradley Cooper to co-produce the feature film and play the main character.

As we learn Collider, shortly after Chris Kyle’s death, Spielberg picked up Hall’s script and expressed interest in directing. He puts DreamWorks in the mix, and lets it be known that he would like to make some changes to the script. The latter would particularly like to dig into the personality of Mustafa, the enemy sniper who opposes Kyle. The director of Jurassic Park sees Mustafa as a sort of reflection of Kyle, and would like to move the script towards something more psychological. “As Spielberg continued to revise the script for American Sniper, the page count increased. Warner Bros. envisioned American Sniper as a $60 million project” the article reads. Since Spielberg was not born recently, he knows that it will be complicated to convince the studio to increase the budget so that his new ideas can be integrated. He then withdrew from the project. Warner then called on a filmmaker who had already proven his great effectiveness: Clint Eastwood.

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Did Eastwood hit the mark?

Clint Eastwood, the actor/director/producer with multiple successes, is very excited by the idea of ​​adapting Chris Kyle’s memoirs. He is so enthusiastic that he agrees to sign on one condition: that the studio advances the release of the film from Christmas 2015 to Christmas 2014, so he can launch directly into production. The studio accepts and will not regret it: not only will the feature film be completed ahead of schedule, but it will also not exceed budget. “Under Spielberg, Hall’s screenplay saw its page count increase. Under Eastwood, the scenario is truncated” underlines Collider. Upon its release, American Sniper was a huge success. It became the highest-grossing domestic film of 2014, grossing over $547 million at the worldwide box office. The circuses will be more contrasting.