There was a time when many believed Steven Spielberg would direct an ambitious adaptation of “Robopocalypse,” which tackles the story of humanity’s desperate last stand against an AI uprising.
In 2011, Spielberg officially signed on to direct the adaptation, based on the novel by Daniel H. Wilson. Drew Goddard (“The Cabin in the Woods”) wrote the screenplay. DreamWorks Pictures and 20th Century Fox were set to co-finance and distribute. The film moved into pre-production in early 2013, including location planning in Montreal. It even had a targeted release date of April 25, 2014.
Then, in March 2013, the project was abruptly put on hold. The release date was dropped, and Spielberg went on to work on “Bridge of Spies.”
Now, in an interview with Empire (via GamesRadar), Spielberg revisits “Robopocalypse” and says the project did not happen because it was too expensive.
It was gargantuan. It was a company-ender. It would have ended a whole studio that would have never made its money back. So, I literally decided it was going to be the most expensive movie I ever directed, and I wasn’t ready to take that on.
The film might have been looking at a budget of over $300M+, which wasn’t something Spielberg’s own DreamWorks could really take on.
My company, DreamWorks, financed all these films, and I did not want to bring ‘Robo’ into my own company, because it would have just been too expensive for us to produce. And then I took it out to other companies. I didn’t want to pay for it, but other companies were interested in paying for it, as long as I was the director.
The film was set to star Chris Hemsworth, Anne Hathaway, and Ben Whishaw.
Last we heard, none other than Michael Bay was set to take over as director, but that was back in 2018. Given how long the project has remained dormant, it seems unlikely he’s still attached—especially since, at the moment, few studios would want to entrust such a risky project to him.
Over the years, Spielberg has been attached to several ambitious projects that ultimately fell apart before cameras rolled. Among the most famous are “Harvey,” a planned remake of the classic comedy that collapsed over casting disagreements; “The 39 Clues,” a big-budget adventure franchise adaptation that stalled in development; “It’s What I Do,” a war photographer drama once set to star Jennifer Lawrence, and “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara,” which repeatedly collapsed due to casting and scheduling issues.