Tradecraft: Spielberg Passes On Directing Matt Helm Reboot

Aww. Both The Hollywood Reporter and Variety are reporting that Steven Spielberg has chosen his next directing project... and it's not Matt Helm, the big budget spy reboot being prepped at Paramount. The director, who is apparently attached as a producer to that project, had briefly flirted with directing it himself last week, but that isn't happening after all. Whether that was Spielberg's choice or Paramount's isn't known (studio politics were said to play a big role in the decision when the story was first reported), but instead he'll be directing a remake of the 1950 imaginary rabbit movie Harvey for DreamWorks and Fox. Too bad. Still, the mega-director's brief flirtation with Matt Helm (after apparently falling in love with Paul Attanasio's latest draft of the script) should at least be enough to assure that the film does, at long last, make it into production. Ah, what might have been...