RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" earned more than $150 million in just its first weekend at the box office, another in a long string of Steven Spielberg hits. NPR's Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr talked to a scholar of Spielberg who's come up with one explanation for why his movies succeed.

JEFFREY FREYMANN-WEYR: Lester Friedman is chairman of the media and society program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and wrote the book "Citizen Spielberg."

Professor LESTER FRIEDMAN (Chairman, Media and Society Program, Hobart and William Smith Colleges): Almost all of the Spielberg films are about a breakup of some sort within a family and the ability of someone to put that family together.

FREYMANN-WEYR: Friedman says that Spielberg points to his parents' divorce and his own as the two worst events of his life, and bringing the onscreen family back together is just as important as the special effects and explosions.

Prof. FRIEDMAN: Spielberg is as interested in those characters as he is in the roller-coaster ride he's about to provide you. And that's what his imitators lack, quite frankly.

FREYMANN-WEYR: Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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