Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was a watershed moment in filmmaking. The epic sci-fi story of extraterrestrials and higher planes of existence bridged the gap between studio pictures and art films, all because of the inimitable genius of its writer/director. Here are 12 facts about the sci-fi classic, on the 50th anniversary of its release.
1. THE BOOK AND THE MOVIE WERE DEVELOPED CONCURRENTLY.
2001: A Space Odyssey sprang from a February 1964 lunch between director Stanley Kubrick and Roger Caras, the publicist for Kubrick’s previous film Dr. Strangelove. Kubrick told Caras that for his next movie he wanted to do a movie about extraterrestrial life, which prompted Caras to suggest he get in touch with his friend, collaborator, and science fiction author, Arthur C. Clarke.
Caras introduced the two, with Clarke sending a telegram saying, “Frightfully interested in working with enfant terrible,” and soon the two were working on expanding Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel” into a movie treatment. Per Kubrick, “The novel came about after we did a 130-page prose treatment of the film at the very outset. This initial treatment was subsequently changed in the screenplay, and the screenplay in turn was altered during the making of the film. But Arthur took all the existing material, plus an impression of some of the rushes, and wrote the novel.”
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2. IT HAD A FEW ALTERNATE TITLES.
During development on the movie, Kubrick and Clarke humorously referred to their lofty project as “How the Solar System Was Won,” a play on the title of the 1962 western epic, How the West Was Won. It was never a serious title option, though in author Jerome Agel’s 1972 book, The Making of Kubrick’s 2001, Clarke admitted, “[It] was our private title. It was exactly what we tried to show.”
The pair’s first working title for the movie was Project: Space, which is listed in their first outline. Other temporary titles included Across the Sea of Stars, Universe, Tunnel to the Stars, Earth Escape, Jupiter Window, Farewell to Earth, and Planetfall. The official MGM press release for the movie from February 1965 lists the title as Journey Beyond the Stars, though two months later Kubrick selected2001: A Space Odyssey for the final title, as an homage to Homer’s Odyssey. “Stanley selected 2001: A Space Odyssey,” Clarke said in his book, The Lost Worlds of 2001. “As far as I can recall, it was entirely his idea.”
3. ONE OF STANLEY KUBRICK’S BIGGEST INSPIRATIONS WAS A 1960 ANIMATED SHORT DOCUMENTARY FROM CANADA.
Universe, Roman Kroitor & Colin Low, provided by the National Film Board of Canada
It’s no surprise that Kubrick selected “Universe” as a possible title for his movie, as it was also the name of one of the biggest inspirations he had while making it. Universe is a 28-minute, Oscar-nominated animated documentary from 1960 made by the National Film Board of Canada that was meant to be an awe-inspiring look at what it would be like to sail through space beyond the Milky Way.
Kubrick was so taken by the short film that he hired Douglas Rain, the narrator of Universe, to be the voice of the evil computer HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and also hired Universe’s optical effects artist Wally Gentleman to do special effects for the movie.
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4. KUBRICK HAD A LITTLE HELP FROM CARL SAGAN.
Kubrick began principal production on the movie without knowing how to convey many of the film’s key scenes, most notably the ending where Dr. Dave Bowman makes contact with extraterrestrial life. One of the biggest problems Kubrick had while developing the movie was how to depict these extraterrestrial life forms in a way that suited his abstract ideas, but could also be covered by the film’s budget. So he asked noted astrophysicist/author Carl Sagan for help.
In his book The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective, Sagan explained, “I argued that the number of individually unlikely events in the evolutionary history of Man was so great that nothing like us is ever likely to evolve again anywhere in the universe. I suggested that any explicit representation of an advanced extraterrestrial being was bound to have at least an element of falseness about it, and that the best solution would be to suggest, rather than explicitly to display, the extraterrestrials.”
Though Kubrick would experiment with literal ways to show aliens in 2001, like hiring a ballet dancer in a special polka-dotted suit filmed against a black background, he settled on Sagan’s insinuation of extraterrestrials.
5. KUBRICK TRIED TO TAKE OUT AN ALIEN INSURANCE POLICY.
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Kubrick was paranoid that he’d put all this work into getting as close to reality with the concept of extraterrestrial life as he possibly could and then aliens would be discovered just before his expensive sci-fi movie was finished. In order to literally insure his movie wouldn’t become obsolete, Kubrick attempted to take out an insurance policy at Lloyd’s of London to protect himself against losses in case extraterrestrial intelligence was discovered before the film’s release. Lloyd’s declined the policy because they figured the probability of discovering extraterrestrial intelligence in such a short period in the mid-1960s was too small.
6. THE FILM WAS SHOT ALMOST ENTIRELY INSIDE.
The film was shot almost entirely at England’s Shepperton Studios and MGM-British Studios. Massive sets were built for the film’s locations, including a 30-ton rotating Ferris wheel set meant to portray the Discovery’s gravity, built by a British aircraft company called the Vickers-Armstrong Engineering Group.
The film’s iconic monolith was actually comprised of wood and a special graphite mix black paint in order to get an extremely smooth sheen on the outside surface.
The only on-location exterior shot of the movie was of the Moon-Watcher ape smashing the animal bones with his own bone weapon, which was shot on an elevated platform near the studio so that Kubrick could get a low angle of actor Dan Richter, who played the Moon-Watcher, tossing the bone into the air. The shot, which would be the first part of the film’s infamous bone-to-spaceship match cut, was thought up during the shoot after Kubrick tossed a broomstick to a crew member before directing a shot.
