How Steven Spielberg almost destroyed his career (but didn't)

Steven Spielberg may have missed out on an Oscar this year, but his legendary status is well assured in the industry. Only it almost all never came to pass as this entertaining Film Riot short describes.

It surprised us when we looked it up, but Steven Spielberg hasn't won an Oscar this century. Yes, this century. Storied and lauded he may be, but his last success at the Academy's annual jamboree was winning Best Director back in 1999 for Saving Private Ryan. 

Okay, he's won plenty else elsewhere, including Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Director - Motion Picture at the Golden Globes this year for his semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans, but the point is that he came very close to ensuring that none of that ever happened on his very first high-profile feature.

That was in 1974 and the film was Jaws. As this very entertaining video from the Film Riot team details, while that may have gone down in history as a notable success, as it wrapped behind schedule and over budget the mood on the production was anything but celebratory.

Film Riot backtracks through his early career and then dives into the meat of the story and all the things that went wrong, especially with the animatronic shark. "Had we read [the book] twice, in my opinion, then we would never have made Jaws,"  says the producer, David Brown.

As someone else summarises: "This was no Jaws, this was Flaws."

It's a great story about how it all got turned around and led to other, greater things, and it's well told. Have a look below.