(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sun 23 November 2025 17:15, UK
Not every director is guaranteed to make at least one movie during their career that they regret, but many have. Steven Spielberg has made a few that didn’t turn out the way he expected, but there’s only one he’s distanced himself from as far as possible in the years since he made it.
The first folly of the legendary filmmaker’s career was the ill-advised wartime comedy, 1941, which came at the wrong time. Flush from the success of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg’s ego was in danger of running amok, and he quickly learned that lesson after it became his first flop.
He also rebounded by helming what might be his best-ever run of films, following it with the Indiana Jones trilogy, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Color Purple, and Empire of the Sun, until Always ended his hot streak. After he enjoyed the best year of his career in 1993, when he had two seminal pictures released, he got two regrets for the price of one when he tried it again four years later.
Spielberg admitted his heart was never really in the Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World, and Amistad was another disappointment that came hot on its heels. Hook is another movie that didn’t turn out the way he expected, but he doesn’t have the same kind of disdain for any of them that he does for his 1968 short, Amblin’.
Viewing it more as an exercise to prove himself as a would-be auteur than a passion project, the three-time Academy Award winner lamented how the 26-minute effort has “as much soul and content as a piece of driftwood,” describing it as “a great Pepsi commercial” and little else.
After buying himself out of the contract he signed with its producer, Denis C Hoffman, in 1977, Amblin’ has become a collector’s item. It’s never been reissued, re-released, or remastered, never been made available on a major streaming service, and the only way to watch it is low-resolution copies on YouTube, because it’s never been officially released on VHS or DVD, either.
Allen Daviau, the cinematographer and frequent collaborator of Spielberg’s, once explained that “Steven was reluctant to have people see that film for many years,” because he felt that “it was so obviously calculated to do what it did, that is, convince a group of executives at Universal to put their money on this guy, who’s a 21-year-old director.”
The E.T., Color Purple, and Empire of the Sun lenser, who also shot Amblin’, thought “he was a little embarrassed by it,” and Spielberg had already corroborated those thoughts by then. “I can’t look at it now,” he said in 1978. “It really proved how apathetic I was during the ’60s. Amblin’ is the slick by-product of a kid immersed up to his nose in film.”
For whatever reason, despite the fact he’s clearly not a fan of the short, Spielberg decided to name his production company after it anyway, which means that no matter how hard he may try and forget it, the title has been, and will continue, to follow him around wherever he goes for the rest of his days.
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