Steven Spielberg is one of the most respected and influential personalities in the cinematic world. He is one of the best filmmakers, and top-rated actors yearn to work with him. The filmmaker is known for his extraordinary vision, which has made him the winner of three Academy Awards and several other accolades. The director has given some of the biggest commercial and critical hits including the Jaws franchise and Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones films.
Despite making several box office hits in his long career, Spielberg could not start some of his dream projects and even had to drop some projects.
Steven Spielberg had to drop Tom Cruise’s Rain Man for Harrison Ford’s film
Being one of the biggest directors of the century Steven Spielberg was offered numerous projects in his career. However, he had to let go of some because of his other priorities. One of the films that he had to pass on with a heavy heart was Rain Man.
The director started with the project but had to give up, and to date, he regrets doing that. Talking about the film’s development, Spielberg shared,
“With Rain Man, I spent almost half a year developing it with Dustin and Tom Cruise and Ron Bass”.
Spielberg shared that he was working on the screenplay for Rain Man, but he had to keep pushing the deadlines for other projects. Ultimately, its schedule began to clash with his plans for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The Indiana Jones film was set to release on Memorial Day in 1989.
Spielberg shared,
“When I saw that I was going to go past January 12th and that I would have to step down from Indy 3 the promise I made to George was more important than making Rain Man. So, with great regret, because I really wanted to work with Dustin and Tom, I stepped down from the movie.”
After Spielberg left, director Barry Levinson gave a new direction to the project.
About Tom Cruise’s Rain Man
Rain Man is a road drama movie, written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass. It is the story of a selfish young guy, Charlie Babbitt, who is a vehicle dealer. He discovers that his estranged father had passed away and had left his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son, Raymond, who was autistic. Charlie was unaware of his existence and he tries to exploit him for getting his father’s inheritance.
The film features Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in lead roles. It became the highest-grossing movie of 1988, with a gross collection of $412.8 million against a budget of $25 million. It received eight nominations at the 61st Academy Awards, winning four awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (for Hoffman), and Best Original Screenplay.
Rain Man can be rented on Apple TV.
Source- Far Out Magazine
