Why Did Steven Spielberg Drop Out of Directing ‘Interstellar’?

Once upon a spacetime Steven Spielberg was attached to direct Interstellar.

While the epic, Oscar-nominated 2014 sci-fi drama was ultimately helmed by Christopher Nolan, Spielberg — who was brought on board by producer Lynda Obst and astrophysicist Kip Thorne — had initially worked on the film for about a year before bowing out.

“I was involved with Interstellar for a year … and I became fascinated with it. I spent a lot of time at the [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] in Pasadena, California, talking to the scientists there and the aerospace engineers,” Spielberg told Empire magazine, per GamesRadar+.

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According to the celebrated filmmaker, the space-travel movie was in much better hands with Nolan anyway, who was recommended to the film by his screenwriter brother, Jonathan Nolan.

“I actually hired Chris Nolan’s brother [Jonathan] to write the first and second draft for me, but it didn’t stick. [Jonathan] actually said, ‘If there comes a point where you decide not to make this movie, I can tell you who’s gonna grab it. He’s already bugging me about it. And that’s my brother Chris.’

Spielberg maintains it was the right move. “He was absolutely right. The second I decided not to make it, Chris jumped on board, probably the next day. Interstellar was a much better movie in Chris Nolan’s hands than it would have been in mine,” he shared.

Why Didn’t Steven Spielberg Direct Interstellar?

While Christopher Nolan’s final product was a sleek, hard science-heavy epic, Steven Spielberg’s take on the movie would have leaned more sentimental and mythic—a tone he and Nolan’s screenwriter brother Jonathan, who was attached to write the film, couldn’t seem to connect on during their time collaborating.

At the same time, after Spielberg’s Paramount contract was up in mid-2008, things essentially fell apart during pre-production when his production studio, DreamWorks Pictures, moved from Paramount Pictures (which had the rights to make Interstellar) over to Walt Disney Studios in early 2009.

After that, Spielberg was unable to continue working on the movie, and in 2013 it was announced Nolan had officially signed on as the new director for the film.

While Spielberg may not have directed Interstellar as once planned, the filmmaker is certainly no stranger to big, glossy sci-fi movies, having famously made influential films such as 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and 2005’s War of the Worlds.

This summer, the director will release his latest sci-fi movie Disclosure Day, which centers on a global event in which humanity is forced to confront the existence of UFOs and alien lifeforms. Disclosure Day hits theaters on June 12, 2026.