Steven Spielberg scrapped opera film with Colman Domingo

Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg revealed he once planned a movie about Broadway legends George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin. The project was shelved despite casting discussions with Colman Domingo, whom Spielberg later featured in other productions

Los Angeles: Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg says he wanted to make a film on Broadway duo Ira and George Gershwin with Colman Domingo, but decided not to go ahead with the project.

“I was going to make a movie about Ira and George Gershwin, and I was going to make a movie about the process of writing and staging Porgy and Bess,” Spielberg at Good Hang podcast.

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The filmmaker, who recently collaborated with Domingo in “Disclosure Day”, said he met the actor when he was casting for his scrapped opera film.

“I had a script, and I was excited, and I was casting it. And I was looking for Todd Duncan, who played Porgy, and I met a lot of actors, and when Colman came in to the meeting, that was the first time I met Colman, but I intended, after that meeting, to cast him as Todd Duncan,” he said.

The filmmaker said he wasn’t sure of the film and that’s the reason he didn’t work with the actor. “What happened was, I had actually cast a lot of the movie and then I had a – something that doesn’t often happen when I’m that far down the line – but I had a kind of second thought about the project, and I decided not to continue making it…That’s the only reason Colman and I didn’t work together then,” he said.

Spielberg later casted the actor in his 2012 film “Lincoln”.

His latest film, “Disclosure Day”, released on June 12 and also features Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, and Wyatt Russell, among others.