Kathleen Kennedy has been producing Steven Spielberg’s movies since E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, working on the likes of theIndiana Jones films, the Jurassic Park trilogy, Schindler’s List and War of the Worlds.
STV’s Grant Lauchlan quizzed her for Moviejuice on what she could tell us about IndianaJones 5 and JurassicPark4, both of which have been rumoured to be in development. Laughing, Kathleen said: “Nothing.
“Not because I don’t want to tell you, but we genuinely do not have a script on either one, so we’re not close.”
She added: “We definitely want to do Jurassic 4, I don’t know where we stand with Indy to be honest. Our feeling is that when a good story comes along we’re always game.”
As a producer she’s been working on every one of Steven Spielberg’s movies since Jaws. So who is this woman behind some of cinema’s greatest hits? Kathleen told Grant of her role: “I’m hands on, I’m in the mud.
“That’s what I personally enjoy about it, I get very involved from the beginning to the end. So everything to do with finding the locations, often finding the material, casting, getting the script written, getting the budget, handling the money, but also being able to be as creative as possible, it makes it extremely worthwhile.”
So is it scary to handle movies such as War Horse which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars?
She explained: “I say to people it’s adding zeros. When we made E.T. we made the movie for 10 million dollars, and I don’t really feel that the difference in making a movie because of what it costs.
“I don’t think things change that much, I think you apply the same skills to the process.”
So how did they come across the story of War Horse, which was a children’s book then adapted for the stage?
Kathleen said: “I brought my two girls, who were 15 and 13, to see the play when we were on vacation.
“I walked in without any thought that I was doing work, and I was just so moved by the play, along with everyone else in the audience. I looked around and noticed that everyone was bringing families, it had such broad appeal.
“I went back home and we were working on Tintin. I started to talk to Steven about the play and he said ‘Oh, that sounds fantastic, that might be something I want to do’. We started to investigate the rights, and no-one had bought them. It all moved very quickly after that.”
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