12 Movies That Were Almost Directed By Steven Spielberg
7. Big Fish
The project in a nutshell: An adaptation of Daniel Wallace's novel, centred on a man's investigations into the true life of his terminally ill father, an extravagant storyteller with a tendency to stretch the truth.
When was Spielberg attached: Not long after completing AI, in the early 2000s.
Who ended up directing it: Tim Burton directed John August's screenplay. Where Spielberg had envisaged Jack Nicholson as the elderly Edward Bloom, Burton cast Albert Finney, with Ewan McGregor as his younger counterpart in flashback.
What happened: Reportedly, Spielberg had envisaged Big Fish being his next movie after 2002's Minority Report, but he chose to pass in order to focus on Catch Me If You Can.
By all accounts, the project resonated deeply with all the key figures involved, given its emphasis on a troubled father-son relationship. Spielberg famously had a fractured relationship with his father following his parents' divorce in his youth, whilst Burton found himself drawn to the film having lost both his parents not long before starting production.