Steven Spielberg revealed to Empire magazine (via Total Film) on his “Disclosure Day” press tour that he was attached to direct “Interstellar” for only a year before dropping out and being replaced by Christopher Nolan. The Oscar winner was brought onto the project by producer Lynda Obst and astrophysicist Kip Thorne, who served as the movie’s scientific consultant.
“I was involved with ‘Interstellar’ for a year… and I became fascinated with it,” Spielberg admitted. “I spent a lot of time at the [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] in Pasadena, California, talking to the scientists there and the aerospace engineers.”
“I actually hired Chris Nolan’s brother [Jonathan] to write the first and second draft for me, but it didn’t stick,” he continued. “Jonah actually said, ‘If there comes a point where you decide not to make this movie, I can tell you who’s gonna grab it. He’s already bugging me about it. And that’s my brother Chris.’ He was absolutely right. The second I decided not to make it, Chris jumped on board, probably the next day. ‘Interstellar’ was a much better movie in Chris Nolan’s hands than it would have been in mine.”
“Interstellar” opened in theaters in November 2014 and grossed $681 million worldwide during its initial run and scored five Oscar nominations, winning for best visual effects. Matthew McConaughey headlined the film as a NASA pilot who embarks on a space mission to save the planet from the dying. Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Timothee Chalamet and more appeared in the film.
Nolan recently unpacked “Interstellar” with Chalamet during a March screening in Los Angeles and spoke about the movie’s jump from Spielberg project to Nolan vehicle.
“Right after we collaborated on ‘Dark Knight,’ my brother got the job and went to work with Steven. I get to call him Steven. He’s Mr. Spielberg to you,” Nolan told Chalamet. “He worked on it for a lot of years. It had incredible ideas and moved through all these different iterations, but until Steven was ready to make it, whatever it is, it never quite got that momentum. Steven went off to do another film, so it became available.”
Nolan continued, “I had a lot of conversations with Jonathan over the years and what he was doing and what his ambition was. I was excited by it. I was incredibly struck by his first act. I had been working on a time travel idea… things looking at time. I had half-baked projects that I hadn’t committed to. When it became available, it was a case of me saying to Jonathan, ‘How would you feel if I took this and tried to combine it with some of my ideas and change a bit with what it was?’ He was fine with it. He could tell the spirit of what I was trying to do was to get to what he was initially excited about it.”
Reviews for “Interstellar” were far more mixed than Nolan’s previous acclaimed efforts like “The Dark Knight” and “Interstellar.” Many critics thought Nolan fumbled with the movie’s more heartfelt and sentimental storyline, which happen to be specialities of Spielberg.
“I had some producer anonymously say of me, ‘He is a cold guy who makes cold films.’ Then it sort of stuck on me for several projects,” Nolan remembered. “The reason I was attracted to my brother’s first act is because it’s about family and humanity, and it’s deeply emotional. That’s the film I wanted to make. It’s a film that wears its heart on its sleeve.”
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