Development
Who replaced Robert Downey Jr. for the male lead role in the film Gravity?
Gravity (film)
Alfonso Cuarón wrote the screenplay with his son Jonás. Cuarón told "Wired" magazine, "I watched the Gregory Peck movie "Marooned" over and over as a kid." That film is about the first crew of an experimental space station returning to Earth in an Apollo capsule that suffers a thruster malfunction. Cuarón attempted to develop his project at Universal Pictures, where it stayed in development for several years. After the rights to the project were sold, the project began development at Warner Bros, who acquired the project. In February 2010, it attracted the attention of Angelina Jolie, who had rejected a sequel to "Wanted". Later in the month, she rejected "Wanted 2", partially because the studio did not want to pay the fee she had received for her latest two movies and because she wanted to direct her Bosnian war film "In the Land of Blood and Honey". In March, Robert Downey, Jr. entered talks to be cast in the male lead role. In mid-2010, Marion Cotillard tested for the female lead role. By August 2010, Scarlett Johansson and Blake Lively were in the running for the role. In September, Cuarón received approval from Warner Bros. to offer the role without a screen test to Natalie Portman, who was being praised for her performance in the recently released "Black Swan". Portman rejected the project because of scheduling conflicts and Warner Bros. then approached Sandra Bullock for the role. In November 2010, Downey left the project to star in "How to Talk to Girls"a project in development with Shawn Levy attached to direct. The following December, with Bullock signed for the co-lead role, George Clooney replaced Downey. The problem of shooting long scenes in a zero-g environment was a challenge. Eventually, the team decided to use computer-generated imagery for the spacewalk scenes and automotive robots to move Bullock's character for interior space station scenes. This meant that shots and blocking had to be planned well in advance for the robots to be programmed. It also made the production period much longer than expected. When the script was finished, Cuarón assumed it would take about a year to complete the film, but it took four and a half years.