©Courtesy of film, “Spielberg”

At the start of the 2010s, Steven Spielberg pledged his involvement in directing an adaptation of Daniel H. Wilson‘s novel “Robopocalypse“.

Drew Goddard from “Project Hail Mary” was assigned to write the script for the adaptation, which explores the fate of the human race and a desperate last stand against a robot uprising.

The project was progressing. DreamWorks Pictures and 20th Century Fox were planning to co-finance and distribute it, and pre-production and location scouting were underway.

Spielberg’s divergence to making “Bridge of Spies” led to the project being put on hold and seemingly disappearing in early 2013. While promoting ‘Disclosure Day’, Spielberg told Empire (through Total Film) that the implosion of the film was due to finances. This was a project that was so expensive that it could kill a studio if it failed, not just a costly one.

“It was gargantuan. It was a company-ender. It would have ended a whole studio that would have never made its money back. So, I literally decided it was going to be the most expensive movie I ever directed, and I wasn’t ready to take that on.My company, DreamWorks, financed all these films, and I did not want to bring ‘Robo’ into my own company, because it would have just been too expensive for us to produce.

And then I took it out to other companies. I didn’t want to pay for it, but other companies were interested in paying for it, as long as I was the director. I didn’t want to do that to anybody because I couldn’t guarantee the audience.”

The project was associated with the likes of Chris Hemsworth, Anne Hathaway, and Ben Whishaw, and there was talk that the film would necessitate a budget of at least $200 million, possibly much higher, which would be challenging for an original IP.

The project is not being revived in any form at the moment.