Steven Spielberg Was Never Happy With HOOK and Explained What Went Wrong For Him

I don’t know about you, but I fondly look back on Steven Spielberg’s 1991 film Hook. I really did love that movie when I was a kid. When I watch it now, I can see the imperfection in it, but I still love that movie and the way it makes me feel when I watch it.

Spielberg, however, was never really happy with how the movie turned out. While promoting his film Lincoln years ago, during an interview with the Kermode & Mayo Film Review program, the filmmaker admitted that Hook was the one film of his that he has the most problems with. He said at the time:

“I want to see Hook again. I still don’t like that movie. I’m hoping some day I’ll see it again and perhaps like some of it.”

Then later in an interview with Empire magazine, he was asked if he’d ever felt that he wasn’t getting the material while shooting a film, he admitted that “I’ve made a few films like that” and then went straight to Hook, saying:

“I felt like a fish out of water making Hook. I didn’t have confidence in the script. I had confidence in the first act and I had confidence in the epilogue. I didn’t have confidence in the body of it.”

He went on to admit that he really didn’t know what he was doing with the film, saying:

“I didn’t quite know what I was doing and I tried to paint over my insecurity with production value. The more insecure I felt about it, the bigger and more colorful the sets became.”

Yeah, you can definitely see that when watching the film, and we now know why he went in that vibrant direction. It’s really fascinating to learn what a director thinks about his work, especially for a film like Hook, which is really a beloved film for those of us who grew up on it.

It’s interesting because when I was a kid I saw Robin Williams’ character in a completely different light than I do now as an adult. I now understand what he was going through in that film, and when I find myself in that same kind of funk that he’s in in the movie, that character pops up in my mind because I don’t want to be that. So, I have to go out on some kind of adventure to get out of that funk. It’s really interesting how movies can really influence aspects of your life.

Anyway, Spielberg shouldn’t be too hard on himself. I hope that he’s had time to watch it again since these interviews and that he saw something that he liked in it.