Joseph Kosinski talks Oblivion: the story, nabbing Cruise and more!

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Were we all suitably impressed by the first trailer for Joseph Kosinski’s OBLIVION? The futuristic sci-fi tale of a man who is tasked with cleaning up what remains of Earth looks like an epic, there’s no doubt about that. If you’re stoked for the flick, out in the spring, then you’ll probably want to learn a few things about how it all came together, yes?

If so, MTV was kind enough to get the full details from Kosinski himself. Hunker down, because the man has a lot to say.

On how the story came together and what Kosinski originally envisioned: “I started writing this small character-driven science fiction story that was in the vein of those science fiction films of the 1970s that involved this lone survivor among the ruins of civilization, like ‘Mega Man’ or ‘Silent Running’ — it was kind of in that vein. I thought if it was going to be my first movie it would have to be something very small and contained in order to even get a chance at pulling it off. So it’s the story of a drill repair man, Jack Harper, who is one of the last human beings left on earth after a massive war, which was the result of an alien invasion. Even though humankind won the war, Earth was left in such a state that we had to look for another place to settle, and Jack is left behind to monitor and secure the resource gathering operation that’s happening where we’re gathering the last bit of energy out of the earth’s seawater in order to move onto the next step.”

On how Tom Cruise became involved – or rather, how Tom Cruise involved himself: “It was our final Comic-Con for ‘Tron,’ and while I was showing the big Comic-Con trailer and we were doing our big song and dance for ‘Tron: Legacy,’ I was also launching an ashcan for ‘Oblivion’—which was just kind of like an introductory chapter with eight images at the Radical [Comics] booth. And the day after I got back from Comic-Con, I got a call from Tom’s agent saying that Tom had seen the ashcan and wanted to meet me and talk to me about it. I went over and met him at his hanger and I pitched him the full story ’cause he had just read that introductory beat—there wasn’t a script at that point it was a story in my head. And I pitched him the whole story over about two hours and at the end of the meeting he said, ‘Let’s do this. I want to do this. I want to do this movie with you.’ … The role fits him like a glove. I just can’t imagine anyone else playing this character.”

On his “bright” visual style: “Visually, I always knew exactly what I wanted the film to look like. ‘Alien’ is one of my favorite movies of all time, but I feel like after ‘Alien,’ science fiction kind of went into the dark for a long time. It became about deep space and dark ship holes and it just went into darkness. I liked the idea of bringing science fiction out into the daylight again. So it is a daytime science fiction film where the world is kind of divided into two zones: the world above the clouds and the world below the clouds. The world above the clouds is where Jack lives with Victoria, his partner, in this operation, in the skytower which is 3,500 ft. above the ground, away from the dangers that live below, which is a very different world from the ground where Jack actually has to do his job every day. And that juxtaposition to me in concept lends itself into a visual juxtaposition as well, where you’re gonna see technology set against a landscape that I feel is something we haven’t really seen before.”

For more from Kosinski, including tidbits about the score (by M83) and the graphic novel, head on over HERE.

OBLIVION opens on April 13th.