How good a bet is Steven Spielberg?

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Steven Spielberg has done it all. He’s already earned his AFI Life Achievement Award, scored his best director Oscars, hung out in the Clinton White House, been parodied by ‘South Park’ and played the part of a Universal tour guide (see above clip). But with Hollywood abuzz about the news that DreamWorks is putting together a deal with an Indian media conglomerate to finance a new slate of films, I found myself wondering--how many big hit movies does Spielberg, who turns 62 in December, still have left in the tank?

After all, while Reliance Entertainment clearly expects DreamWorks co-chair Stacey Snider to be a major force in picking hit films in the ensuing years, it isn’t spending $500-plus-million on her executive talent, as considerable as it might be. It also has to betting that Spielberg can still deliver the kind of megahits he’s famous for. His track record is pretty much unparalleled in modern-day Hollywood, with epic successes in every decade of his career: ‘Jaws’ and ‘Close Encounters’ in the 1970s, ‘E.T.’ and ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ in the 1980s, ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Saving Private Ryan’ in the 1990s and ‘War of the Worlds’ and the newly released ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ in the current decade.

Spielberg has a slew of classy-looking projects in the works, from a trilogy based on ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ that will have him collaborating, in some fashion, with Peter Jackson, to a biopic of Abe Lincoln (scripted by Tony Kushner) and the ‘Trial of the Chicago 7’ historical drama, penned by Aaron Sorkin. But filmmaking is a young man’s game, especially when it comes to making quality films that also attract a mass audience. Outside of Clint Eastwood and John Huston--once in a generation directors--the box-office results for filmmakers who’ve hit 62 are not pretty.

Borrowing on the work of baseball sabermetricians who project the careers of great sluggers and pitchers after they’ve passed what passes for middle age in baseball, here’s a representative sampling of career work from 10 of our great directors after they’ve passed the 62-year mark.

Francis Ford Coppola (‘The Godfather,’ ‘Apocalypse Now’)

63-plus: ‘Youth Without Youth.’

Howard Hawks (‘Bringing Up Baby,’ ‘The Big Sleep,’ ‘Red River’)

63-plus: ‘Hatari!,’ ‘Red Line 7000,’ ‘El Dorado.’

George Roy Hill (‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ ‘The Sting’)

63-plus: ‘The Little Drummer Girl,’ ‘Funny Farm.’

Alfred Hitchcock (‘The Lady Vanishes,’ ‘Notorious,’ ‘North by Northwest’)

63-plus: ‘The Birds,’ ‘Torn Curtain,’ ‘Topaz.’

Elia Kazan (‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ ‘On the Waterfront,’ ‘East of Eden’)

63-plus: ‘The Visitors,’ ‘The Last Tycoon.’

David Lean (‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ ‘Dr. Zhivago’)

63-plus: ‘Ryan’s Daughter,’ ‘A Passage to India.’

Mike Nichols (‘The Graduate,’ ‘Heartburn’)

63-plus: ‘Closer,’ ‘Charlie Wilson’s War.’

Sydney Pollack (‘The Way We Were,’ ‘Tootsie’)

63-plus: ‘Random Hearts.’

George Stevens (‘Woman of the Year,’ ‘Giant’)

63-plus: ‘The Only Game in Town.’

Billy Wilder (‘Sunset Blvd.,’ ‘Some Like It Hot’)

63-plus: ‘Avanti,’ ‘The Front Page,’ ‘Fedora.’