Steven Spielberg Credits John Williams During Sony Pictures’ Dedication: ‘My Movies Would Not Be the Same Without You’

Samantha Bergeson
·4 min read
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John Williams’ film legacy is being immortalized with a Sony Pictures studio building dedicated to the Oscar-, Emmy,- and Grammy-winning composer.

The newly renamed John Williams Music Building on the Sony Pictures’ Culver City lot was unveiled January 18, with Williams’ longtime collaborator Steven Spielberg sharing his admiration for the musician.

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“I have grown up with Johnny from the very beginning,” Spielberg said of Williams. “What he’s done for me is something I haven’t been able to imagine. This building is where all my stress dissipates…when I finally get to this stage of a production, and I know I’m in your hands.”

Spielberg added, “In the end I don’t recognize the movies as mine but as ours. Thank you Johnny, my movies would not be the same without you.”

Williams has earned 53 Academy Award nominations thus far, and collaborated with Spielberg specifically on films like “Jaws,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Schindler’s List, Empire of the Sun,” “The Fabelmans,” “Indiana Jones,” “Jurassic Park,” and more. Spielberg is also set to produce a documentary about Williams’ life after the composer exited retirement to further work with the auteur.

Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra and SPE Motion Picture Group Chairman and CEO Tom Rothman officially dedicated the building to Williams to commemorate his six decade-spanning career.

“It is with great pride that we dedicate this building to John Williams for having made such a profound impact on not just Hollywood, but on the lives of billions of people around the world who have been touched by the magic of his musical genius,” Tony Vinciquerra, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, said in a press statement.

“The first time I came to this studio was 1940 when my father brought me here to show me the stage and I was about 9 or 10 years old, and I thought, some day this will all be mine,” Williams shared while at the ceremony. “It’s finally come to be: It’s only taken me 92 years to get here! My hope and challenge for the next 100 years is put in the work and make some good music and make the next 100 years as good as the last. This is bigger than ‘thank you,’ there are no words that can capture it in the English language; our language stops there. This is beyond an honor.”

Williams has recorded over 30 legendary scores in the SPE Columbia Pictures’ sound recording building, now named after him. For Columbia Pictures, Williams scored the Academy Award-winning “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” and “The Patriot.” Eighteen of those films were with Spielberg, and two of those features were with J.J. Abrams, “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens” and “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker.”

Abrams, who was also in attendance at the naming dedication ceremony, said, “There is no more magical being than John Williams. Johnny is able to tap into another realm, a profound, universal, utterly human place. Like an emotional wizard, he galvanizes a world, a spirit. He doesn’t just define the tone and power of a film, but elevates it into the pantheon. Every new score of his feels delightfully stunning, fresh, and yet, inevitable. He’s filled our lives with some of the greatest art ever produced by human kind. I am endlessly grateful for what he does and who he is.”

The John Williams Music Building is the home of the Cary Grant Theater, ADR, and Foley stages, and the legendary Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage, which is one of the largest motion picture scoring venues in the world. Throughout its history, it has been used to bring hundreds of film scores to life including “Forrest Gump,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone with the Wind,” “Ben Hur,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Air Force One,” “An American in Paris,” “Independence Day,” “Doctor Zhivago,” “La La Land,” and many more films. The stage has also hosted some of the most renowned composers of all time including Max Steiner, Hans Zimmer, Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, David Newman, Randy Newman, and, of course, John Williams.

“This month marks the 100th anniversary of Columbia Pictures,” Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group Tom Rothman said. “How fitting the timing that to the pantheon of names that grace the buildings on this historic lot – like Capra, Poitier, Lear, Thalberg – we add Williams, the greatest film composer of all time, to the very building where so much of the joy he created happened.”

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