“I do have an appetite for long-form, and someday, I will direct a long-form series,” Steven Spielberg continued. “I mean, if someone would have brought me ‘Mare of Easttown,’ I would have done that. […] That was a beautifully directed story.” Developed by Brad Ingelsby, the crime drama miniseries “Mare of Easttown” was a critical darling back in 2021 — one that was notable in that it starred Kate Winslet, an Oscar-winner better known for her performances in film, not television.
Spielberg would hardly be the first big-name director to try his hand at making a TV series after a long, illustrious career of making movies. “The Matrix” and “Cloud Atlas” filmmakers Lana and Lilly Wachowski previously made the transition to the small screen with “Sense8,” the ambitious (if divisive) sci-fi series that they and J. Michael Straczynski developed for Netflix in 2015. Even everyone’s favorite cranky grandpa director, Ridley Scott, helmed the first two episodes of the sci-fi series “Raised by Wolves” for HBO Max in 2020.
Circling back to Quentin Tarantino, the filmmaker similarly announced plans to make an eight-episode TV series back in 2022. We still don’t know what the show will be about, though the switch to TV feels like it might be a perfect fit for him, seeing as his movies have only grown longer and more novel-like in structure over the course of his career. Spielberg’s own plans for making a TV show are even more vague that Tarantino’s (remember, he hasn’t actually committed to anything just yet), but it would certainly be exciting to see what he can pull off in a longer format. After all, he’s spent decades creating wonders on the big screen; it’s high time we got to watch him work his magic on TV.