Steven Spielberg ‘Chickened Out’ of Making 1991’s Hook a Musical

Thanks to the enduring legacy of Robin Williams, the outrageously hammed up performance of Dustin Hoffman and the magic of Steven Spielberg, the 1991 fantasy film Hook still has a place in the hearts of many fans 30 years later. However, there has been a longstanding rumor that the film could have been very different if Spielberg had gone with his original plan for the movie and made it a musical affair. Now, while promoting his new version of West Side Story, which finally has given the legendary filmmaker his first musical, he addressed the Hook rumors, which are very much true.

The multi award winning director told The Guardian about how it was down to a last minute case of nerves that prevented Hook going down the musical route. He revealed:

“I chickened out after the first week of shooting and took all the songs out. […] It was the biggest paradigm shift I’ve ever had while directing a movie. It just didn’t seem right for some strange reason. Maybe I didn’t feel ready to do a musical. I was OK doing those little numbers in 1941 or Temple of Doom, and later there was a kind of zero-gravity dance to the Bee Gees in Ready Player One. I had a couple of false starts, too, with scripts that I began developing into original musicals. At some point, I decided I had to have the courage of my convictions.”

While there are a couple of songs that did make it into the movie, it is hard to believe that someone like Spielberg could get the jitters about not being able to make a certain type of film. Even in the early 1990s, with huge movies like Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, War Horse, Lincoln, Ready Player One and more still to come in his career, Spielberg was still one of the biggest names in family entertainment, and if he had continued down the musical route with Hook, then we could have possibly seen him directing other big screen musicals before West Side Story.

When it comes to new filmmakers, Spielberg had some words of advice, which he relayed when speaking to Collider. He is aware of a surge in mobile phone apps that are allowing regular people to tell stories every day, and they are people who he feels should be encouraged in their endeavors. He explained:

“There’s a whole other subset of individuals who want to tell their stories, and they’re telling them right now on their iPhones, and they’re telling them right now on social media and on Twitter and on Instagram and on TikTok. I have my eye out for them all the time because that is … those are the individuals that should know what goes into preparing a script.

The only piece of advice I love to give is don’t worry so much about technique and don’t worry so much about where to put the camera or have a light. Worry about one thing or think about one thing, preoccupy yourself with, how do you tell a story that’s really interesting, that you can get somebody not to walk out of the room right in the middle of your second act of your telling the story? How do you just tell a story that people lean into what you’re saying and they don’t lean back, they don’t start looking around the room? Find a way first, a compelling way to express your art through your storytelling. Once you’ve got that, there’s a lot of people in this world that will get around you and show you the ropes, but learning how to be a storyteller is the most important advice I can give you.”

You can catch Spielberg’s foray into the world of musical movies from this Friday when West Side Story is released worldwide.