{"id":693917,"date":"2026-05-26T02:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T02:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/693917\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T02:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T02:39:12","slug":"james-gray-on-losing-control-of-ad-astra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/693917\/","title":{"rendered":"James Gray On Losing Control Of &#8220;Ad Astra&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/james-gray-on-losing-control-of-ad-astra.jpg\" data-caption=\"20th Century Studios\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/james-gray-on-losing-control-of-ad-astra.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"james-gray-on-losing-control-of-ad-astra\"\/><\/a>20th Century Studios<\/p>\n<p>Filmmaker James Gray has spoken more about how his 2019 Brad Pitt-led sci-fi film \u201cAd Astra\u201d was the subject of studio interference.<\/p>\n<p>The film reimagined Joseph Conrad\u2019s \u201cHeart of Darkness\u201d as a story spanning the solar system and dealing with one astronaut\u2019s serious daddy issues.  The film notably went through extensive reshoots following poor test screenings.<\/p>\n<p>Upon its release, the film was mostly embraced by critics but scored a mixed reaction with audiences.<\/p>\n<p>In 2022, during a masterclass at the recent Lumiere Film Festival, he revealed the film released in theatres was not his cut and he was seemingly kicked out of the editing room at some point after he had completed filming.<\/p>\n<p>This past week, speaking in Cannes to Brut while promoting his latest film \u201cPaper Tiger\u201d at the festival, Gray spoke about how he kept the budget tight on this so he wouldn\u2019t have the studio getting in the way:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI control everything completely on this [\u2018Paper Tiger\u2019] and, actually, I didn\u2019t on \u2018Ad Astra.\u2019 That film was taken away from me. That\u2019s not my cut of the movie. You get into discussions and debates, there\u2019s a studio, then the studio [20th Century Fox] got sold to Disney. You get caught in that stuff. The movie was $80 million, \u2018Paper Tiger\u2019 was $15 million. I like to work on that scale because I don\u2019t think it\u2019s productive for people to just change your movie around and you get the blame anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Talking about how his version differed to the studio edit of \u201cAd Astra,\u201d it sounds like there were major changes:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would have been a very different movie.  It would be 12 minutes shorter. I\u2019m the only director who makes a shorter director\u2019s cut. I hope someday I\u2019ll do it. I mean, it\u2019s obviously not up to me, but I would love to do it \u2014 it would be thrilling for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAd Astra\u201d ultimately grossed $135 million worldwide off a $100 million budget.  Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson star in \u201cPaper Tiger\u201d which is a 1980s crime drama due out later this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"20th Century Studios Filmmaker James Gray has spoken more about how his 2019 Brad Pitt-led sci-fi film \u201cAd&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[112110,49,48,75,337],"class_list":["post-693917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-bigslider","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}