How Director Brad Bird Changed The Original Story For THE IRON GIANT and Cut a Big Robot and Alien Battle

The Iron Giant is still my favorite animated film of all time. I freakin love that movie, and it’s a shame that it didn’t get the love it deserved when it was originally released in theaters. The movie completely bombed at the box office because Warner Bros. crapped the bed with the lack of marketing. But, over the years it’s gained the love and respect it deserves.

I recently came across an article on /Film that shared some interesting information on the film that I had completely forgotten about. and with The Iron Giant being one of my favorite movies, I just wanted to talk about that and relay that information to you in case some of you did know about it.

The Iron Giant all started with WB optioning the rights to Pete Townsend’s 1989 rock and roll musical The Iron Man, which is based on British poet Ted Hughes’s 1968 short story of the same name. In case you don’t know, Townsend is the co-founder, leader, guitarist, secondary lead vocalist and principal songwriter of The Who.

Yes, The Iron Giant could have been a Rock and Roll musical with Hogarth Hughes as the lead singer. While promoting the film, Townshend said that his previous musicals Tommy and Quadrophenia served as inspiration for his take on The Iron Man. He said:

"The story is very similar in a way to Tommy, to Quadrophenia, to a lot of early Who singles, it's about the fear and depravation and isolation of children, particularly of a little boy in this context. I think it's what I always believe lies at the essence of rock and roll."

However, when the project got into Brad Bird’s hands, he had a different vision for the story and he ultimately ended up bypassing Townsend’s musical and his main source of inspiration came right from the source material. But, he and screenwriter Tim McCanlies did make some additional changes to that as well while adapting it as a film.

One of the major changes to Hughes’s story includes changing the setting from 1960s England to 1950’s America, specifically, Rockwell, Maine. He also changed the title of the movie for obvious reasons.

Most of the original story remains intact with a giant metal robot befriending a young boy in a small community. But, there was another big story element that was removed in which the giant robot battles a giant alien monster to save the world from it.

In Bird’s version, the robot is the alien monster, coming down to Earth and chomping down on whatever metal he can find. But, in the end he does save the day from trigger-happy Kent Mansley, a paranoid federal government agent who is sent to investigate a gigantic iron robot coming from outer space and into Rockwell. Kent Mansley is the real villain in the story.

I loved how Bird’s version of the story plays out! Regardless of what was changed and what wasn’t. The Iron Giant is a perfect animated film.