A.I.

Fascinated by artificial intelligence, Kubrick discovered in 1982 the story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (1969), by Brian Aldiss. After a succession of collaborations with different co-writers, including Aldiss himself, failed to satisfy Kubrick, he ended up putting A.I. aside. In 1994, he finally wrote a script alone, with ideas borrowed from Super-Toys and direct references to Pinocchio.

In the year 2200, Henry and Monica adopt David, an android child, to compensate for the absence of their ailing son. The little robot, programmed to love, becomes attached to his "mommy", who does not succeed in loving him in return. When her son comes back, Monica, unable to reconcile herself to sending David to the scrap yard, abandons him, telling him to go find the Blue Fairy who will turn him into a real boy. David sets off on a journey in the course of which he will encounter various androids including Joe, accused of a murder he did not commit.

On this basis, Kubrick began the pre-production, calling on several illustrators, including Chris Baker, to design the film's aesthetics, along with special effects specialists. At the time, he envisaged "collaborating with Spielberg, whose mastery in directing special effects in films such as Jurassic Park (1993) had impressed him" (1).

However, he put this project on hold, hoping that technological advances would enable him to represent David realistically in digital images. He died before ever being able to resume A.I.

Kubrick declared to his producer, Jan Harlan: "I think the ideal director for this may be Steven Spielberg" (2). This declaration augured well since Spielberg would take over the aborted project on the basis of Kubrick's script, and A.I. was released in 2001.