On January 19th, 2023, in an interview with Virgin Radio promoting his new film The Fablemans, Steven Spielberg confirmed that he is working on a documentary-style film on the life and works of John Williams, the man who has given musical life to many of Spielberg’s most prominent films.
John Williams needs no introduction among Star Wars fans, being that he scored all of the movies in our favorite franchise; but, just to cover our bases here, I want to be sure to mention that, besides Star Wars, Williams is responsible for creating the scores for an astonishing amount of incredible films. These include, but are not limited to, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Jaws, Superman, Home Alone, and E.T.: the Extr-Terrestrial.
Amblin Entertainment, the production company Spielberg founded himself, will be collaborating on the project with Ron Howard’s own production company Imagine. The plan is to explore the impact of Williams’ work in the film and television industry as well as explore the life story of the artist himself.
This is extremely exciting news since the 90-year-old Williams said in a Variety article in mid-January that, contrary to what was previously thought, he will not be retiring after his work on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
“[…] I’ll stick around for a while,” he told Variety. “You can’t retire from music. […] It’s like breathing, it’s my life,” adding later “[Steven’s] not a man you say ‘no’ to.”
Even outside of our beloved Star Wars franchise, Williams is a monolith in the film and television scoring community, widely regarded as the greatest of all time in the field. The mere confirmation that there is an ongoing project that aims to bring to light the wonderful work that John Williams has done throughout his life is something that Youtini finds very exciting. We will be paying close attention to this project moving forward.