The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (Photo Credit – Instagram/Prime Video)
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There’s Hollywood royalty, and then there’s Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. The two titans have created immense legacies, with filmographies that age not just well, but have become legends. Both are at the top of the food chain in the entertainment business, and their names have shone like the sun for decades in cinema. You couldn’t have two more bankable stars, critical darlings, and well, icons of fashion. Also, not to mention, they both contain a wonderful mystique that makes them irresistible.
The Role Brad Pitt Played That Tom Cruise Almost Took Over
The last time Cruise and Pitt shared screen time was in 1994’s Interview with the Vampire. Since then, a lot has changed in the movie industry, and the two leading men mostly kept their distance from each other until, almost, one ‘curious’ case brought them back into each other’s cinematic domain.
Yes, the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the 2008 epic-length motion picture directed by David Fincher and featuring Brad Pitt, almost had a different face, and it was that of Cruise. What’s more interesting is that the project did not involve Fincher behind the camera, and it was originally to be directed by Steven Spielberg.
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button’s Long Journey To The Screen
Just imagine this. A story pulled from the pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald, where a baby born old and aging in reverse, is told not through Pitt’s quiet melancholy but Cruise’s intensity. It does not only sound like a casting switch but a complete detour, and for a moment, it nearly happened.
The film eventually grossed over $335 million globally (Box Office Mojo), earned 13 Oscar nominations, and won three. Pitt received widespread acclaim for his portrayal and even nabbed a Best Actor nomination. However, long before cameras rolled and before Fincher’s vision came into play, the wheels were turning in another direction entirely.
Steven Spielberg & Tom Cruise Were Set To Team Up For Benjamin Button
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Steven Spielberg peeled back the curtain on just how close he and Cruise came to making the film theirs. The idea of working with Cruise wasn’t new for the legendary director as they had been friends since the Risky Business days, thanks to David Geffen, and when Benjamin Button landed on Spielberg’s radar, the pair seriously considered taking it on together.
“We had talked about maybe doing together, long before Minority Report. But nothing quite jelled for either of us,” Spielberg said. As a result, when Minority Report surfaced, it became the project that finally brought them together creatively.
Brad Pitt And David Fincher Step In To Make Movie History
Meanwhile, the Button project floated in cinematic limbo. In fact, the film had been bouncing around since 1991, when Spielberg first optioned it. However, the story was apparently difficult to adapt and challenging to execute. Frank Oz was the first director attached to it, but after struggling to shape Fitzgerald’s short story into a full-bodied drama, he bowed out.
Universal’s then-President of Production handed the reins to screenwriter Robin Swicord. Her take on the tale clicked so well that she earned a co-story credit when the film finally came to life.
We don’t talk about Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report enough—featuring one of Tom Cruise’s most underrated performances. pic.twitter.com/RGJoPpGpmF
Swicord later confirmed that Cruise and Spielberg were fully invested at one point. “Tom Cruise was somebody that we were very serious about, and he came over to Steven’s house for a read-through with several other actors,” she recalled. “And then in the course of that year, we were also working on Schindler’s List and Jurassic Park, obviously two very different but two very big projects. Steven ultimately decided he was gonna do those two projects back to back, so he stepped away, then for a year or two it languished.”
With Spielberg off to make cinematic history elsewhere, the Button film went cold again, only to be revived years later by David Fincher and at last, Brad Pitt. Thankfully, as we all know now, the pairing proved serendipitous.
In hindsight, maybe this was the best possible timeline. Cruise and Spielberg gave us Minority Report, a futuristic thriller that’s still hailed as one of the best of its kind while Pitt gave us Benjamin Button, a haunting, time-twisted tale that lingers long after the credits roll. There are a lot of “what could have been” tales in Hollywood, but few are as fascinating as this one.
