“I lost my whole family”: Steven Spielberg is Forever Ashamed of a Morgan Freeman Movie That Even Made His Kids Walk Out of the Theater

Steven Spielberg’s legacy is a much-renowned one, unmarred by time and the arrival of new talent. His films have established a new era in Hollywood, through Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park. Despite the presence of evolved technologies and newer creatives, not many have been able to recreate the scale of Spielberg’s career or overthrow his status as a living legend.

With the passing of years, classics such as Harrison Ford’s classic Nazi-hunting adventure junkie or the rebirth of the Jurassic Age in the modern world have taken a backseat, giving way to more modernistic science fiction such as Minority Report and the playful Catch Me If You Can. But not once has the director stumbled in his unbroken creative streak for the past 50 years, beginning with the marine horror, Jaws.

However, when it comes to Steven Spielberg’s kids, they may be his harshest critics, given children’s penchant for honest feedback. As for one of Spielberg’s historical drama films in the ʼ90s, it did not fare well at all in the eyes of the Spielberg offsprings.

Steven Spielberg Disappoints His Family With 1997 Film

Despite being the creative and visionary auteur behind works such as Schindlerʼs List, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Saving Private Ryan, and The Goonies, there have been times when even Steven Spielbergʼs vision failed to live up to his own standards. One such occasion occurred during Amistad when the 1997 historical drama film left his entire family disappointed enough to leave him stranded.

In an interview with Roger Ebert before the premiere of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks film, Catch Me If You Can, Spielberg revealed:

I rarely look back at the movies Iʼve made except when my kids see them for the first time. So I get a chance to see all my own movies again through my kidsʼ eyes, which is always fun, you know, because they tell me whether they like ʼem or not right away. Or they walk out. Iʼve had my kids walk out of my pictures.

They walked out of Amistad. I lost my whole family. All my young kids, you know. I wouldnʼt ever show them the middle passage and I didnʼt let them see the very beginning and they were bored by the legal stuff. They left.

The 1997 film, based on real events that took place in February 1839, revolves around an unprecedented uprising aboard a slave ship led by an enslaved man and the Mende tribe who were captured as free men in Africa by Spanish slave traders. The film turns politically cumbersome in its second act when the US court must decide if the men should remain as slaves or be legally freed.

Starring Morgan Freeman, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, and Anthony Hopkins, the film became a somewhat critical success, receiving 4 Oscar nominations and earning $58 million worldwide.

Steven Spielberg Faces a Downturn in His Third Act

As bright as his fire had burned for decades, Steven Spielbergʼs career arc took an equally drastic downturn at the turn of the 21st century, starting with the fourth Indiana Jones story – Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008. Beyond that, most of his films in the latter phase of his filmography have been massive misfires and incredulous flops, both critically as well as commercially.

Starting with War of the Worlds in 2005, The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse in 2011 followed by The BFG in 2016, Ready Player One in 2018, and West Side Story in 2021 – Spielbergʼs 21st century films have lacked the magical element of his past and as such, have been either critical or commercial failures. His semi-autobiographical epic, The Fabelmans came out as a surprising winner, perhaps even the first ubiquitously liked film in the past two decades.

With Masters of the Air (a follow-up of his series, Band of Brothers) doing well on Apple TV, Steven Spielbergʼs upcoming productions, including Twisters, Transformers One, and Jurassic World 4 are looking extremely optimistic on the box office scale. Early projections have already showered praises on the first two projects while the Jurassic reboot shows great promise due to the involvement of a stellar cast led by Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey and directed by the visionary Gareth Edwards.

Amistad is available for streaming on Pluto TV.