Jinks and Cohen involved Ball throughout the film 's development , including casting and director selection . The producers met with about 20 interested directors , several of whom were considered " A @-@ list " at the time . Ball was not keen on the more well @-@ known directors because he believed their involvement would increase the budget and lead DreamWorks to become " nervous about the content " . Nevertheless , the studio offered the film to Mike Nichols and Robert Zemeckis ; neither accepted . In the same year , Mendes ( then a theater director ) revived the musical Cabaret in New York with fellow director Rob Marshall . Beth Swofford of the Creative Artists Agency arranged meetings for Mendes with studio figures in Los Angeles to see if film direction was a possibility . Mendes came across American Beauty in a pile of eight scripts at Swofford 's house , and knew immediately that it was the one he wanted to make ; early in his career , he had been inspired by how the film Paris , Texas ( 1984 ) presented contemporary America as a mythic landscape and he saw the same theme in American Beauty , as well as parallels with his own childhood . Mendes later met with Spielberg ; impressed by Mendes ' productions of Oliver ! and Cabaret , Spielberg encouraged him to consider American Beauty .