10 Fascinating Backstories Behind Famous Movies
7. Inception Was Initially Envisoned As A Full-On Horror Film
Inception is perhaps best categorized as a "sci-fi heist movie," but writer/director Christopher Nolan - who worked on his script for more than a decade - didn't always intend for it to fall into such genre trappings.
That's right: Inception started life, instead, as a horror movie.
The original version of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie would've likened the film to something like Jacob's Ladder; a film bent on Cobb's inner angst, expressed through disturbing dreams.
Imagine the possibilities... Dream layers riddled with horrifically-rendered monsters, as opposed to Bond-esque set-pieces. It's almost not worth thinking about.
Ultimately, the filmmaker decided that his idea about "dream-stealers" was better suited to the likes of a heist film, and reworked the script, removing much of the nightmarish darkness that clouded those early drafts.
Elements of the horror genre remain in the final film, of course; the scene in which Mal, Cobb's wife, confronts him in an apartment towards the end of the film is genuinely terrifying, and gives us a neat peek at what could've been had Nolan ultimately decided to take Inception down the truly frightening filmic route.