Spielberg Joins Katzenberg For A Spooky Series You Can Only See At Night

Is Quibi the next big thing?

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg in 2013 Image by Getty/ Dimitrios Kambouris/Staff

By PJ Grisar June 10, 2019

Director Steven Spielberg is partnering with longtime film executive Jeffrey Katzenberg’s forthcoming streaming service, Quibi, for a smartphone horror story you can watch only in the witching hour.

Defying the advice of sleep experts — who caution us to avoid our phones’ pesky blue light in the hours leading up to sleep — the multi-chapter series, which has the vaguely Cinemax-sounding working title of “Spielberg’s After Dark,” will only appear to viewers at the chimes of midnight, Variety reports.

“Steven Spielberg came in, and said, ‘I have a super scary story I want to do,’” Katzenberg said at the Banff World Media Festival in Canada on June 9. “He’s writing it himself. He hasn’t [written anything for a while] so getting him to write something is fantastic.”

Katzenberg’s Quibi streaming platform (short for “quick bites,” as all the entertainment is designed to be between seven to 10 minutes long) has boasted A-List talent and high-profile backers since Katzenberg announced the mobile-exclusive project in 2017 under the name “NewTV.” But Spielberg’s after-midnight-only conceit is unique and could help set Quibi apart in a crowded field of streamable content.

To restrict when audiences stream the show, Katzenberg and his CEO Meg Whitman had their engineers use a cell phone’s ability to track the sunrise in its given area to prompt viewers with a clock ticking down the hours till a midnight screening. Per Variety, the clock fades when the sun comes up and the show does too, only reappearing the next night.

Quibi’s launch is slated for April 2020 with a two-week free trial and eight “super premium” offerings. We don’t yet know if Spielberg’s spooky series will be available day one, but we anticipate the show will provide us with a lot of sleepless nights.

PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture intern. He can be reached at [email protected].

PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO