Tired of being a studio head, possibly, or just wanting to lower his threshold of responsibility, Stephen Spielberg wants out and NBC is in negotiation to buy Dreamworks. Yes, that Dreamworks which brought us movies like Saving Private Ryan, Shrek (and the sequel) and recently Madagascar and War of The Worlds (WOW) is on the block:

NBC Universal, the media and entertainment arm of GE - the world’s biggest conglomerate - is deep in negotiations to buy the DreamWorks’ slate of forthcoming releases, the television library and a back-catalogue of 60 films, for a putative $1bn (£551m). Spielberg’s ambition to lever his money-making creativity into movie moguldom has failed.

Whatever becomes of this possible acquistion, Spielberg is teaming up with Harrison Ford for the fourth Indiana Jones, so he is far and away not leaving the director’s chair. I wonder if this will make his films more interesting. I really haven’t been excited about anything from Spielberg since Jurassic Park (1993). AI was godawful, WOW did not have the wow-factor. Shrek? Good for the kids but a few too many fart jokes to hold my interest. Didn’t even get through the sequel.

I think this is more about quality than anything else and I hope that Spielberg gets back to his grittier Jaws days. Enough of the quasi-twilight zone mushy ending garbage. The world can only take one E.T. And I’ve heard that Drew Barrymore actually would like Spielberg to remake that. Please no more phone home.