While Alfonso Cuarón’s latest film Gravity continues to soar at the box office, Warner Bros. reportedly suggested some major changes to the film during production.
Cuarón told i09 that Warner Bros. said, “’you need to cut to Houston, and see how the rescue mission goes. And there is a ticking clock with the rescue mission. You have to do flashbacks with the backstory.’ But we were very clear that this was the film that we wanted to make.”
He continues, saying, “[They wanted] the whole thing of the flashbacks. A whole thing with… a romantic relationship with the Mission Control Commander, who is in love with her. All of that kind of stuff. What else? To finish with a whole rescue helicopter, that would come and rescue her. Stuff like that.”
Warner Bros. clearly wanted to steer Cuarón into a much different direction. Having him use flashbacks to give us an idea of what was going on with Houston (Nasa) during the story, not to mention wanting Alfonso to create a romantic relationship between Sandra Bullock’s character and the Mission Control Commander.
All of these changes would have dramatically changed the film’s story and we’re so glad to see that Alfonso stuck to his guns and continued filming the movie he set out to make. We can’t imagine it was easy telling Warner Bros. that he wasn’t going to change anything during the six years that this film was being made.
Related: Check out Hypable’s review of Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity.
Cuarón said that he knows where those kinds of ideas come from, and they certainly aren’t for the sake of the quality of the film, but to give it a more mainstream audience. He went on to say, “You have to understand that in this is the process… in many ways I don’t know how they did it. Because they put a lot of money [into the film] and they couldn’t see absolutely anything for months, years.”
We can understand WB’s concerns, but Alfonso had a clear vision and wasn’t going to let a committee decide the fate of his film. He says it took years to just get some solid footage put together and while the production continued, everyone was getting “a little nervous.”
Warner Bros. reportedly asked him things like, “Are you sure you don’t need to pump up the action value, like having an enemy, like a missile strike?” He made an interesting point saying, “Everybody is just dropping ideas, because they [the studio] are flying in the blind.”
Very similar to how Sandra Bullock was speaking to “Houston in the blind” during the film, and Cuarón says the studio was worried about their $100 million dollar investment due to “flying in the blind.” It seems he understood their concerns, but we’re glad to see that in the end he kept pushing forward with his goal of making one of the most awe-inspiring films involving space that’s ever been created.
Fans are raving about how Gravity is an incredible experience, especially in IMAX, and without Alfonso fending off WB’s suggestions we’re certain we wouldn’t have been given the film we ended up seeing on the big screen.
While fans discuss the fact that Gravity could be “the future of cinema,” we imagine Warner Bros. is rethinking their attempts to radically change a director’s vision for what has become a revolutionary cinematic experience.
WB might take another step back as we head into Oscar season, where Gravity is undoubtedly going to be the focus of quite a few awards. Not just for its incredible technical aspects, which are unrivaled, but also for the breathtaking performances that its director was able to get from his actors who were stuck on a green screen for nearly the entire duration of filming.
Bravo Mr. Cuarón. As film fans, we salute you.