Studio Took Ad Astra From James Gray — He Says the Final Cut Isn’t His

Let’s talk about one of those ‘what-might-have-been’ stories in sci-fi cinema, involving acclaimed director James Gray and his 2019 space drama Ad Astra—the one with Brad Pitt moping about in zero gravity, in search of his own moody astronaut dad. You might have thought the vibes were all intentional, but apparently, that wasn’t quite the film Gray had in mind. In fact, according to him, the version we saw on screen isn’t remotely his cut, and the whole thing ended up taken out of his hands somewhere along the line.

Ad Astra: The Public Version

Here’s the official setup: Brad Pitt stars as Roy McBride, a driven (and frankly, rather emotionally repressed) astronaut. His father, played by Tommy Lee Jones, vanished decades ago commanding a mission to Neptune, and now Junior has to retrace Dad’s cosmic trail—partly to work through his obvious issues, and partly because of some massive power surges threatening to destabilise all of humanity. Not exactly a light-hearted romp through the stars.

The cast is stacked, at least:

• Brad Pitt as Roy McBride
• Tommy Lee Jones as H. Clifford McBride
• Ruth Negga as Helen Lantos
• Liv Tyler as Eve McBride
• Donald Sutherland as Colonel Thomas Pruitt

Ad Astra hit US cinemas in 2019, and was put together under the 20th Century Fox banner—until, that is, Disney went and bought the whole company, causing a proper corporate traffic jam behind the scenes.

Gray Loses Control

Fast forward to Cannes in 2024, where Gray was out promoting his latest project Paper Tiger (which, incidentally, had a much smaller budget at $15 million compared to Ad Astra’s $80 million price tag). He dropped a revealing bit about what actually went on behind Ad Astra’s production curtain. Speaking to Variety, Gray didn’t mince his words:

"I control everything completely on [Paper Tiger] and, actually, I didn’t on Ad Astra. That film was taken away from me. That’s not my cut of the movie. You get into discussions and debates, there's a studio, then the studio got sold to Disney. You get caught in that stuff."

To make things even more interesting: Gray says his true director’s cut of Ad Astra would’ve been very different—and, in his words, about 12 minutes shorter than the version released. He even tosses in a bit of self-deprecating wit, claiming he’s ‘the only director who makes a shorter director’s cut’. He admits he’d love to actually finish his own version someday, though he says it’s definitely not up to him at this point.

The Reception: Critics vs. Viewers

Here’s the twist. Despite all the behind-the-scenes wrangling, Ad Astra actually landed pretty well with professional critics—scoring 83% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer. Fans, however, were far less sold, giving it a wobbly 40% on the Popcornmeter. So perhaps that explains why the movie feels a tad uneven: it’s cinema by committee rather than a clean vision from the director.