Yes, Peter Jackson, the guy behind the massively ambitious “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and 2005’s “King Kong” was considered for “Meet the Robinsons.” You’d think a project like this would be a little too small-scale for Jackson, but this was back around 1995, so it wasn’t that crazy of an ask at the time. Another director they considered going for was Diane Keaton, which is particularly surprising because most people don’t think of her as a director.
Most famous for her roles in the “Godfather” films, “Reds” or “Annie Hall,” Keaton’s first high-profile director gig was for the music video of Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth.” She had mostly directed smaller TV specials until 1991 when she got to work on an episode of “Twin Peaks.” Admittedly, this was a late season 2 episode, when the show’s ratings had long since fallen from their season 1 height, but it was still a good step up for her. By the time she was being considered to direct “Meet the Robinsons,” she was directing the PG film “Unstrung Heroes.” Her movie was “exquisite,” William Joyce explained, but “it just didn’t succeed, and that kind of dashed that idea.”
With Keaton no longer being treated as an option, the movie stayed in limbo for a while. When production finally did begin in 2004, Steven J. Anderson was chosen as the director. Anderson did a fine job, as expected from the guy who’d made “Emperor’s New Groove,” but one can’t help but wonder what this movie would’ve been like if Miller, Spielberg, Coppola, Jackson, or Keaton had been the one in charge.