BFG director Steven Spielberg has admitted he used to bribe his children to watch black-and-white films with him.

Spielberg, who has seven children including his stepchildren, offered a rate of $10 US per film.

Speaking at a press conference in London, the 69-year-old said: “I used to have to pay my kids 10 dollars to watch a black-and-white movie. I would have to bribe them, and 10 dollars was a lot of money then.”

But despite the bribe, his children often were not keen to watch movies such as 1948 Western movie Red River. He said: “I had a couple of my kids watch the movie, and 20 minutes later give me my $10 back.”

Spielberg said he loved to watch old movies as inspiration. He said: “I’m a very conservative director. I have a lot of ambition about my predecessors, all the geniuses that all of us, whether we know it or not, are working from and upon whose shoulders we stand. So I do a lot of looking back and a lot of understanding what makes a good story.”

He added: “My whole love for this medium comes from paying attention to the past and respecting all the movies that have been made over all these years.

“I speak to film students and they say, well how do I get a job? And I say, well it’s easy to get a job if you write because if they buy your script you can insist on directing it, or you can just take your device and just go out and make your own movie.

“But I also say, you need to look at the old films.”

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