Filmmaker James Gray has spoken more about how his 2019 Brad Pitt-led sci-fi film “Ad Astra” was the subject of studio interference.
The film reimagined Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” as a story spanning the solar system and dealing with one astronaut’s serious daddy issues. The film notably went through extensive reshoots following poor test screenings.
Upon its release, the film was mostly embraced by critics but scored a mixed reaction with audiences.
In 2022, during a masterclass at the recent Lumiere Film Festival, he revealed the film released in theatres was not his cut and he was seemingly kicked out of the editing room at some point after he had completed filming.
This past week, speaking in Cannes to Brut while promoting his latest film “Paper Tiger” at the festival, Gray spoke about how he kept the budget tight on this so he wouldn’t have the studio getting in the way:
“I control everything completely on this [‘Paper Tiger’] and, actually, I didn’t on ‘Ad Astra.’ That film was taken away from me. That’s not my cut of the movie. You get into discussions and debates, there’s a studio, then the studio [20th Century Fox] got sold to Disney. You get caught in that stuff. The movie was $80 million, ‘Paper Tiger’ was $15 million. I like to work on that scale because I don’t think it’s productive for people to just change your movie around and you get the blame anyway.”
Talking about how his version differed to the studio edit of “Ad Astra,” it sounds like there were major changes:
“It would have been a very different movie. It would be 12 minutes shorter. I’m the only director who makes a shorter director’s cut. I hope someday I’ll do it. I mean, it’s obviously not up to me, but I would love to do it — it would be thrilling for me.”
“Ad Astra” ultimately grossed $135 million worldwide off a $100 million budget. Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson star in “Paper Tiger” which is a 1980s crime drama due out later this year.
