John Williams surprises Steven Spielberg

Oscar-winning composer John Williams (Star Wars) isn't retiring after all according to Variety!

Last year, Williams announced Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny would be his final movie soundtrack. However, during an American Cinematheque event with longtime creative collaborator Steven Spielberg (Jaws), Williams surprised everyone by saying he would no longer retire.

“Well, Steven is a lot of things,” said the 90-year-old composer. “He’s a director, he’s a producer, he’s a studio head, he’s a writer, he’s a philanthropist, he’s an educator. One thing he isn’t is a man you can say no to.”

“You never told me that before today,” said The Fabelmans director.

Continued Williams, “I had a 90th birthday and I met a woman at my age up in Boston. She was a very nice lady, exactly the same age as I, and I said to her, the greatest decade in a man’s life is 80 to 90, if you have your health, because if you get to 90, there’s an enormous compensation. You see everything with such magnetic vision that you recognize the most beautiful thing in the world are Peruvian butterflies. There’s nothing more beautiful than that. And so it’s the greatest decade. And she said, ‘No, the greatest decade in a person’s life is 90 to 100. So I’ll stick around for a while… But also, you can’t retire from music. I said earlier, it’s like breathing. It’s your life. It’s my life. And so a day without music is a mistake.”

Spielberg in reply: “I gotta get working, to find out what the hell I’m doing next.”

45 years ago, I began my soundtrack odyssey with the original Star Wars double LP. Like many, Williams has composed the soundtrack to my life.

I, for one, can't wait to see where Spielberg and Williams take cinema audiences next.