The hit sci-fi movie Denzel Washington refused to star in: “I was worried about the robots”
Throughout his incredible career, Denzel Washington has found the perfect balance between commercially-minded movies that audiences flock to see and more personal projects that mean a lot to him. For example, for every Man on Fire or Gladiator II, there is a Fences or Tragedy of Macbeth. However, one genre that Washington has largely avoided is science fiction, perhaps because the few sci-fi skewing movies he’s made haven’t turned out particularly well. Indeed, maybe Washington’s judgment isn’t great in this genre – after all, he once turned down the lead role in a blockbuster sci-fi spectacular that was one of its eventual star’s biggest hits.
The story of this missed opportunity for Washington goes back to 1995, when a young screenwriter named Jeff Vintar wrote a script entitled Hardwired. It was a murder mystery set entirely in one location, with a detective investigating the murder scene of a reclusive scientist. The suspects in Vintar’s script were different forms of artificial intelligence, including a robot named Sonny, a supercomputer with an unnerving smiley face, and a hologram version of the deceased scientist.
Disney first snapped the script up for Bryan Singer to direct, but this never came to fruition, and eventually, the project migrated over to 20th Century Fox. Alex Proyas (The Crow) signed on to direct, and Arnold Schwarzenegger became attached to play Detective Del Spooner.
During this period, Vinter was tasked with expanding his screenplay to embrace its potential as an action blockbuster. When the studio suggested a new title – I, Robot – he framed everything around famed sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, the primary of which is, “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”
When Schwarzenegger was forced to drop out of the project thanks to those dreaded “scheduling conflicts,” the studio sought a new lead actor. When the high-concept project came across Washington’s desk, though, he was conflicted. He recognised that the movie would live or die on the special effects processes used to realise Sonny on-screen, and signing up for a project so dependent on one aspect of production made him nervous. “I was also recently offered I, Robot,” the star told Phase 9 in 2004, “but I was worried about the robots, if they got them wrong.”
In the end, though, despite this worry, and even though his previous attempt at sci-fi – 1995’s Virtuosity – was an unmitigated disaster, Washington revealed he talked himself around to the virtues of I, Robot. “I would have done it,” he admitted, “but it came down to a choice between that movie and The Manchurian Candidate.”
Ultimately, Washington chose Jonathan Demme’s remake of the classic 1962 political thriller, which gave him the chance to work with Meryl Streep for the first time. That’s always a great day at the office, and the movie was well-received by critics, so he didn’t regret his choice. However, I, Robot wound up being a massive hit for Will Smith that same year, banking an enormous $353 million at the box office, which caused Washington to quip, “Obviously, I didn’t pick ’em!”
