The entertainer returns

When a young, unemployed film fan booked himself on a tour around Universal Studios he made sure to impress. Dressed to the nines in his smartest suit, he gave the impression of an eager upstart well on his way to success. And impress he did. Weeks later he was hired as an unpaid intern and given the opportunity to edit film material.

It was a good turn-around for the young Steven Spielberg, who was rejected from the University of Southern California's film school three separate times, due to his low grades.

But Spielberg had a love of film and had avidly created his own movies since childhood. At Universal Studios, he was given the opportunity to edit various television shows and was quickly recognised for his talent.

He was catapulted into stardom when his first full-length feature, Jaws, became a household name, earning Spielberg millions. The movie's success allowed him the creative freedom to pick and chose a range of blockbusters that most filmmakers could only dream of.

But it wasn't all plain sailing for Spielberg. His early films, including Indiana Jones and ET were feel-good popcorn movies with happy endings. It was a stigma that earned him scorn from other directors who felt he had destroyed the art in cinema.

'Not good'

In 2001 iconic French director Jean-Luc Godard famously criticised Spielberg at the Cannes premiere of his film In Praise of Love.

"I don't think his films are very good," Godard said. "With Schindler's List he has no idea about the Holocaust, so he looked somewhere else for inspiration."

In a later interview Godard added: "I was critical [of Spielberg] when he reconstructed Auschwitz [for Schindler's List.] As an artist and auteur, I felt it my duty to point a finger at him."

It was criticism that Spielberg seemed to take to heart and he launched his career into a series of politically intense movies like Munich in 2005 and Letters from Iwo Jima (as a producer) in 2006.

But despite his dalliances with serious cinema, pressure from Indy fans meant that Indiana Jones was never far from Spielberg's mind.

Nineteen years after making The Last Crusade, the long awaited Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is about to hit our big screens. Although Spielberg recently admitted he formerly had no desire to bring Indiana back to life, he was quickly tempted by a great script.

"I made a deal with George [Lucas] in 1977 on the beach in Hawaii to make three of these things if the first one was successful," he recently told reporters. "To prove to George that I had fulfilled my moral contract, I designed a shot where Harrison [Ford] rode off into the sunset and that's a classic western side off and I thought that was the end." He added that he soon changed his mind when the right script was discovered.

Paramount bosses spent a reported $150 million (Dh550.9 million) marketing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival ahead of today's worldwide release.

With mixed reviews of Sunday's premiere, it would seem that the world is waiting with baited breath to see for itself the return of both Indiana Jones and a popcorn-movie, fun-loving Spielberg.


BEHIND THE SCENES

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

The movie was shot in just 79 days, far less than most major movies - but it's a tradition to shoot the Indiana Jones movies as quickly as possible.

Harrison Ford only had one day off from shooting.

To get reacquainted with Indy's most iconic prop, Harrison Ford spent more than six weeks in "whip training".

A total of 36 fedoras were made by a hat maker... out of his house in Mississippi.

The characters of Indiana Jones and Mutt needed 30 leather jackets between them.

For a scene involving quicksand, the actors stood on a platform controlled by the special-effects department-forming a "quicksand elevator".

There were many different inspirations for the warriors seen in the movie: Some were inspired by the "Day of the Dead" skull masks used in Latin America; others were modelled after ancient Mayan sculptures - and others were inspired by shirtless rockers dancing at a rainy, outdoor rock concert.

While shooting in New Mexico, the production encountered three rattlesnakes that had to be safely relocated. The most difficult of all of the animal actors on the set? Goats. They didn't want to stay in the shot.

Both Harrison Ford and Karen Allen celebrated birthdays during production.

Biggest hits

Raiders of the Lost Ark

ET: The Extra-Terrestrial

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

The Colour Purple

Empire of the Sun

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Jurassic Park

Schindler's List

The Lost World

Saving Private Ryan

AI: Artificial Intelligence

Minority Report

Catch Me If You Can

The Terminal

War of the Worlds

Munich

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

ET: The Extra-Terrestrial

In 1982, this ground-breaking about an alien who accidently gets left behind on earth and is looked after by a group of children changed lives. The film was a huge hit and received an Academy award nominations for best director and best picture.

Memorable moment: The children try to get ET back to the area where his space ship left off. An iconic scene was shot of the children cycling along, hiding ET under a blanket in the basket.

Schindler's List

A biographical movie about German businessman Oskar Schindler who saved 1,100 Polish Jews during world war two. While the movie was a resounding success, earning Spielberg an academy award for best diretor, Spielberg attracted criticicism for profiting out of tragedy. The film won an Academy award in 1993 for best director and another for best picture.

Memorable moment: A young girl in a red coat appears at the beginning of the film. Her coat is seen later in the movie on a pile of dead bodies - a striking effect for a film shot in black and white.

Jurassic Park

A 1993 film about a team of scientists who create an amusement park with cloned dinosaurs. The film used cutting edge computer generated imagery and became the highest grossing film of all time - the third time that a Spielberg film became the highest grossing film ever.

Memorable moment: After a power cut at the theme park, the two young children sit in a car and wait for the power to come back on. We sense danger is getting closer when a glass of water starts to shake. Actually, it's a dinosaur approaching. Oops...

Jaws

It was Spielberg's first major success - both critically and financially. The movie about a man-eating shark was made for about $15 million (Dh55 million), and grossed $260 million (Dh954 million) in the US.

Memorable moment: Iconic music that means you'll probably always think twice about going into the water.