JJ Abrams first met Steven Spielberg when he was 15. He and close friend (and Cloverfield director) Matt Reeves had entered movies in a Super 8 film festival and were featured in a Los Angeles Times article.

Impressed, Spielberg had then assistant Kathleen Kennedy call the pair and ask if they were interested in repairing his old 8mm films. 

So at just 15, JJ took a job cutting together Steven Spielberg's old 8mm home movies.

Many years later, it was JJ calling his mentor to talk about Super 8.

"When JJ came back to me and suggested taking the idea of kids making Super 8 movies and blending that with a larger sci-fi event, where something appears in their film and sets off a crisis," recalls Spielberg, "to me, that was really intriguing.

"I felt it was going to be both a movie about '70s movie-making culture and it was also going to be about what all that led to."

With The Beard on board, it was time for JJ to start working on the script...