Do you know that Alfonso Cuaron is probably going to win the Best Director Oscar for Gravity? I think he’s going into the March 2nd ceremony as one of the biggest favorites, having won all of the major awards for Best Director, including the Directors Guild Award. I still haven’t seen Gravity, but I assume that Cuaron’s peers have merely marveled at the technical skills employed to make the film. I’m also assuming that Gravity will pick up many of the big technical awards at the Oscars too – cinematography, editing, visual effects, production design, etc. And I’m fine with that. Just as long as 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture.

Anyway, now that Gravity is such a huge hit and Cuaron is the favorite for the director Oscar, it’s interesting to take a moment of reflection to see how this film could have turned out differently. For one, Angelina Jolie was supposed to play the lead character (which ended up with Sandra Bullock). Robert Downey Jr. was supposed to play Clooney’s part. During a sit-down with THR, Cuaron discussed the casting snafu:

Angelina Jolie and Robert Downey Jr. almost starred in Gravity, but Jolie had to drop out of the project because of scheduling conflicts and Downey departed because the cramped physical choreography required to shoot the movie would not allow him to improvise, director Alfonso Cuaron told students at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles Feb. 12.

Cuaron explained how the movie ultimately came to star Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and consumed almost five years of his life. Cuaron spoke as the first guest in a new interview series, The Hollywood Masters, moderated by THR’s executive features editor, Stephen Galloway. T

“I thought I had written a small movie … just one character floating in space,” Cuaron said about the Warner Bros. best picture nominee, which has grossed $700 million internationally. “We started developing stuff [trying] to figure out the technology. And the luxury [was] that we could try many things. And part of that was conversations with actors. I had conversations with Angelina, but then she went to do one film, and then she was going to direct [Unbroken]. Something happens, you part ways.”

As for Downey, “It became very clear that, as we started to nail the technology, or narrow the technology, that was going to be a big obstacle for his performance. I think Robert is fantastic if you give him the freedom to completely breathe and improvise and change stuff. [But] we tried one of these technologies and it was not compatible. And, after that, we [had a] week that we pretended as if nothing was happening and then we talked and said, ‘This is not going to work. This is tough.'”

But Cuaron noted that when he talked with Downey, Gravity still had no start date. “It was not until some elements came into place that we could responsibly go to the studio and say, ‘We can set a start date,'” said Cuaron. “Then you can do offers, and that is when we went after Sandra [Bullock] and George [Clooney].”

[From THR]

For what it’s worth, I think Cuaron is being diplomatic about Angelina. Angelina was circling the film for months, and she kept turning it down and the studio kept coming back and offering her more and more money to do it. The gossip was that the studio thought that Gravity was a huge gamble and they wanted a huge name attached to the lead role before they figured out the financing. It was said by many “insiders” at the time that Angelina was the only actress anyone wanted. And then she turned them down for good and Sandra Bullock got the part. And the rest is film history, I guess. Considering how everything has turned out with Gravity, I do wonder if Angelina has any regrets about turning it down so many times. I have regrets on her behalf! This could have been the biggest film of her career.

As for RDJ… he’s just too sassy to play an astronaut, I guess.

Photos courtesy of WENN & Joe Alvarez.