Random anecdote: in the DGA video, Spielberg said that of all the movies that he's helped produce/shepherd to the screen, not being able to direct this one hurt the most (I've seen him say that about American Beauty too, but he developed Rain Man as a directing vehicle for himself for over a year--not the case with American Beauty, I don't think).

Interesting to think about how this would have turned out with Spielberg at the helm.

I know that Levinson was asked to direct it, then went off to do another movie ("Good Morning Vietnam" I believe), then was offered to do "Rain Man" after some other director dropped out. Was that Spielberg? Or did he drop out earlier?

I could see him doing "Rain Man" just fine. "American Beauty," it's just hard to imagine anybody doing a better job with that movie than Mendes. He hit the tone just right, incredibly hard to do with a drama-satire. Plus such strong visuals. And what he did with the script: Getting rid of the court room scenes. Getting rid of the Colonel's homosexual love scenes in Vietnam. All sorts of thematic grace notes. Elevated the material in a huge way.

"AB" is an almost perfect film in my view. And those type of films, I can't even begin to think of other directors. Verges on sacrireligious.

All he said in the DGA video was that he was gearing up for filming Rain Man for a long while, he spent a ton of time with Dustin Hoffman prepping the role, and then had to drop out due to personal reasons. Not sure where in the chronology that fits in, but he made it sound like it was him leaving, then Levinson stepping in. I think Spielberg developed the project from the very beginning for himself, though.

Yeah, American Beauty was Sam Mendes' movie through and through. I don't see Spielberg tackling that sort of movie anyways. Can you even picture him doing anything related to satire? It doesn't seem like it would ever really make a good fit.