Steven Spielberg to just cut to the chase and make a movie about his own childhood

Steven Spielberg’s films have left an indelible mark on countless childhoods, giving generations of movie fans opportunities to come together through seemingly universal experiences—whether it’s with movies that are explicitly about growing up or movies that are simply so timeless that everyone at any point in their life can appreciate them. Finally, though, Spielberg is going to stop fucking around with E.T.s and dinosaurs and just make a movie about his own childhood.

This comes from Deadline, which says Spielberg will be following-up his West Side Story adaptation with an untitled movie “loosely based on his childhood growing up in Arizona,” with Michelle Williams in talks to play his mom. Well, not his mom, but a “major” character inspired by his mom who has a “separate and original voice” (which is an odd detail and sounds like the kind of thing you’d say to avoid offending anyone).

Spielberg will be co-writing the script with Tony Kushner, making this the first time he’s actually handled screenwriting in 20 years. The last one he actually wrote was A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and before that it was Poltergeist, so perhaps this movie will be the point where Spielberg reveals he grew up in a haunted house and/or was friends with a robot. We don’t know anything else about the movie’s plot, but Spielberg is reportedly now working on casting “children at multiple levels” for the movie, including one who will be playing the character inspired by him (but with a separate and original voice, we assume).