Steven Spielberg has shared more details on his scrapped 2013 sci-fi project, Robopocalypse, saying he chose to walk away as it would have been far too expensive to make.
“It was gargantuan. It was a company-ender. It would have ended a whole studio that would have never made its money back,” said Spielberg in an interview in the latest issue of Empire Magazine. “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.”
Spielberg signed on to direct the film in 2013, based on the 2011 novel Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson, which follows a robotics researcher whose exploration into the capacity of robots causes an AI uprising. The director got pretty far into the process, bringing Drew Goddard (Project Hail Mary) on board to write the screenplay, and casting Chris Hemsworth, Anne Hathaway, and Ben Whishaw.
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However, the production would have cost upwards of $200 million, so Spielberg started to shop the project around at different studios. “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,” said Spielberg. “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 movie was due to be released through Walt Disney Studios, and filming was set to start in Canada in the summer of 2012. But the movie faced a series of delays and was pushed from its July 2013 release to April 2014. Then, in January 2013, Spielberg decided to put Robopocalypse on hold indefinitely. “I didn’t want to do that to anybody because I couldn’t guarantee the audience,” added Spielberg.
However, this year, the director will get his chance to bring another sci-fi adventure to the big screen with Disclosure Day. Starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, and Colin Firth, the movie sees the human race become aware of extraterrestrial life when, one day out of the blue, people start to speak in an alien language with no explanation.
Disclosure Day hits theaters on June 12, 2026. For more, check out our list of the best sci-fi movies, and stay up to date with upcoming movies heading your way.
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