James Gray Finally Admits His Cut of ‘Ad Astra’ Was “Taken” From Him During The Edit

Total coincidence, but after reposting yesterday’s 2019 piece on the turbulent post-production process James Gray had to endure during “Ad Astra,” the filmmaker finally admitted today that it indeed wasn’t his cut released in theaters.

During his masterclass at the recent Lumiere Film Festival (via Variety), Gray spoke about how frustrating an experience making the sci-fi epic was:

“Creatively, it became a very torturous experience. The film was taken from me, ultimately: it’s not my cut of the movie, and I find it a very painful experience to have people tell me things they hated about the movie that I had nothing to do with. I was so deeply upset, I had lost all my enthusiasm for making films. And I said, ‘If I’m going to do it again, if it’s going to be bad, it might as well be my bad.’” 

So, there’s your confirmation. “Ad Astra” was taken away from Gray during the editing phase and he had absolutely no final say in how the film was being edited and what additional scenes were being shot. In fact, he wasn’t even part of the reshoots, another filmmaker was hired to direct the additionally added scenes.

I had written more than three years ago that the main conflicts between Gray and 20th Century had to do with the studio wanting to insert “more action” and, at Brad Pitt’s insistence, adding in flashbacks starring Liv Tyler as Pitt’s ex-wife. Pitt’s main argument revolved around his feeling that the character of McBride was lacking some kind of “earthly connection”.

Voiceover narration was also added in very late during the post-production process. In Gray’s first cut, McBride never goes into interior monologuing at all. It turns out that the narration was one of the major complaints detractors had about the film.

When my piece ran three years ago, 20th Century quickly contacted me, denying the contents of what I wrote and told me to take it down. I ended up re-writing a tighter piece with less concise detailing of the post-production problems. I should have just stuck by my guns and kept the original.

The sci-fi epic was still well-received, with IndieWire’s very own David Ehrlich recently stating that if one didn’t like “Ad Astra” then they were just “dumb.” The film was a box-office failure in the US, earning just $50 million on a budget reported to be around $100 million.