This weekend sees veteran filmmaker Steven Spielberg return to the world of the sci-fi tentpole (after his landmark films like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.” helped shaped the landscape) with his new UFO flick “Disclosure Day,” and he has revealed what ultimately pushed him from exiting the first “Harry Potter” movie (“Home Alone” director Chris Columbus stepping in) to complete Stanley Kubrick‘s cyberpunk odyssey “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” with a young Haley Joel Osment (“The Sixth Sense”) as a robotic little boy that goes on a perilous journey of self-discovery only to bump into aliens.
In a new interview, the acclaimed director revealed that after Kubrick’s untimely death during the post-production process of his occult thriller “Eyes Wide Shut,” his family reached out in an attempt to recruit Spielberg to complete the Kubrick project. He ended up agreeing to do it, despite the fact that he was involved with the casting process of “Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone” and ultimately “walked away” from the wizarding school flick that ended up becoming a massive success without him (a reboot series heading to HBO Max).
READ MORE: June Movie Preview: ‘Toy Story 5,’ ‘Supergirl,’ Spielberg’s‘ Disclosure Day,’ & More
“After [Stanley Kubrick’s] death, I was at the funeral at his home. Christiane [Kubrick] and Jan Harlan, her brother, approached me about taking over from Stanley, as Stanley had intended, and directing the movie,” Spielberg told Turner Classic Movies. At the time, Spielberg was signed on and gearing up to direct the first “Harry Potter” movie. “I actually walked away from Harry Potter, which I was scheduled to direct as my next movie.” Adding that he had even been a part of casting decisions at that point. “I gave it up. It was going to be a huge movie because the book already was a runaway cultural phenomenon. I gave that up to essentially do ‘A.I.'”
Spielberg’s run of sci-fi films after “A.I.” would include the Philip K. Dick adaptation “Minority Report” (had originally been planned as a “Total Recall” sequel before rights-holder Carolco went bankrupt and was reworked for Spielberg) and a present-day remake of H.G. Wells‘ “War of the Worlds,” both starring Tom Cruise. The director’s last big attempt in the genre was the nostalgia-bait cyberpunk action-adventure pic “Ready Player One,” which may or may not end up getting a sequel based on Ernest Cline‘s second book “Ready Player Two” after reports of early development back in 2020.
You can view that exchange between Spielberg and TCM about his “Harry Potter” exit below, as his new sci-fi effort “Disclosure Day” starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell, and Colin Firth heads to theaters this weekend.
Steven Spielberg explains why he walked away from directing the first Harry Potter film, so he could take over filming AI: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE from Stanley Kubrick.
— TCM (@tcm) June 9, 2026
See the film tonight as the director joins us for an evening of his films. pic.twitter.com/5TgSCf3Mn4
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