“Top Gun: Maverick” filmmaker Joseph Kosinski first arrived on the feature filmmaking scene just over a decade ago with “Tron: Legacy,” the film serving as a follow-up to Disney’s costly 1982 flop.
Though not making enough to justify a sequel, the film was well regarded enough he went on to do movies like “Oblivion,” “Only the Brave,” ‘Maverick’ and “Spiderhead”.
Back in the very early 2010s though, he and producer Sean Bailey were also toying with the idea of a remake of another ambitious, but costly Disney sci-fi flop from decades ago – Gary Nelson’s 1979 feature “The Black Hole”.
In the original film, the crew of a space exploration vessel come into contact with crazed scientist Dr. Hans Reinhardt, the sole human aboard a giant ship he plans on flying into a black hole. Robots man Reinhardt’s ship, but the USS Palomino’s team (led by Robert Forster) discover a dark secret about them and Reinhardt’s past.
At the time “Dune,” “Prometheus” and “Passengers” scribe Jon Spaihts was hired to pen a re-write of the script for the remake. The script was apparently completed and well regarded but the studio effectively cancelled any plans for it.
In 2016, Spaihts told Slashfilm: “I loved that script. It sits uneasily in Disney’s world as a dark epic, and Disney is in a very colorful place. It was very faithful to the original but clever in all the ways in that first film was silly, I hope.”
Cut to this week and Kosinski spoke with The Wrap about his various works when the topic of the long-forgotten “Black Hole” remake came up.
Kosinski revealed that the film shared too many similarities to Christopher Nolan’s space drama “Interstellar” which ultimately killed it at the Mouse House. However, he says he still loves the property even if he’s not sure how he’d go about doing the project now:
“I still feel like that movie is one of the most unique that Disney’s ever made, the original, I mean. It’s wild. The idea of a journey to a black hole is still one of those things that is very intriguing because it’s not science fiction. They really exist, and all the effects that happen around them are real physics. So there is a great story to be told about that journey. I just, at this point, I haven’t figured out what that would be for me yet.”
Kosinski has already set his next film, the racing movie “Formula 1” starring Brad Pitt which will get a theatrical release followed by an exclusive Apple TV+ play. The original “The Black Hole” is available on the Disney+ service.
