Clint Eastwood's 2010 supernatural drama *Hereafter* is widely regarded as one of the weakest films in his directing career, and much of the blame is being placed on Steven Spielberg, who originally pitched the project to him. The mismatch reportedly stemmed from a clash of styles: Eastwood typically favours sparse, grounded storytelling, while Spielberg tends to layer his narratives with heightened emotion, and the resulting film left audiences underwhelmed with what critics called a tedious mix of sentimentality and spiritual cliché.

Eastwood has explained that Spielberg called him with a script he wanted to send over, to which Eastwood simply agreed, later admitting he set aside his own instincts to accommodate his fellow filmmaker's vision. The film itself weaves together three intertwined stories: Matt Damon plays a reluctant clairvoyant trying to escape his ability to communicate with the dead, Cécile de France plays a journalist grappling with a near-death experience, and twin brothers played by Frankie and George McLaren are separated by tragedy.