Kubrick is directly responsible for the cheesy ending
Did you know that?
Well, if he were still around circa 2000-01 he could have done it himself and you can rest assured there would have been a significant difference between his Arctic sensibility and Spielberg's penchant for schmaltz
Kubrick wanted Spielberg to direct it because he wanted it to have more schmaltz than he himself was capable of. He wanted Spielberg because he basically wanted his own E.T. The dragon Kubrick was chasing his entire career was to make a great movie that also connected with a huge audience and was a box office smash. He decided he didn't want to direct A.I. himself because "If I do it, it'll be too stark. I'll emphasize the philosophical side too much." That's pretty much a direct quote.
shareI have never believed for a second that Kubrick wanted Spielberg to direct this movie.
shareGood thing facts don't require you to believe in them.
shareGood thing you know how to repeat one of the most cliched phrases of the day. If you knew anything about Kubrick, you'd know he despised Spielberg. Read Kolker's book A Cinema of Loneliness and keep your mouth shut in the future when you clearly don't know what you're talking about.
shareSpielberg and Kubrick met years ago at Elstree Studios when Spielberg was scouting locations for “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Kubrick was shooting a little-known film titled “The Shining.” Touring the grandiose set pieces of the Overlook Hotel with the maestro was like receiving the ultimate tutorial. Fast forward 19 years and Kubrick and Spielberg are close friends, discussing Kubrick’s latest project, “A.I. Artificial Intelligence.”
“Stanley said, ‘Ok, get a fax machine with a dedicated line that nobody can read,” Spielberg said in the interview about Kubrick’s bizarre strategy of sharing a script. “‘Where in your house is the safest, most secure room? You must have a secure room somewhere in your house. You must live in a mansion, don’t you, Steven? You must live in this huge mansion with safe rooms. With telephones and steel walls.’…And I said, ‘well the only real safe room I have is my bedroom.’ He said, ‘fine, you put the machine in your bedroom. Don’t let anybody read what I write to you. And when I’m done writing, and you’re done reading it, and you’ve memorized it, I want you to tear it up, or better yet, shred it. Do you have a shredder? If you don’t have a shredder, just burn it. And I did this. I got into this CIA bubble with Stanley.”
In the interview, Spielberg goes into depth about an eight-hour telephone conversation about AI, highlights Kubrick’s technical mastery, his groundbreaking narrative style of storytelling, goes into the devastating news of his death and his eternal legacy, as well as much more.
Spielberg let slip that Kubrick wrote the script for a biopic about Napoleon in 1961, which he is currently developing into a miniseries. A release date is not yet known for this project, which is still in its early stages. For more fascinating tidbits on Kubrick, check out the clip below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBEC_NMTFhg