Steven Spielberg almost made Benjamin Button with Tom Cruise

Steven Spielberg has revealed he almost made The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button with Tom Cruise as the title character years before Brad Pitt and David Fincher teamed up to make the movie.

The movie mogul admits the film, based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, was almost the first project he and Tom Cruise collaborated on.

He tells Entertainment Weekly magazine, "Tom and I had been friends for many, many years. We had considered working together. Benjamin Button, we had talked about maybe doing together, long before Minority Report. But nothing quite gelled for either of us."

And Steven Spielberg admits he almost recruited Harrison Ford for Jurassic Park instead of Sam Neill: "My first choice was Harrison. I went to the art department and I had them do a photo-realistic painting of the T-Rex chasing Harrison... and I put Harrison's face on the character of the archaeologist, and sent the script, the book, and the picture to Harrison.

"The next day I got a call and he said, 'This is not for me, pal.'"