Do Aliens Exist? Steven Spielberg Believes They Do

Do you want to check any shots do you want to check your shots? I'm out if you if you Steven Spielberg want to take a look I was let's see your shot. How are there? Okay, so what do you think of that? It's a good shot I mean, it's like a nice framing does it convey seriousness like serious journals. Yes. I like seeing all of this Oh, you don't have me like that do you ever? pushback What was that great line of to see? Yeah, how far back do you have to go to make it look good? What about Cleveland? From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams and this is the daily on Sunday Steven Spielberg the name is synonymous with big Hollywood blockbusters just to rattle off a few of them Jaws you got to need a pick your boat E.T. E.T. phone home Indiana Jones That belongs in a museum Jurassic Park this week. He's got a new movie out. He's 35th It's called disclosure day and it returns to questions that Steven Spielberg has picked at throughout his entire career Do aliens exist and if they do how will we react to them? What are you gonna do? Full disclosure to the whole world all at once Steven Spielberg is here with me today to talk about disclosure day his fascination with aliens and what he is watching on Instagram It's Sunday June 14th Steven Spielberg welcome to the daily. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you So congratulations on your new film disclosure day. I won't give too much away But it is a movie about the government's efforts to hide information about aliens from the public It was inspired as I understand it by reporting at least in part in the New York Times about a secret government program that studied what people might refer to as UFOs The New York Times is out this morning with a new details about an upcoming and long-awaited report a shadowy office in the Pentagon that ran from 2007 to 2012 according to the New York Times it examines so-called anomalous aerial vehicles the Pentagon Everybody in their dentist must be pitching you a movie idea. So what what was it about this article in this moment that made you think I have got to make a movie about this Well, long before that story and it was a great story in 2017. I believe there had been so many more videos backing up I witness testimony and creating more credibility among the witness base once they've smart phone came into real Existence with the iPhone everything kind of change there was just a lot of information people were starting to come forward and you know The witnesses have been coming forward ever since Roswell, so it's not that everything started in 2017 I guess when Helene Cooper and Ralph Lumenthal and Leslie Keane wrote their story all of a sudden because it was the New York Times because they gave The story is such prominence everybody suddenly started to wake up from the national choir sensationalized reportage about UFOs suddenly this was an august paper perhaps One of the greatest papers giving us this information we prefer the greatest, but thank you. Yes. Yes, the greatest But I really feel that things started to get into the mainstream and then after that There was a lot a lot of documentaries are being made and I saw all of them Every doc made about this and you can't make a doc unless people come forward now It's not under oath, but a lot of people from Congress from the military started coming forward To that point, there are some very famous whistleblowers that they have come forward as you're saying there was one actually in Helene Cooper story that you mentioned and I did wonder in addition to Watching all these documentaries and it sounds like coming to the belief that aliens were real perhaps more so than when you made Earlier alien films did you actually talk to any of those whistleblowers in preparation for this? Did you try to reach out to anyone? I actually purposely stayed away from that really why because I wrote a story My story is a science fiction story the foundation upon which I built my science fiction story is a very very credible foundation just based on everything that I've absorbed over many many decades but especially over the last decade and There is a consistency in the reporting. There is circumstantial evidence from tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people who have claimed not just in America but all over the world To have seen something or met people who have had seen seen things I mean you sound you sound very much like you believe aliens exist That is what I'm getting from you in this conversation and I'm recalling that I in preparation for this interview I listen to a bunch of your interviews and I heard you say once that close encounters When you made that movie it was about what you hoped was in the universe Yes, and now you're at the point where you it sounds like you very much believe that this exists What would the younger Spielberg have thought listening to you now as such a believer that this is what actually exists in the universe? Well the younger me wouldn't have been exposed to the incredible plethora of Visual documentation of what's been going on? Seeing is believing and until I see something myself and why I have not seen a UFO. I don't understand why they haven't come to me yet I mean I feel like they're agent So I have not had any sightings whatsoever however having said that So much of the believers I now believe the believers You know, it's interesting that you frame it that way because disclosure day one of the big themes if I may say so is about faith Just God love us I don't mean does he love us. I know he does does he love only us and it's not just about Believers, but it's also about faith in something higher than yourself. It's about faith in humanity and the ability of other people to deal with difficult circumstances because Genesis says that we're his supreme creation, but Do you think it's possible that on earth? What Genesis it says we are God supreme creation on earth You could have just made a movie about aliens you could have made a fun summer blockbuster and I wonder why you chose to engage with that theme specifically I just I just feel I felt that this was an opportunity to talk about You know the loss of community and Therefore the loss of human connection this film is more about humanity And the and the things that divide us and what could be occurring that possibly could bring us a little closer together such as aliens being real well such is Realizing that the thing that we need to preserve in our society more than anything else Which is something which I believe is as fragile as democracy is empathy and That that are two characters Joshua Conner plays Daniel Kelner and Emily Blum plays Margaret Fairtrout There is a very large emphasis put on their superpowers You know, I mean you've been driving like a maniac the last few days, you know, how do you know that? I just know things just some and their superpowers are not being able to fly. No, of course not They're superpowers are really being able to look at somebody in the six seconds. You know that person Intimately and I just I just have seen this Draining out of us and I thought that I wanted to do a story about how to bring humanity together again You know, I I understand that you're commenting on the divided political time that we live in it's not even a political time It's a divided social time divided social time is that affected you personally have you lost relationship? Are you making this in any way? You know, it reflective of what you personally have struggled with as we have become more divided? It's not that I've lost relationships. I just you know, I just I believe in people and I believe in people who I don't agree with if we took two Soccer teams or they take it very seriously You could have nothing but rivalry and you could be hooligans against each other in loss or in victory But there are certain things you agree on the logger in the pub you drink after a game Where you can bury your disagreements and just celebrate the fact that you're alive on the planet I mean, I mean, I mean that is something that I'm missing today and Arguably I think I've heard you talk about movies this way movies are something that Obviously bring people together and so I wonder if that's sort of like if you're thinking not not just about the themes of faith in your film And the importance of faith in terms of bringing people together, but the actual going to see a movie and losing yourself and for and forgetting what's going on in the outside world I feel like I see a bit of a through line here Yeah, I've been saying like a broken record that that movies build community. So this theater total concerts, you know Community is when we all come together. We don't know each other But what we do know is we are having a similar reaction to what is being shown to us what is being unspooled What is being presented performed for us and it it absolutely is one of the that that is one of the greatest you know Nighters of any culture on the face to the planet. We'll be right back. You know, I heard you once tell a story about your experience with Vietnam that I think really crystallizes how you believe that movies could take you out of the world for a short period of time. I'd love it if you could tell that story. Well, it was just that I was in line to watch Dr. Strangelove. I was in high school. Vietnam was on television every night, on all three networks. So it was something you couldn't get away from. Friends of mine had been called up. And I was waiting in line in the rain. San Jose to watch Dr. Strangelove. And I heard a honking. I turned away. My dad was half in the street with his window rolled down, trusting frantically for me to come over. And I ran over to the car. And he just looked like the grim Reaper. And he just had just handed me this letter from Selective Service. And I opened it up. And it just basically was the letter from the draft board asking me to report for my first physical. And I was shocked. I was a death sentence. I couldn't believe what was happening. My dad opened the door, assuming I was going to leave the line and drive home with him. And I said, no, I want to see the movie. And I took the letter, though, with me. And I went back in line. And all I can think about was going to Vietnam. And then the movie, I got my seat, lights went down. Dr. Strangelove began. I shouldn't tell you this, man. Drake, but you're a good officer. And you have a right to know. It looks like we're in a shooting war. Hell. All the Russians have absent. And about five minutes in the Strangelove, I forgot my dad had ever pulled up in the car. And the movie completely swarmed all of my five senses. I didn't even think about the letter that was in my pocket until I was halfway home on a bus. The way that that movie overwhelmed you made you forget for however long it was that what was going on in the outside world. I think it's fair to say that that is something that you have tried to recreate as a filmmaker if I'm not mistaken. And I want to talk about you as a filmmaker more broadly. When we were preparing here at The Daily to talk to you, we got into a very spirited debate about what makes a Spielberg film a Spielberg film. Is it awe and wonder? Is it normal people in extraordinary circumstances? I mean, you literally made so many different types of films. And then we realized that you are probably the foremost expert on Steven Spielberg and what makes a Steven Spielberg movie Spielberg in. So could you just articulate that for us and settle this? Well, that would require me to suffer a blow to the head, have amnesia, and then have to go into a theater and watch the movies there. Forgot I made. Oh, come on, really? It would be very difficult. You know, it's not a formula. It's not a chemistry set. I haul around with me and it's not alchemy. You know, movies are not alchemy. They're not part of it's science. The craft of it's science based on the technology of filmmaking. But it's movies, for me anyway, it's 80% intuition. And so, you know, I feel that when I'm making movies, the first thing I look for is a very compelling premise. And the second thing I look for is a character that we can hit our hit our wagons too. Okay. And not necessarily a star at hit your wagons too, but just a really great character. It could be a wonderful brand new actor that we've never seen before. But someone that we could identify with. And then you're on a journey with those characters. And if you trust the characters and you bond or imprint on them, we're bond with them close enough, you trust them. And trust, trusting a character allows you to trust the ride they're taking or the adventure they're on, or the problems they have to solve or the survival that it means life or death. And then you can be so compelled to attach yourself to a personality in your movie that that should take you right to the end. I would like to tell you because you're making me think of this. My dad used to be a screenwriter. He used to teach film and he has taught your movies in class. And one of the things he taught was the first 10 minutes of Indiana Jones and the last crusade. Specifically for the reasons you're mentioning, just the idea that the world is very clear and the dynamics between these characters are very clear. The father, son dynamic specifically. Was that the goal there was to just lay out. Here's everything you're going to get from this movie in the first time. Which by the way, you do in other films. I feel like your opening sequence often establishes so much of what will bring us along for that ride. That was very personal. That was maybe the most personal Indiana Jones film for me in terms of plot structure. The most personal Indiana Jones film for me was Temple of Doom because I met Kate. And that is Kate Kapsha, of course, the actress. Yes. I said to George, I would direct the first three. Is that right? Not even knowing I was going to meet the love of my life on the second one. But I feel that I've spent a lot of my life working out my relationship with my father. And when he passed, he was 103. And before he passed, we had 23 wonderful years together. But there were years before that of kind of I would call it a mild estrangement. And I was always trying to work out where I was in that relationship with my dad. And I insisted when George Lucas presented the MacGuffin that I want to make an Indiana Jones movie. George said they go after the cup of Christ. They go after the Holy Grail. I thought that was great. But I suddenly realized, oh my God, it's metaphorical. Why don't we have Indies father, the person that's been doing all the research on the Grail? And Indies been estranged from his father. And they kind of have a meeting of the hearts. They meet halfway. I almost reached that Indiana. The Grail of that relationship was really the understanding and the communion the father and son have by the third act of last crusade. I wonder whether at this point in your life and career, there are other things that you would like to work out in film and sort of what stage you're at with that now. It's film is therapy, I guess I should say. Yeah, film is therapy. Sometimes I'll go into a movie consciously saying this film, like when I made the favorments, I said, well, somebody's going to have to write a check for 40 million dollars of therapy for me. I didn't pay for it. You could afford to be a little encouraged. About what? About him making. Well, I didn't say that. I mean, he's moved on from what? He hasn't picked up his camera once since we got here. He'll be going to college in September. Maybe his feelings about it have changed. He's growing up. I'm enthusiastic about that. Filming is what he loves. Oh, Jesus Christ. I'm sorry guys, do we just stop talking about me? I think that you more than is autobiographical. Oh, yeah, totally autobiographical. Very, very accurate to my, my own memory of my experiences, my relationships with my sisters, my mom and dad, all that. But, you know, sometimes I don't know I'm working out anything until I'm right in the middle of the process, right in the middle of the movie. And I suddenly, it'll remind me of something when I was a kid that, oh, I'm dealing with something that I've buried for 60 years. And wow, it's back. And maybe I can deal with it here. But I don't set out unless it's consciously to make a film like the favorments or even help design the story of last crusade. I don't set out to practice, you know, you know, self therapy. I set out to tell a really good story that's going to get people really excited and make them want to go to the movies to see it. But you have said before that you've tried to, in some of your films, you have recreated trauma as a way to maybe get power over it. And if I'm describing that, I think what you're referring to is sometimes things that terrified me as a kid. Yes, yes. I can almost, I can make a really scary movie like poltergeist, right, which I produce and wrote. I can make a really scary movie like that because of all the things that go bump in the night that terrify me. And then suddenly fear really good that I got some control over my fear. But now I've disseminated my fear on a lot of people. I'll never get to meet and like with jaws, you know, I didn't mean to make a movie that scares people out of the water. But it did. I've always been afraid of the water. And I think I wouldn't have said yes to direct jaws had I not had such a fear of the water. And did, did jaws help you with your fear of the water? No, I'm just afraid now. But it sure didn't help a lot of other people that saw the movie. One of the reasons why I think this is so interesting is I happen to be in the middle of Lena Dunham's memoir and she talks about something very similar about how basically traumatic things happen to her. And she felt that she could recreate them on screen. She would get some kind of control over it in a way that would help her work through it, if you will. And I wondered, is this something that, I mean, you must have had so many interesting in conversations with other filmmakers, artists, have you heard this before? This idea. - I have. I have heard this before. When we sit around painting models at Guillermo del Toro's house on Saturday or Sunday mornings, it's all directors. - And so this is a regular thing to do. - This is a regular thing to do. We paint monsters. These are plastic, a porcelain, sometimes even metal. - And you have paint them. - I cast, we paint the models and we talk about movies. It's usually six to eight directors. And we find that we have so much in common in our business and our profession within the gestalt of who we are and why we do this. And it all comes out in the wash of painting models. - So what is the why and why do painting the models help you with this? - It's kind of a zen thing in a way. It's sort of, you know, you're focusing on painting but you're also really engaged in conversation. It's like how I imagine the new wave in Paris might have been with Truffaut and but well, just everybody's sitting around, you know, and these filmmakers high up together. And they talked about the stuff that nobody else can relate to. And it's a great way of sort of cleansing yourself. - If you ever want the daily to be a fly on the wall at one of these salons, we would love to be there. I'm asking you a lot of questions about things that you have learned, lessons you've taken from one thing or another. At some point in your life, you became Steven Spielberg, who many people consider to be the greatest filmmaker on Earth. You became like a living legend to folks. And I bring that up because I think a lot of people, maybe people early in their career understand that the way that you get better is by having people challenge you, right? You have long time collaborators, but I wonder how, putting modesty aside for a moment, do you think about how your stature affects how people interact with you, how people challenge you? And just generally, how do you continue to grow when you are at the level that you are at? - Well, it was a hindrance to me at the beginning of my career because everybody felt so open and free to help me 'cause I was young, I was 22 years old when I directed my first television show. And the help was fantastic. When I made my first film, Sugar Land, I had a lot of help from the actors from Goldie Hahn, from the crew, they were all there to help me. They asked me questions, they gave me suggestions. Then Jaws was made and Jaws was a phenomenon. And all of a sudden, all that input stopped. I started to make close encounters and everybody was quiet as if I knew what to do, as if I knew I had all the answers. I didn't have all the answers. I was desperate for collaboration, for opinions. Everybody assumed I knew everything and didn't need any help. I solicited, I went around asking people questions. - Were they honest? - Yeah, I think so, but they were intimidated. It takes a lot of work to build a team that will be honest with you. And that's why I've had the same people in my life for so many decades. - You have said, I believe that one of the reasons that you wrote disclosure day is because you felt that this was the last shot you would have to get this story, to tell this story in a certain way or the right way. I wonder, given all of the movies that you have made, all of the things you have tried to tell us about ourselves and the society that we live in, is there something that you feel like you still want to say that you have not said yet? - Let me answer that question as honestly as I know how. Until I find something that delights me and intrigues me and scares me, I won't know what it is yet that I have to say. Until I discover it by jumping blind off a cliff, which I do about every other film I jump into, and that's when I figure out that I could use this as a vehicle, as a kind of medium to say something. But I don't ever make a movie where I don't feel I have, every movie I made, I feel like I have something to say. But I really only know what that something is once I blindly jump off the edge and I get myself very, very involved in that story, then it sometimes comes to me, sometimes it doesn't. - I'm curious about the audience. What do you think about the ways that the audience has changed besides just attention spans? Like I am curious, do you think that audience is expect something different when they come to see a movie and how that changes your storytelling? - I don't think it changes the storytelling. All I can do is tell the stories I know how to tell and hope there's an audience for them. But I don't adjust myself to a new generation. - If I may push back slightly on this, in preparing for this, I watched Close Encounters and I obviously went to disclosure day. And the thing that I found so striking was that Close Encounters opens more slowly. The storytelling feels more slow at the beginning. Whereas in disclosure day, you are dropped right in the middle of the action. And to me, I felt like this was a reflection of specifically attention spans. Is there something to be said about how quickly or slowly you are making your films? I mean, how could you not basically given the world that we live in? - Well, I consciously wanted to start disclosure day as if we were starting with a third act and then adding a fourth, fifth, and sixth act. - Coming, right? - Freeze, here! - What do you mean by that? Especially because people that haven't seen it. Because the movie starts in mid scene, mid action, mid, movie starts essentially an abduction. - Yep. (screaming) - That's not reflective of me trying to appeal to a more impatient generation of moviegoers. It was basically the bio rhythm of the movie that I sat down to write. I wrote it that way because I felt like we had been awaiting answers about where's the truth, where has the truth been about a communication or the government hiding the fact that there is interaction between species and maybe we've been interacting for 80 or longer years and so. And that to me felt like it was already on a fast track. It was already moving for eight decades very, very quickly and now it's coming to a head. That was dictating how fast I started disclosure day, not trying to appeal to a generation that wants, that has a need for speed. - My colleague Wesley Morris recently did quite a masterful, I thought profile of you. - It was amazing. - Yeah, he is incredible and he wrote about in this profile. Not just how the audience has changed in terms of attention span and I understand your answer that you really, you can only make the movie that you know how to make, right? But Wesley also wrote about how you to spend a lot of time together, you went to see a play. And he wrote about your deep appreciation for the audience reactions to this play. And it made me wonder how you would describe the different experience of seeing a movie alone as of course so many of us now do when we watch it on our TVs or dare I say it, our iPhones perhaps. What do you. - Perish, the thought. - I have a case to make for the iPhone by the way, but that's okay. - It's okay when the movie's been out for a year, but we're older, right? - We're older, but go ahead. But what do you, so what do you lose when you don't watch a movie surrounded by other people? - Well it's not what I lose because I can watch a movie alone. In a sense, when I watched Dr. Strangelove, it was a full house, when I was 18 years old. But I felt like I was alone watching it because it affected me and it excluded everybody in the theater and I was all by myself. That's how deeply the film had grabbed up all of my attention. But then when I, at the end of the movie, I realized that people were having similar reactions all around me, I suddenly had strangers who were allies in my experience of what that film, how that film affected us. - And what do that mean to you to be surrounded by people that agreed with you with someone? - It felt great. The agreement isn't done verbally. You don't get into conversation. - Sure, sure. - Sometimes you talk, but you feel it's a psychic thing. It's a thing that you sense. All of us have consensus in audience. When you see a comedy with 500 people, they're all laughing. It is one of the greatest, most fun, loving things you could do for yourself. The same thing happens, I guess when you're in a rock concert when you're watching somebody perform, it is just infectious. You don't get that feeling watching a music video by yourself and you get that in a stadium. You get that in a venue, even with a couple hundred people. It's just completely contagious. And so there's a contagion that happens when we're in a pod altogether reacting and having an experience. And it doesn't preclude watching something by yourself. I'm just saying that it's an additive. It larges the experience, makes it bigger than life when you watch a movie with people. - You have been a fierce advocate for people going to the physical movie theater, of course. It, listening to you talk, I wonder if you are in some way nostalgic for a time when there weren't as many choices, even though choices, of course, give people many more opportunities to tell stories. - Yeah, yeah. I'm not really nostalgic for that, I'm really not. I love the options. I love the amount of choices out there. The only negative thing about it is you can get stuck down the rabbit hole. - But also the options are the reasons why people aren't going to the theater, right? - No, not so much that, the option. Yes, I mean, everything's a distraction, but don't forget what a distraction television was in 1950. There has been a pitch battle for the audience between television and movies between the small screen and the ginormous screens. This has never changed. This is nothing new. The difference now is there are so many more options than just watching television. - What is something that you love that people might not expect because it is not a movie, something on YouTube, something on one of these new ways that people are consuming content? - I love watching food on Instagram. - Yeah, wait, can you explain more? What do you mean by that? - I love watching food stuff. - Food stuff. - I like, I'm a foodie. - Okay. - So I'd like nine different ways you can make a taco. - Okay. - You know what I'm saying? - Yes. - I just, I get a little bit, a little bit, that's the rabbit hole that pulls me down. - The headline here is that Steven Spielberg likes ASMR food videos. - I do. - What is it about them? Is it the craft that pulls you in or do you just want to know how to make tacos? - I know it's the imagination it takes to do something I've never seen before. And now I've made some of the stuff. - You made, which stuff? - Well, I've watched and tried to replicate it and replicate it. And some of it is not as good as it looks. - Yes, it's all of us of experience, yes. - I mean, my wife right now is into something about dribbling a hot fudge over potato chips and making us open-faced sandwich out of it. I'm not ready for that yet, but she's been threatening to make it for the last week. - We'll be right back. - Steven, thank you so much for all of this. We, if I may call you Steven, I should have asked you this beginning of the-- - Why not? Why not? Please call me Steven. - We had envisioned in just the last remaining moments that we would do a little lightening round of questions. - Okay. - Okay, so if you'll indulge us. - Okay. - What are the best and worst Steven Spielberg movies according to your children? - I don't think my kids have ever had a worst. I mean, my kids like my movies. - They do like your-- - Oh, they haven't seen them all. And they'll tell me. - This is not what I expect you to say because everybody's killed children no matter how accomplished they are. They think, oh, it's just what dad does. - Well, I'll tell you what my kids do. When my kids were at six, eight, 10 years old, and I'd bring them to the sketch 'cause my whole family, Kate would bring the whole family to. Anywhere I was shooting, the family would live there. And my kids were so bored by my job. They come on the set and the first thing they'd say is, when do we get to leave? - You're kidding. - No, I'm not kidding because I'm, what are my kids said to me? They said, because we just waited an hour. And then when you said action, it only lasted two minutes. And now you put the camera somewhere else and it's gonna be another hour. You know, it's the waiting part that they hated. The only film, I remember them, not wanting to leave the set, was Jurassic Park. - Oh, wow. - 'Cause we had the 35 foot T-Rex completely auto-animatronic designed brilliantly by the brilliant Stan Winston. They couldn't get enough of that. - What is a movie you might redo differently if you had the chance? - Hook. - Why? I'm doing a really good job with this lightning round, but why now I need to know? - Not enough of a second act that was compelling enough for me. - Interesting. - I thought it had a great beginning and a great ending and it didn't have a middle. - More meat in the middle. Okay, what movie do you regret? I don't know if you pass on movies, but what movie do you regret just not doing that you could have done the most? - I didn't pass on it. I helped develop Rainman with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. I was, I brought the original writer back on the project, Ron Bass, and I worked with him on a couple of drafts. I was all ready to make the movie. And then something came along in my life and I needed to drop out of that film to help my friend. And that's the only movie that I ever had a chance to make, that was sorry I didn't take. But I thought Barry Levinson did a brilliant job making it into his movie. - Riski's casting decision that paid off. - Riski's casting decision to paid off. I think any time I've made a film with children, because they're real people. And I think the riskiest casting decision, I probably made was, the paid off is Drew Barrymore and ET. - Favorite movie last few years? - In recent years, it's gonna have to be one battle after another. - Why, why is that? - It was, it was just an intoxicant. It was about something. About something important, but it never let me go. It had such a hold on me. - This question is not original and it is probably only for me, but was ET slimy or dry? - Well, it's a wild question. ET was a little moist, but never slimy. - A little moist, but never slimy. Was that an actual directive you did? - And ET was only dry when ET got sick. - Right, right. - And ET was dry. - Okay, moist, but not. - I've never been asked that question before, ever. - So basically the answer is in the middle. So all of the friends I've argued with about this over the years, everybody's a little right. This has come to the daily for questions you've never been asked before. - Never been asked this question. - Which of your films do you like watching the most? - And is there a movie that you find it hard to watch? - Very hard for me to watch Shillers List. I don't watch a lot of my own movies. I don't, once I make them, I kind of move on to the next one, but the film I do enjoy watching, 'cause I've never let my seven kids watch without me in the room because I'm so afraid they're gonna think that ET's really dying when ET comes back to life. I'm always right there with my kids saying, don't worry, it's gonna be okay. And I think ET. - ET, okay. - Do you think that there will be movie theaters in 50 years? - Yes, I do. I think there'll be movie theaters in 50 years. And I think they will be extraordinary new ways of delivering entertainment through new technology. - Final question for you. And this is probably not a lightning round question, but it is something that a lot of people are thinking of. You are a person who spent a lot of time thinking about complacency in the face of existential threats. It's very much part of War of the World. ET wells this book that you quote from for your film, of course. And the number one, perhaps existential threat that people might be talking about in Hollywood, I would imagine is AI. And I'd love to ask you both, what do you think the best use of this technology is? And how do you think it will actually be used? And if you use it now. - Let me just take something I'm embarking on right now. I've been very critical of AI because I don't want AI to ever replace human beings in creative roles. But I don't know enough about AI to really be able to answer that question comprehensively. And I am spending part of the summer being AI-trained. - By whom? - I want to say by who, but I am learning about AI. I'm going to do a deep dive on AI before I really get any more or less critical of it. I need to know more about it. And that's what I'm doing this summer. I just want to know in general about what is AI really all about. - God, you and all of the rest is, I hope that you will come back and tell us what you learned because I'm sure we could all use it. But in the meantime, this has been such a pleasure. And thank you so much for being here. - It's been great talking to you. This has been a blast for me. - But I'm glad to hear that. (upbeat music) - Today's episode was produced by Alex Barron and edited by Wendy Dorr, with help from Paige Cowett and Michael Benoit. It contains music by Dan Powell, Marion Luzano and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Nick Pittman and Sophia Landman. If you'd like to see a video of my conversation with Steven Spielberg, you can find it at the New York Times website. Our video was produced by Mustafa Mirza, Peter Culpart, and Devon Greenleaf, and edited by David Hurr. Cinematography by Luke Pietrowski, Zach Caldwell, Andrew Smith, and Thomas Trudeau, with production assistance from Michael Cordero. Sound recorded by Nick Pittman and engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for the daily. I'm Rachel Abrams, see you tomorrow. (upbeat music)