Spielberg’s $50 Million The Post Recasts Journalism as a Feelgood Chase Movie
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jul 6
Spielberg’s $50 Million The Post Recasts Journalism as a Feelgood Chase Movie
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jul 6
Summary
Steven Spielberg’s 2017 film The Post is framed as one of the last big-screen celebrations of journalism, turning the Pentagon Papers story into a fast, crowd-pleasing newsroom thriller.
Made in roughly 10 months after Spielberg picked up Liz Hannah’s script in February 2017, the film was built for speed—Spielberg called it “a chase film with journalists” and even John Williams composed the score at breakneck pace.
Meryl Streep’s Katharine Graham anchors the movie less as a strict historical retelling than as a character study of a woman leading under pressure, with the film prioritizing momentum and emotional payoff over documentary precision.
That approach drew anger from New York Times staffers who said the movie minimized their paper’s role in the Pentagon Papers scoop, but the article argues its selective history mattered less than the national mood it captured.
At $50 million, The Post now looks like a relic of 2017—when adult studio dramas and idealized portrayals of journalists still seemed commercially and culturally plausible.