Alfonso Cuarón’s 2013 science fiction thriller, Gravity is undoubtedly a modern sci-fi masterpiece with enormous accolades to its name. The Sandra Bullock and George Clooney starrer film certainly marveled but the director has different plans in his mind.
Cuarón was wholeheartedly involved in Gravity. He co-wrote, co-edited, produced, and of course, directed the movie. However, Cuarón wanted to film it in space to enhance the realism but this could not happen.
Sandra Bullock’s No-Go For Filming in Space
Alfonso Cuarón, as he revealed while speaking with EMPIRE was pretty much invested in the idea of filming Gravity in space. To a large extent, it made sense and it is not impossible as a handful of projects including the Russian comedy Yolki 5 and most recently, Klim Shipenko’s The Challenge were shot in space.
However, for Cuarón, there were two major problems with reaching the escape velocity to be on the horizon. Primarily money, and space is expensive and it would certainly exceed the budget of $130 million. But the second problem at hand was Sandra Bullock’s no-go for the idea of filming the movie in space.
“Number two, and the thing that killed the whole conversation, was Sandra. Because Sandra had already suffered two airplane accidents. Not one, but two. For her, flying is a big sacrifice. And for her the idea of getting into a rocket or something like that, it was a no-no, you know?” Cuarón told the outlet.
If Cuarón could overcome the major problems, it would be the first feature film shot in actual space, and the director hoped for it to be.
No Gravity Assist From NASA
Gravity is essentially a space film and the filmmaker and the team have certainly paid a visit to NASA for help to smoothly film certain scenes. “At the beginning NASA was very helpful with us,” Cuarón told EMPIRE. However, NASA later declined to assist with the film.
“We went to Houston. We talked about the space station, which was going to be an important feature of the film. But when they read the script and saw that there was going to be a kind of disaster in space, that is pretty much against NASA’s policy. So they could not support us anymore.”
There were several roadblocks for Cuarón and he failed to meet his vision to film the movie in space. However, the movie was a huge success as it received 10 nominations at the 86th Academy Awards, winning seven including Best Director. Also, Gravity grossed over $723.2 million at the global box office.
Gravity is available for rent on Apple TV Plus.
