in the letterboxed and widescreen versions). In addition, a Time magazine cover about the American–Soviet tension is briefly shown, in which the President of the United States is portrayed by Clarke and the Soviet Premier by the 2001 film's writer, producer and director, Stanley Kubrick. Production Development and filming When Clarke published his novel 2010: Odyssey Two in 1982, he telephoned Stanley Kubrick, and jokingly said, "Your job is to stop anybody [from] making it [into a movie] so I won't be bothered." Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer subsequently worked out a contract to make a film adaptation, but Kubrick had no interest in directing it. However, Peter Hyams was interested and contacted both Clarke and Kubrick for their blessings: While he was writing the screenplay in 1983, Hyams (in Los Angeles) began communicating with Clarke (in Sri Lanka) via the then-pioneering medium of e-mail using Kaypro II computers and direct-dial modems. They discussed the planning and production of the film almost daily using this method, and their informal, often humorous correspondence was published in 1984 as The Odyssey File. As it focuses on the screenwriting and pre-production process, the book terminates on February 7, 1984, just before the movie is about to start filming, though it does include 16 pages of behind-the-scenes photographs from the film. Principal photography on the film began in February 1984 for a 71-day schedule. The majority of the film was shot on MGM's soundstages in Culver City, California, with the exception of a week of location work in Washington, D.C., Rancho Palos Verdes, California, and at the Very Large Array in New Mexico. Originally, Hyams had intended to film the opening scene at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, home of the world's largest radio telescope, but after visiting there in 1983, he told Clarke that the site was "truly filthy" and unsuitable for filming. Video Image (also known as VIFX), which would go on to work on a number of major pictures and briefly become 20th Century Fox's in-house visual effects studio, did its first work on this film, designing the video screen graphics. Music Initially, Tony Banks, keyboardist for the band Genesis, was commissioned to do the soundtrack for 2010: The Year We Make Contact. However, Banks' material was rejected and David Shire was then selected to compose the soundtrack, which he co-produced along with Craig Huxley. The soundtrack album was released by A&M Records. Unlike