When Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks team up on a movie, it’s a pretty big deal. (Yes, even when it’s The Terminal.) When the Coen Bros. make any movie whatsoever, it’s also a pretty big deal. But them all together and the screen may very well dissolve into an eye-stinging mist comprised of pure, unbridled awesome. But let’s not build it up too much.
Yes, for the first time Steven Spielberg will be teaming up with The Coen Bros. for his next big Tom Hanks collaboration, an as-yet-untitled film about the American U-2 spy plane that crashed in Soviet Russia in 1960, the pilot whose safe return to American soil was on the line, and the major downturn in diplomatic relations the incident sparked between the world’s two biggest superpowers at the height of the Cold War. Variety has reported that the Coen Bros. will write the script, a rare project in which they will provide the script for a motion picture they are not directing themselves.
That said, the last time they wrote a script for a different director the result was Gambit, the disappointing comedy remake starring Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz that was barely released and currently boasts a measly 19% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Will this new project be the greatest motion picture collaboration of all time, a huge disappointment or just another damned movie? We’ll find out when it actually gets made.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
