The Decision That Led to Spielberg’s Biggest Box Office Failure
Steven Spielberg is famous for making giant movies with aliens and sharks, but there was a time when he almost made a very small and personal film. Long before he made Schindler’s List or the movie about his own life called The Fabelmans, he wanted to try something different. He had just finished making massive hits like Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and was looking for a change of pace.
The director decided to ask his friends Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis to help him create this new project. According to Bob Gale, the instructions Spielberg gave them were not very specific at all. He told them, I want you guys to write a movie I’m really passionate about, about kids. When they asked for more details, he simply repeated that it was just about kids.
Working with that tiny bit of information, the writers put together a script in early 1978. The movie was going to be called After School and it was much more intense than Spielberg’s usual work. It was an R-rated story about younger teenagers who acted and talked like real kids. Gale explained the idea by saying, We swore like truck drivers when we were 12. A lot of kids do that, and we thought that would be the way to go.
The story was about a group of nerds who were fighting against the popular jocks at their school. Spielberg was very excited about the project because he wanted to use it to settle some old scores from his own childhood. He even described the project as my first vendetta film and said he planned to get back at about 20 people I’ve always wanted to get back at.
The movie was supposed to be his smallest film ever with a budget of only $1.5 million and a cast of actors that nobody knew yet. However, things started to go wrong when he showed the script to his cinematographer, Caleb Deschanel. Deschanel did not like the story at all and told the director that the script was actually disgusting.
🚨 Paramount Pictures initially rejected Steven Spielberg when he wanted to direct Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
— Movies Scenes 🎫 (@SceneinCinema) March 13, 2026
At that point, Spielberg’s films like Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and 1941 — had all gone over budget, and, when 1941 bombed at the box-office, the… pic.twitter.com/hrsetzRzRe
Because of that bad reaction, Spielberg started to lose interest and felt unsure about the movie. Bob Gale suggested that the project might have been a little too much for Steven at the time. Instead of making the small personal film, the director completely changed his mind and decided to make a giant comedy called 1941 instead.
That choice turned out to be a big mistake because 1941 became his most expensive movie and his first big failure. Everything that could go wrong on that set did go wrong, and critics did not like the film. Looking back, many people think he would have been happier if he had stuck with his small story about school kids instead of trying to make a massive war comedy.
Even though he didn’t make that specific movie, Spielberg has stayed very active in the film world. He is currently working on a new original science fiction movie that is set to come out in May 2026. This new project will star Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt, and fans are excited to see him return to stories about UFOs and the unknown.
The director is also producing many other shows and films through his company, Amblin Entertainment. He remains one of the most respected people in Hollywood because he is always trying new things, even if they don’t always work out. It is fun to imagine what his career would have looked like if he had made that small, sweary movie about his childhood enemies.
It’s interesting that even a genius like Steven Spielberg can get nervous and change his mind about a project. It shows that sometimes the smallest stories are actually the hardest ones to tell because they are so personal.
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