‘Force Majeure’ Director Ruben Ostlund Explains Why Producers Turned Down His Pitch To Direct 'Passengers'

With its Black List approved script by Jon Spaihts, Keanu Reeves‘ dogged commitment to star that kept him attached for years (while Reese Witherspoon and Rachel McAdams circled in and out of co-starring slots), and endless cycles of development that saw the project at The Weinstein Company, eyed by Focus Features, and finally landing at Sony, it’s a shame that “Passengers” starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence was such a disappointment. Tedious, baffling, and side-stepping the big ethical questions at the core of its story, the film was seriously silly when it could’ve been the kind of rich, sci-fi storytelling we don’t get very often on the big screen. But perhaps things would’ve gone differently in the hands of director Ruben Ostlund.

Speaking with Variety about his upcoming movie “The Square,” the director of the celebrated “Force Majeure” revealed that he actually met with executives about directing “Passengers,” but they didn’t like his vision for the film.

“There was one film I really wanted to do that has been made now. That was ‘Passengers.’ But I wanted to change the setup of ‘Passengers.’ The main character is a guy who wakes up in one of those pods on a spaceship. I wanted to put his family in the other pods, his wife and kids. Then there’s this dilemma: He’s going to die on the ship because the travel takes 300 years. If he wakes up his kids, they will die on the spaceship and not on the planet they’re heading for; if he wakes up his wife, then the kids will not have a mother when they arrive. So of course, you have to wake up another woman, because you don’t want to be alone,” he explained. “Then you can swipe on pictures to see the women, like Tinder. You have to decide on the pictures and pick someone. To bring things [like] that would be relevant in contemporary times. But when I pitched this to the producers, I think they got scared.”

Well, that sounds like a great twist to Spaihts story, and one that gets right to the heart of the major decision the main character is forced to make. And presumably, in Ostlund’s movie, that moral quandary would be dealt with by more than a montage of Pratt growing a sadness beard. But I also totally understand why a major studio didn’t want to go down that road, and chose the more popcorn friendly version. It’s a bummer though.

Nonetheless, Ostlund continues to look at scripts to direct in America, but there is one thing he’ll never do: kill any characters on camera.

“…most of what I read from the U.S. is either a thriller or a love story. And I say I won’t kill anyone in my films. I really don’t want to be a part of that in the industry. I think it’s completely over-represented with the crime stories, the murders, that we make entertainment out of horrifying things, and I don’t want to be a part of that. So a lot of the scripts have these ingredients, or things or ideas that have viewpoints on love and relationships that I don’t agree on. So when I’ll do something in English or in that context, it will have to be something I feel I can be true to,” Ostlund said.

“I think it’s quite childish the way violence is portrayed in cinema. I don’t want to participate in that way. I have almost no violence in my life. Why should I create violence all the time?” he added.

So, when Ostlund does come to Hollywood, it will be for material that suits his sensibilities, which sounds like a smart play. As for “The Square,” it’s expected to premiere at Cannes.