The director of The Lost City of Z has spoken up about the ‘torturous experience’ of being locked out of the editing process of Ad Astra.
James Gray is an admired director, having made a series of indie dramas with Joaquin Phoenix that earned both collaborators a great deal of respect. He would then go on to helm both The Lost City Of Z and Ad Astra, films which were lauded for being impressive, grown-up dramas.
Only now, it seems that the final cut of Ad Astra was not Gray’s cut at all.
According to The Playlist, whilst he was out promoting his new film, Armageddon Time – a coming-of-age film starring Anne Hathaway and Anthony Hopkins – the director had this to say about the process of post-production on Ad Astra…
“Creatively, it became a very torturous experience. The film was taken from me, ultimately: it’s not my cut of the movie, and I find it a very painful experience to have people tell me things they hated about the movie that I had nothing to do with. I was so deeply upset, I had lost all my enthusiasm for making films. And I said ‘if I’m going to do it again, if it’s going to be bad, it might as well be my bad”.
It remains unclear as to why Gray was removed from the editing process on Ad Astra, and also who replaced him.
As both the star and producer, Brad Pitt is the obvious name that comes to mind as the film was produced by his production company, Plan B. Given the level of his involvement it seems incomprehensible that he wouldn’t have been involved in the situation on some level, but until more angles to the story are revealed, this one will remain something of a mystery.
It’s a process that has clearly stung Gray though, particularly because of the mixed reaction to a creative process in which he seems to have found himself increasingly marginalised.
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