Steven Spielberg Called In A Favor From George Lucas To Finish Jurassic Park
Do you know what it takes for the best in the business to become the best in the first place? Well, there are the usual must-haves like talent and opportunity and access ... but it also helps to have friends in high places to help you out of a jam or two. When Steven Spielberg and George Lucas first embarked on their legendary filmmaking journeys and began to make a name for themselves during the 1970s and '80s, few at the time could've ever imagined the impact each director would end up having on the other. The two most famously paired up to deliver the "Indiana Jones" movies, forever changing the action/adventure genre only a few scant years after Lucas had done the same to space operas with "Star Wars." But if you thought their collaborations began and ended there, you'd be sorely mistaken.
The longtime friends would go on to take very different career paths in the decades ahead. Yet, as fate would have it, Spielberg and Lucas once again crossed paths on the same production — this time, for 1993's "Jurassic Park."
While Lucas spent much of his adult years with the Skywalkers, Spielberg has mastered the art of finishing one incredibly challenging production and almost immediately taking on another. Sometimes, those schedules even overlapped. That was the case with "Jurassic Park" and "Schindler's List," the latter of which caught the filmmaker's eye when he had only just finished principal photography on his dinosaur movie. So how did he manage to transition from one project to the next in such short order? Well, having a connection like George Lucas on speed dial certainly made that easier.
Reinforcements to the rescue
Earlier in March, Steven Spielberg appeared on Stephen Colbert's "The Late Show" and, in a bonus scene recently made available, the filmmaker honed on in a very specific (and chaotic) time in his career. Most directors would've focused every iota of energy on a blockbuster as boundary-pushing as "Jurassic Park," but there's a reason why Spielberg is truly in a league of his own. In the interview, the expert multitasker looked back at "Jurassic Park" for its 30th anniversary and regaled Colbert with the story of how he had to call in a little backup to pull off both "Jurassic Park" and the immensely complicated Holocaust drama "Schindler's List" in the same year.
According to Spielberg, the warming weather conditions in Poland back then meant there was little time to waste. "I didn't want to have to wait a whole year because it had to be shot in the snow. And so I basically called the producer — my co-producer on 'Jurassic,' Kathy Kennedy — and I said, 'I gotta jump ship. I gotta make 'Schindler's List.' And don't ask me why, I just have to make it right now.'" When asked how far along he was in post-production, Spielberg explained:
"I had edited the whole film and all that was left was mixing and color correction and sound effects editing. And so Kathy took over the production, and I asked George Lucas if he would supervise the dub, and George came in and dubbed the picture for me."
So how well did that decision work out? Well, the film only went on to win Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing at the 1994 Academy Awards. No big deal! When in doubt, folks, always remember this trick of the trade: Bring in George Lucas.