How Kubrick Built a Monolith in Shepperton
After Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick set out to make the definitive good sci-fi movie and ended up writing a novel and a film at the same time.
British science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in 1965 — ITU Pictures, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Where to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey ↓The Pitch and the Promise
Fresh off Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick wanted a hard pivot. He pitched his next project as a serious science fiction film exploring extraterrestrial life, aiming to make what he called the definitive good sci-fi movie.
MGM was on board partly because Kubrick promised spectacle. He offered to shoot in Cinerama, the ultra-widescreen format MGM had recently used for How the West Was Won.
Clarke, Not a Tree Dweller
The writer arrived in person on April 22, 1964. Kubrick met Arthur C. Clarke for the first time at Trader Vic's in New York to discuss the project, after initially believing Clarke to be a recluse living in a tree.
Kubrick's first choice was Childhood's End, but the film rights were already optioned by director Abraham Polonsky. Clarke offered six short stories instead, and The Sentinel was ultimately chosen as the source material.
The title wandered for a while. Working names included Journey Beyond The Stars, Universe, Tunnel to the Stars, and Planetfall before Kubrick settled on 2001: A Space Odyssey in April 1965, drawing inspiration from Homer's The Odyssey.
Scientific counsel shaped the tone early. Carl Sagan consulted with Kubrick and Clarke in 1964, arguing that depicting aliens as humanoid would introduce falseness and recommending instead that the film merely suggest the existence of extraterrestrial superintelligence.
A scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, a 1968 film directed by Stanley Kubrick. — Unknown authorUnknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Two Books, One Film
The book and the film grew together, not in sequence. Kubrick and Clarke developed the screenplay and novel in parallel rather than writing the book first as originally planned, resulting in the film being released before the published novel.
That parallel track created two different mysteries. Kubrick made the film deliberately cryptic by minimizing dialogue and explanation, while Clarke incorporated much more explicit explanations of the monolith and Star Gate into the novel version.
Even HAL was rewritten. HAL 9000 was originally designed as a female character named Athena after the Greek goddess of wisdom before being changed to a male character with the name HAL.
An English Future
Despite its cosmic ambition, the production stayed local. The film was shot almost entirely in southern England at MGM-British Studios and Shepperton Studios, where Kubrick lived, with the production structured to qualify for the Eady Levy, a UK tax incentive for British film production.
The result was a film made in England, written across an ocean, and released before its own novel.