WOTW was one of the highest grossing films in Spielberg’s career. It had action scenes that put most ‘action’ filmmakers to shame and was filled with poetry...the train passing by, the sense of escalating dread, the aliens inspecting the room (were they on a coffee break?). What would you regard as a ‘moneygrab’ film? For example, E.T. was a low budge non-commercial venture.
High revenue != good movie. Titanic quite permanently proved that.
WOTW sucked, it featured Cruises terrible “acting”, one of Spielberg’s typical annoying kids, a plot that was simply pathetic in it’s stupidity, and gross over reliance on special effects. Sure on the mechanical technique aspect it was good, Spielberg has brilliant technique, but once again that brilliant technique was wasted in the service of a lame movie. My ongoing complaint with Spielberg is that he brilliantly makes terrible movies.
And sorry ET opened in over 1000 theaters back in the 80s when that was big, it was a total moneygrab. And a $10 million budget in 1982 as NOT low, it wasn’t huge but it wasn’t low, Star Trek II’s budget was $11 million. And of course ET put into place all the hallmarks of the lame Spielberg moneygrab: annoying kids, a stupid plot, and over reliance on effects. He’s got it down to a cookie cutter now, you can smell these movies coming a mile away, and the sick part is they always make a ton of money. And really if somebody other than Spielberg made them I might not even mind them, but he’s better than that, he made Jaws and Schindler’s List for God’s sake he should leave these lame assed cookie cutters to bad directors like Michael Bay.