Before Kubrick and his team descended upon EMI-Elstree Studios where the bulk of "The Shining" was shot in 1978, the director had to tie up some loose ends. And by loose ends I mean other films that he had committed to making before promptly getting distracted.
Enter, British author Brian Aldiss. The novelist had met with Kubrick after he'd (shockingly) taken a liking to his Aldiss' tongue-in-cheek assertion that the director was the "great sf writer of the age." As Aldiss recounts in John Baxter's Stanley Kubrick biography, in around 1973 he had a "wonderful meeting" with Kubrick which led to the director asking whether he could adapt any of Aldiss' books — an opportunity which the novelist leaped at.
The pair eventually decided that Kubrick would adapt Aldiss' short story "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" — a futuristic tale of an adopted android boy who doesn't realize he's an android until the end of the story. So taken with the story was Kubrick that he offered Aldiss $2 million for the rights and asked the author to work on the script. But Kubrick being Kubrick, the contract he drew up wasn't exactly your traditional legal agreement.
First of all, Aldiss recalled he "would be paid $2 million. But if he called in another writer, I got zilch." That meant Kubrick could get Aldiss to write the script, then call in another author to contribute a few lines and pay his original writer nothing. And the unorthodox caveats didn't end there. Once Kubrick signed on to direct "The Shining," he used another questionable clause in the contract that stated Aldiss was unable to leave the UK without Kubrick's permission. With work on "Supertoys" stalled, Aldiss jetted off to a Florida conference, believing the contract to be on hold.
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