Steven Spielberg casts David Lynch in The Fabelmans

By Blair Marnell February 4, 2022

For the first time ever, directors Steven Spielberg and David Lynch are going to collaborate. It’s just not happening in the way that anyone expected. Variety is reporting that Lynch has been cast in a role for Spielberg’s upcoming film The Fabelmans. Details about Lynch’s part were not disclosed in the story.

Lynch is best known as a director of critically acclaimed films including Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, The Straight Story, Wild At Heart, and Lost Highway. He is also the co-creator of Twin Peaks, a wildly popular cult series from the 1990s that was revived by Showtime in 2017 as Twin Peaks: The Return.

While famous for his work behind the camera, Lynch has been known to occasionally perform on camera as well. In both incarnations of Twin Peaks, Lynch portrayed FBI agent Gordon Cole. He also lent his voice to The Cleveland Show and Family Guy, and guest-starred in FX’s Louie. Lynch also had a supporting role in John Carroll Lynch’s feature film Lucky.

David Lynch in Twin Peaks: The Return. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Spielberg co-wrote the script for The Fabelmans with Tony Kushner (Angels in America), and it is a semiautobiographical story inspired by Spielberg’s youth in Arizona. Spielberg is also directing the film, which will be his first project after his recent West Side Story remake, which was a hit with critics (and less so with audiences).

Gabriel LaBelle is playing the leading role in The Fabelmans, alongside Seth Rogen, Paul Dano, Michelle Williams, Julia Butters, Judd Hirsch, Sam Rechner, Oakes Fegley, Chloe East, Jeannie Berlin, Robin Bartlett, Jonathan Hadary, and Isabelle Kusman.

Universal Pictures is expected to release The Fabelmans in November of this year.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Blair Marnell has been an entertainment journalist for over 15 years. His bylines have appeared in Wizard Magazine, Geek…

Entertainment

Steven Spielberg is working on a new film based on Bullitt

Steve McQueen as Bullitt.

Steven Spielberg may be 75-years old, but he's not slowing down anytime soon. According to Deadline, the famed director is now attached to helm a new film featuring Frank Bullitt, a character originally portrayed by screen icon Steve McQueen in one of the greatest movies of the '60s, Bullitt. However, the report notes that this will not be a remake of Bullitt. Instead, it will simply be a new story featuring Frank Bullitt as the main character.

Bullitt was one of the most famous movies made by McQueen during his career. It was based on Robert L. Fish's 1963 novel, Mute Witness. Within the film, Frank Bullitt was a San Francisco police detective who was assigned to protect a mobster named Johnny Ross in order for Ross to give testimony at an organized crime hearing in a Senate subcommittee. After the mob successfully kills Ross ahead of time, Frank hides the evidence of Ross' death in order to give himself more time to investigate and bring the killers to justice.

Entertainment

David Lynch’s Dune is better than you remember, and weirder too

Kyle MacLachlan in David Lynch's Dune.

The arrival of Denis Villeneuve's Dune in theaters is kind of a big deal -- and not just because it's one of the biggest projects released since the pandemic changed the movie business. The blockbuster film is already breaking box-office records, and it's prompted many movie and sci-fi fans to take another look at the previous attempt to bring novelist Frank Herbert's saga to the big screen: David Lynch's much-maligned 1984 film of the same name.

And you know what? After re-watching it myself, I feel confident suggesting Lynch's messy, wonderfully weird Dune isn't nearly as terrible as you might remember -- and might be worth watching again nearly 40 years after it first hit theaters.

Entertainment

Hold on to your fedora! Steven Spielberg won’t direct Indiana Jones 5

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

For the first time in the history of the Indiana Jones movie franchise, Steven Spielberg will not be in the director's chair when cameras roll on the next installment of the series.

Spielberg himself reportedly made the decision to step down as director of Indiana Jones 5, which has yet to receive an official title or begin filming after a lengthy development period. The move was made to freshen up the franchise with a new filmmaker's perspective on the whip-cracking archaeologist's adventures, according to Variety.