Michael Douglas Opens up About the Spielberg Move That Cost Him an Oscar

Michael Douglas once looked back on an awards season moment that still bugs him a little. He shared the story during an appearance on Variety’s Actors on Actors, where he talked about an encounter with Steven Spielberg at the Cannes Film Festival.

That year, Spielberg was serving as president of the festival jury. Douglas said there was a lot of talk that he was in line to win Best Actor. According to him, that didn’t sit well with Spielberg. Douglas claimed the director shut the idea down because the film was an HBO production. At the time, that apparently made it feel more like television than a real movie.

Douglas didn’t hide his frustration when telling the story. He said that way of thinking felt outdated. In his view, a film should still count as a film even if it only plays in theaters for a short time. He felt the industry needed to stop drawing hard lines between theatrical movies and projects made with TV or streaming money.

Spielberg has been very open about his feelings on this topic over the years. In a 2018 interview with ITV, he explained that television and streaming reminded him of the 1950s, when people first started staying home instead of going to cinemas. He saw it as a real challenge to the big screen experience.

He also pointed out that studios were putting most of their energy into giant blockbusters. Smaller and more personal films, the kind studios once made all the time, were now ending up on platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and HBO Max. Spielberg worried that many of these movies were being denied proper theatrical releases, which he felt hurt filmmakers and audiences alike.

Still, his outlook has softened a bit in recent years. Speaking to The New York Times, Spielberg said movies like Elvis gave him hope. Seeing older audiences return to theaters made him feel optimistic. As he put it, I think movies are going to come back. I really do.

Today, Michael Douglas is enjoying a slower pace. He recently starred in the Apple TV+ series Franklin, where he played Benjamin Franklin. Many critics called it one of the strongest performances of his career.

At the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in mid 2025, Douglas told fans he does not have much interest in taking on new roles right now. After nearly sixty years of work, he said he wants to focus on family, though he made it clear he is not fully retired in case the right script appears.

Steven Spielberg, on the other hand, is deep into his next project. He is finishing a sci-fi film called Disclosure Day, which he wrote with longtime collaborator David Koepp. The movie is set for a theatrical release on June 12 and stars Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, and Colman Domingo. While details are being kept quiet, the film is rumored to be a large-scale story about humanity’s first contact with aliens.

Do you think Spielberg’s return to sci-fi with Disclosure Day could help bring people back to theaters in a big way? Let us know what you think in the comments.