Stanley Kubrick reportedly considered directing an ambitious pornographic film after discussing the idea with writer Terry Southern during the 1963 production of Dr Strangelove. The proposal matters chiefly as an unusual, unrealised project that foreshadowed Kubrick’s later interest in portraying erotic desire in films such as Eyes Wide Shut.

Southern showed Kubrick a grainy Cuban porn film and suggested that explicit cinema could be made with high-quality production values and accomplished actors. That discussion informed Southern’s 1970 satire Blue Movie, dedicated to Kubrick and centred on a prestigious director attempting to make an erotic film; Kubrick praised the novel but never made the proposed adaptation.