The Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey hit theaters 51 years ago this month. People either loved it or hated it, and it became a classic. The story of how the movie came about is pretty interesting. It had more input from famous people than you probably realized, and then there are some bizarre bits of trivia you might be surprised to learn.
5. Kubrick tried to take out an alien insurance policy.
Kubrick was paranoid that he’d put all this work into getting as close to reality with the concept of extraterrestrial life as he possibly could and then aliens would be discovered just before his expensive sci-fi movie was finished. In order to literally insure his movie wouldn’t become obsolete, Kubrick attempted to take out an insurance policy at Lloyd’s of London to protect himself against losses in case extraterrestrial intelligence was discovered before the film’s release. Lloyd’s declined the policy because they figured the probability of discovering extraterrestrial intelligence in such a short period in the mid-1960s was too small.
That seems like a strange rationale for not selling a policy, but it's par for the course in this list of fascinating facts about 2001: A Space Odyssey you can read at Mental Floss.