Steven Spielberg is gearing up for the release of his science-fiction film Disclosure Day, starring Emily Blunt. Ahead of its release, the legendary director expressed his admiration for Stanley Kubrick's visionary sci-fi film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, once again.

Speaking on the podcast The Rewatchables, Spielberg recalled his experience of watching the 1968 film for the first time in theatres. "I had never been to a movie where I smelled marijuana as thick as London fog inside that movie palace," the filmmaker said, reminiscing about the experience.

The filmmaker added that the audience made so much noise that he felt that he could not listen to the dialogue in the film. He said that when the film started with the 'Zarathustra' background track, the audience went quiet in the theatre.

"It was kind of in itself, before the film started, mind-blowing. And then what began, I think from a lot of people in that theatre, was a religious experience fuelled by whatever they were on," Steven Spielberg said, suggesting that the audience watched it with a high-inducing substance.

The filmmaker also called it "one of the most audacious films" that he has watched in his lifetime. "We all knew that Kubrick was audacious, but the audacity and the risks he took (in) telling that story, if you could even call it a story, set me back and I think just rocked my word for sure."

An adaptation of  Arthur C Clarke's eponymous novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey tells the story of an astronaut and his battle of wits with a supercomputer as he tries to trace the origin of a mysterious object. The film was technically so superior for its time that it even caused speculation over whether Kubrick shot a fake moon landing to help the US one-up Russia in the so-called 'space race'.