Flight, starring Denzel Washington as a hero airline pilot with a secret alcohol addiction, is not so dependent on awards buzz for its appeal, and in any case has two Oscar nominations, for best actor and original screenplay.
There followed a steady and growing career as one of the UK's best directors - there was the odd episode of Kavanagh QC on TV, but also films including The Theory of Flight, starring Kenneth Branagh and Helena Bonham Carter - one of the rare times when he put a foot wrong.
Flight starring Denzel Washington is not just a movie.
Flight, starring Oscar contender Denzel Washington received only 6,410 tweets, but most tweets were positive.
As previously announced, Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" will open the festival, David Chase's "Not Fade Away" is the Centerpiece Gala Selection and Robert Zemeckis' "Flight," starring Denzel Washington, will close the fortnight.
But no top-flight stars were moved Thursday, making for an anticlimactic trade deadline day.
While Hollywood still loves the summer escape movie, sophisticated real-life dramas are filling up the latter part of the year, attracting top-flight stars and directors and finding a niche with audiences continually wired into unfolding news events.
Without Mr Spielberg in the director's chair, and with no really top-flight stars to speak of, it will have to pull something very scary out of the hat to persuade audiences they haven't seen it all before.
The answer is typically complicated as it involves the one-and-done rule diluting elite programs, the power of veteran teams playing together and the erosion of top-flight stars in college basketball.
This despite having top-flight stars known to cut loose in exhilarating style on Broadway — Faith Prince, Tom Wopat and Mr. Fierstein — and, in John Doyle, a director who brought awakening emotional intensity to the recent revivals of "Sweeney Todd" and "Company".
