Contact (1997)
In 1975, acclaimed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola developed a project for CTW Productions, a subsidiary of the Children’s Television Workshop, for a 3-to-5-hour television event written, directed, and produced by Coppola to air on NBC during the 1976-77 season. Entitled, “The First Contact”, the project was intended as an update of “War of the Worlds”, with an eye toward realism in portraying humanity’s first encounter with aliens.
Due to his work for the SETI Project (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), noted Cornell University astronomy professor Carl Sagan was hired as the scientific adviser. As Sagan compiled his theoretical musings on the subject, he felt this material could make a good companion book for the TV special. Coppola was amenable to this, so long as proceeds of the book would be split three ways between Sagan, CTW, and Coppola’s company, Zoetrope. Alas, the TV production was never made. Coppola returned his focus to feature films while Sagan embarked on a TV effort of his own for PBS – a 13-episode TV docuseries called, “Cosmos”.
In 1979, PolyGram junior development executive Lynda Obst searched for feature film ideas. Obst was best friends with Ann Druyan, creative director for NASA and co-writer of “Cosmos”. Obst became good friends after having edited Sagan and Druyan’s work published in “New York Times Magazine”, and finding them fascinating people. While Sagan and Druyan were out in Los Angeles filming “Cosmos”, Obst asked them if they had any story ideas that might make for a good movie. Sagan mentioned the fictional hypothetical scenarios he’d done on the SETI Project (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) on how they would handle humanity’s first encounter with extraterrestrials.
Obst’s boss, Casablanca Filmworks head Peter Guber, was delighted, offering a percentage deal and co-producer credit for Sagan to develop a story into a feature. Guber’s excitement found him courting studios and publishing a full-page ad to make the film with Universal Pictures in 1981.
Sagan and Druyan, romantic partners by this time, developed a fresh storyline based on Sagan’s initial musings, enlisting help from Obst and jet-propulsion engineer and sci-fi writer Gentry Lee, who helped form Carl Sagan Productions. They decided to make a woman the center of the story, as Druyan was influenced by the historical story of early astronomer/mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria, after reading about her account in historian Edward Gibbon’s book, “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” as the Alexandria Library became a subject for the thirteenth and final “Cosmos” called, “Who Speaks for Earth?”, in which Sagan reflects on who’d represent humanity to extraterrestrials. In their take, Hypatia was murdered by a mob of fanatical Christians who burned the library down and destroyed the vast amount of knowledge within, setting back accumulated scientific advancements for centuries. Apocryphally, though; the library ceased to exist prior to Hypatia’s birth.
They wanted to form a story where the female hero leads an adventure while the men stay at home, while also stirring up a similar fanaticism against knowledge that threatens established religion. Sagan primarily handled science and technology aspects, while Druyan expanded on the personal, emotional material. Sagan says the good parts of their protagonist, a radio astronomer named Dr. Ellie Arroway, came from Druyan, who herself based the character on Sagan. Druyan named her after her heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt and Voltaire, whose last name was Arouet.
Arroway leads a group of scientists at a listening station searching for signs of extraterrestrial life in space. They eventually do receive a cryptic repeating message emanating from the Vega System, so cryptic that it takes an international team of scientists years to decode that the Vegans want humans to build an ark to travel to them, which five scientists do. With help from outlaw scientist Sol Hadden, they build something called, “The Machine” to greet the aliens. But with the definitive proof of alien life, fanaticism erupts globally, some of it threatening to turn deadly.
Think tanks were organized with leading scientists, religious leaders, and female scientists to discuss how story concepts would be viewed in various circles. When Sagan used black holes as a means to get scientists from Earth to Vega quickly, Caltech’s Kip Thorne, who was romantically attached to Obst for a spell, disagreed. Black holes would destroy anything entering them. He recommended a wormhole because it was a purely theoretical concept that retained ambiguity. The 113-page story treatment, dubbed “Contact”, was completed in November of 1980.
After a deal with Universal fell through, Guber left PolyGram in 1982, taking the project with him when he joined Warner Bros. Guber essentially cut Sagan and Druyan out of the creative process at that point. He wanted relatability, not nerdiness. He unsuccessfully developed “Contact’ with a variety of directors and writers who didn’t fit the material, including rom-com specialist Robert Harling and 9 to 5 screenwriter Patricia Resnick. Guber’s attempt at relatability introduced a Native American park ranger who becomes an astronaut. Another gave Ellie an estranged teenage son as a means to explain why a woman was neurotically passionate about alien signals. Ellie’s search for communication in space supplants her inability to communicate with her child. The mission would include Ellie, the Native American, a black astronaut, and a stowaway would be revealed – Ellie’s son.
Guber didn’t like Sagan’s ending where scientists discover a secret code hidden within the value of Pi proving the universe was created by a supreme intelligence. Guber felt this was too highbrow for mainstream audiences. Warner execs encouraged a spectacular ending akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Guber’s screenwriters applied several possible endings, including one where Earth enters the wormhole and emerges in the center of the galaxy. They settled on one where the extraterrestrials surround Earth and produce a light show that proves their existence to everyone on Earth.
When the project stalled indefinitely, Sagan felt that he should still proceed with his novel. His first foray into fiction should reach audiences unfamiliar with his work. Sagan, claiming his current contract with Random House only covered nonfiction books, parlayed his newfound fame from “Cosmos” shopping his first fictional story around. Simon & Schuster bested all other bidders, offering a $2 million advance paid over ten years. Meanwhile, Sagan divorced his wife Linda, who he had been separated from for three years, and married Druyan.
Sagan’s novel was published in 1985. Guber read it but found it encumbered by scientific jargon and intellectual ideas, preferring the cinematic feel of his current direction bas. Guber hired Gentry Lee to co-produce and work with his screenwriters. Further deviations from the original story emerged because Warner execs felt Ellie was a nerd and not relatable to younger audiences who would feel that watching scientists at work was boring. They wanted all lab facility scenes to only have exciting “eureka” moments.
Steven Spielberg was asked to direct. He gave serious consideration that it could represent the third of his alien trilogy after Close Encounters and E.T. Ultimately he declined. Eventually, after a number of other directors didn’t pan out, including Richard Donner, Warner secured Roland Joffe, though he eventually moved on to other things.
Warner grew tired of seeing Guber doing nothing with Contact so they took it off his hands shortly before he left Warner to run Sony Pictures. Warner’s incoming exec, Lucy Fisher, refused Guber’s offer to repurchase the story rights, and instead handed over the project to newly-made Warner executive Lynda Obst, not realizing she’d originally developed it. Obst immediately fired the current scientific advisor and brought Sagan and Druyan back on board, and Contact was fast-tracked at Warner. Sagan protested the deviations from his story’s intent. Many were removed from future scripts, but Obst emphasized compromises were needed. An expensive film required a broad audience appeal to recoup its money.
For the screenplay, Obst wanted her good friend, screenwriter James V. Hart, but Hart refused, despite escalating monetary offers. The story seemed unadaptable – overly complex and it didn’t fit the mold of any known successful alien picture. Eventually, he consented to read the prior screenplays by the seven screenwriters hired by Guber to observe how they managed their adaptations. The only thing they seemed to have in common was the main character going into a spaceship to meet with aliens who’d contacted Earth. Hart was flabbergasted that Sagan had no input in any of these attempts to adapt his story beyond the initial story treatment. Obst, Sagan, Druyan, and Hart decided to spend a weekend going over story ideas and Hart eventually emerged with a cinematic throughline he felt could work: a father/daughter story, which Hart, Sagan, and Druyan developed over the next year.
Warner pursued directors, including Robert Zemeckis. Zemeckis wasn’t keen on doing a film about aliens but was a Sagan fan. He enjoyed the script until the ending where Ellie gives a speech telling people they would believe her if they could see what she saw. The aliens see the speech and help prove her right by opening up the heavens and dazzling Earth with a light show. Zemeckis felt audiences would never buy this, and declined, pursuing a biopic about Harry Houdini instead. Obst was eager to get George Miller. Miller proved an elusive person to coordinate talks with, so Obst had Sagan and Druyan fly to meet Miller in Australia to convince him of Contact‘s worthiness. Warner officially announced Contact was in pre-production as a $90 million film with a release date of Christmas 1996.
Miller wanted Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes to star but they weren’t interested. Robert Redford was given a look for Palmer Joss, who was written to be an older man/father figure, as well but passed. Miller’s next choice, Jodie Foster, was skeptical, as she didn’t like sci-fi. However, she was intrigued by the story’s mix of intellectual and emotional elements. She agreed to visit Sagan’s Seattle home for further discussions, where they connected by waxing philosophical about love, life, humanity, and career choices. Foster found Sagan to be passionate about science in a way that she could bring to Ellie if the screenplay could be further developed. After their meeting, Sagan and Druyan looked at each other and said, “Ellie lives.”
Warner liked Hart’s plot but his story was too heavy on science and math rather than defined character arcs. Ellie remained aloof and her motivations were enigmatic. Warner also wanted Ellie to try to have a baby, feeling audiences wouldn’t relate to a woman dedicating her life to a career rather than a family. Miller felt Warner’s suggestions were more evocative of a typical Disney film; he felt Contact shouldn’t be just another formula Hollywood story. Miller coordinated with screenwriter Menno Meyjes, who he’d met at a barbecue and felt his subversive tendencies could make Contact edgier. Meyjes, with the help of Miller’s frequent writing collaborator Mark Lamprell, strengthened the involvement of the media while expanding the terrorist elements Hart alluded to in his screenplay. He also fleshed out Ellie’s romance with a spiritual advisor and religious power player, Palmer Joss, combining three different characters into one to condense the science vs. religion themes.
Foster grew wary of the story’s current direction. The script expanded to 200 pages and took strange turns she compared to a combination of Lorenzo’s Oil and Eraserhead. Obst replaced Meyjes with Michael Goldenberg, who’d worked on an early draft that Warner liked most. Goldenberg surmised that Ellie looked to the stars to avoid looking within herself. Goldenberg regularly consulted with Sagan for approval on new ideas, striving to emulate the same sense of awe and wonder for the universe he held. Sagan was also instrumental because he knew the politics involved with science.
Once completed in 1994, Obst and Warner felt they finally had a winning script. Miller felt it wasn’t ready and ordered more revisions. Foster finally approved after this new draft, accepting the lead role for a reported $7 million. She identified with Ellie as a consummate outsider whose success represented female empowerment where her journey is a human journey about finding the meaning of life rather than a female journey to find love.
Foster read astronomy books to give her portrayal conviction. She had difficulty fabricating emotions for something she didn’t care about. Although a Yale graduate, magna cum laude, her degree was in literature; she felt illiterate in science. Overwhelmed by frustration, she replaced hard science tomes with children’s books. Foster also met someone who would be an inspiration for her character, Jill Tarter, a UC Berkeley radio astronomer who led Project Phoenix for the SETI Institute and became a consultant on the film.
Miller pressed for additional changes, adding a character based on Kent Cullers, a blind radio astronomer who served as an advisor to the film. He also injected the pope as a major player, which Warner felt was misguided, further souring them on Miller’s vision. The budget escalated and the established release date seemed unlikely. Foster was grumbling she might drop out to honor other upcoming commitments. After Warner insisted that Miller reduce the budget, he demanded another script rewrite. Having enough, Warner released Miller due to a lack of confidence that he could deliver the film anytime soon.
Robert Zemeckis, whose Houdini project had moved to Paul Verhoeven, was asked again. Foster contemplated leaving, having been through one too many projects she invested her time and energy into that never got made. Desperate to keep from total collapse, Warner offered Zemeckis assurances that he could change the light-show ending. With nothing to lose, they granted him something he couldn’t refuse: final cut.
Obst was heartbroken at Miller’s firing and retreated from the project. Meanwhile, Sagan approved of Zemeckis, feeling he handled time travel well in Back to the Future. Foster initially feared that Zemeckis would change the story until it became more about technology than characters. However, she found he was a people person than expected who emphasized a refreshingly simple and inclusionary approach for cast and crew alike.
Zemeckis felt that the story shouldn’t be about the aliens but about how their discovery has us reflect upon ourselves as humans. He had Goldenberg devise an ambiguous ending that left Ellie’s space journey to the imagination as to whether it actually happened. He felt any other definitive would ring false. Zemeckis felt Contact‘s strongest theme is the need for tolerance of others’ beliefs. For most of our existence, we answered life’s mysteries with God. As more begin to answer with science, especially as it relates to the universe, where does God go? Some aren’t ready for God’s replacement. They prefer to keep the mystery so long-held norms are upheld. The foundations of beliefs mold ideals, and disrespecting the ideals of others can lead to violent extremism. Everyone’s a zealot, even a scientist; but zealots should respect the zeal of others.
In the finished script, scientist Ellie Arroway has spent a lifetime searching for intelligent lifeforms outside of our solar system. Ellie’s faith in God has wavered since trying futilely to contact her mother in heaven through her radio as a child. She replaced faith with a belief that science provides the only proof. She and her team at SETI wait for a message from the skies, which arrives after they receive a repeating signal emanating from Vega, a star system 26 light-years away. They work diligently to decode the message as Earth erupts into heated science vs. religion debates on what this signifies.
Zemeckis says he got all of his first choices when it came to casting. He pursued Matthew McConaughey for Palmer Joss after Warner execs recommended him after his performance in A Time to Kill. Warner Bros. had two more options in their first-look deal with McConaughey. After determining he had the right chemistry during a screen test, Warner forced him out of his slated project, The Jackal. McConaughey received $2 million and assurances he could make character adjustments so Palmer was more of a renegade than a saint. Zemeckis included most of McConaughey’s character ideas, save for his request to sport a thick lumberjack beard.
While Sagan’s book was set in a future America with a female president and Miller had wanted Linda Hunt for the role, Zemeckis, thought, felt a real-life politician would be more believable. Many current and former female politicians came to audition before Zemeckis decided a black president would be just as groundbreaking, offering Sidney Poitier the role. After Poitier turned down Contact to appear in The Jackal a serendipitous circumstance emerged. The current US president, Bill Clinton, delivered a speech about the possibility of discovering life on Mars that inadvertently seemed echoed aspects of the film. Definitively setting the film in the present day, they could edit the footage for Contact, using movie magic to move Clinton’s speech from the White House Rose Garden to the press room. White House counsel disapproved, but no punitive remedies were sought. Further controversy emerged when real-life CNN media personalities populated the roles in the media.
Not all was smooth sailing. Sagan’s health began declining. Despite his ailments, Sagan visited the production in Los Angeles and Washington DC to push Zemeckis to strive for scientific authenticity. Though Sagan repeatedly promised Druyan that she wouldn’t have to go to the movie premiere alone, it was not to be. 62-year-old Sagan succumbed to pneumonia at the age of 62 on December 20, 1996, after a two-year battle with bone marrow disease.
As Druyan mourned, Francis Ford Coppola finally filed a lawsuit he’d been threatening since November of 1995, when he sent Sagan a letter demanding a profit share. Sagan clapped back, calling Coppola’s claim without merit. pointing out that Coppola abandoned any effort to develop “First Contact” after its initial failure to materialize. Sagan added that the only similarity between “Contact” and Coppola’s effort was human contact with aliens and there was no copyright on that. Besides, “Contact” was public knowledge for 15 years, yet Coppola never sought a share in Sagan’s $2 million advance for the novel, its book sales, or for any of the 15 years it was in development as a film.
Coppola sought $250,000 in damages and an injunction against Warner Bros. to prevent the film’s distribution. Druyan felt sickened and outraged, calling the lawsuit unconscionable to wait for Sagan’s death to bring forth. Druyan claimed the suit defamed Sagan’s memory and his spirit of collaboration. Coppola claimed ownership of an idea Sagan had been writing about it since he was 15 years old. Warner surmised that Coppola was likely pushing for retaliation for the studio preventing him from moving Pinocchio to Sony. In February 1998, the suit was dismissed out of court because Coppola couldn’t produce a legally enforceable contract and he’d waited beyond the statute of limitations to sue.
After test screenings produced unenthusiastic audience responses due to the ambiguous ending and lack of satisfying closure for Ellie’s story arc, Goldenberg added a last-minute capper suggesting Ellie’s experience likely wasn’t her imagination while Zemeckis filmed an epilogue where Ellie teaches the next generation about what’s out there, replacing the original ending where she talks on a cell phone to Palmer, implying she was pursuing a relationship.
Due to this mixed early reaction, and not wanting to overextend itself in competition with bigger, flashier films, Warner Bros. only released Contact into 1500 theaters, just half of what a typical big studio release would usually garner. However, Imomentum caught on and Contact made over $170 million worldwide.
Contact is a rarity in high-budget science fiction. It assumes we want intelligent and emotional fare rather than ironic dialogue and nonstop special effects. It also plays out plausibly in its political views and the science vs. religion debate shaping public opinion. That same debate rages on the work of many astronomers like Sagan, who are challenged to resolve whether the majesty and design of our universe are the results of random events or a sign of a supremely intelligent architect.
While there is a broadly entertaining aspect to Contact that speaks to general audiences, there’s enough intelligence to qualify as a thinking person’s populist science-fiction film. It effectively captures the sense of mystery, wonder, and awe that would occur in the event of contact with an alien civilization, with a grounded sensibility that’s unique among films covering the subject. That’s not to say that the visual effects aren’t impressive, as they sate eye-candy lovers. But they aren’t the main selling point, unlike other sci-fi releases of the modern era. Along with a strong performance from Foster, its intellectual and philosophical appeal makes it arguably the best film on the subject since Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
- A stage musical adaptation was created which debuted in Seattle in 2009. Druyan approved of the production.
- George Miller would sue Warner unsuccessfully for breach of contract. Miller said his version would have been similar to another Matthew McConaughey vehicle, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.
Qwipster’s rating: A+
MPAA Rated: PG for intense action, mild language, and a scene of sensuality
Running Time: 150 min.
Cast: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, James Woods, Angela Bassett, David Morse, John Hurt, Jenna Malone, Rob Lowe, Jake Busey
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Screenplay: James V. Hart, Michael Goldenberg