We recognize that the problem with doing our 2018 Best Picture & Best Director Nominees, is that we wind up being blind-sided by big decisions like Steven Spielberg prioritizing his new movie “The Post,” starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep.
Deadline reports that the film is now on the fast-track, with filming to start in May, and the picture expected to be delivered in time for this year’s Oscar season. Penned by Liz Hannah, “The Post” will detail the true story of the explosive Pentagon Papers, which changed the course of the Vietnam War, and the work done by the Washington Post to disseminate the intel, with Hanks as editor Ben Bradlee, and Streep as publisher Kay Graham.
It means some re-ordering of Spielberg’s schedule. The director is currently in post-production on the blockbuster “Ready Player One,” which opens on March 30, 2018. He had originally planned to make religious thriller “The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara” starring Mark Rylance and Oscar Isaac next — possibly even for this year’s awards season — but that’s now been pushed back. And if “Indiana Jones 5” is still on Spielberg’s slate for 2019, I don’t see ‘Mortara’ happening until after that sequel — Spielberg works fast, but that would still be a difficult picture to squeeze in the mix.
So, it’s time for prognosticators to realign their crystal balls because Spielberg, Hanks, and Streep are coming for the Oscars.
