Buzz
Making a movie is a monumental task, but getting it into production is even more challenging. The time from the initial pitch to the first day of shooting can drag on, and many promising films never escape the clutches of Development Hell.
The typical cost to shoot a film hovers around $65 million, with many productions surpassing the $100 million mark. With such enormous budgets at stake, production companies will only approve a film if every detail is meticulously perfect.
Even once a project is given the go-ahead, there are still countless chances for the studios to pull the plug. In this list, we highlight 10 films that had the potential to be outstanding, if only they had made it past Development Hell.
10. When the Ideal Location Isn't So Perfect After All
Some films get all the way to production before things go wrong. Terry Gilliam spent an entire decade trying to bring The Man Who Killed Don Quixote to life and get it to the Bardenas Reales location in Spain.
The desert’s unique sandstone hills, sculpted by time into fascinating and unusual shapes, seemed like the perfect backdrop for the tale of the legendary Spanish dreamer, Don Quixote.
Well, as it turns out, there might have been a better place after all.
The location scout seemingly overlooked the nearby NATO airbase, where the constant noise from aircraft conducting target practice quickly became a major disruption.
Gilliam pushed forward, hoping to salvage the situation by replacing the audio in post-production.
That was just Day One. When the cast and crew showed up for Day Two, they found that a flash flood and massive hailstones had ruined all the equipment, and to make matters worse, the landscape had dramatically changed, no longer matching the shots from the day before.
On top of all that, Jean Rochefort, who was cast as Quixote, had suffered a herniated disc and couldn’t even sit on his horse.
That was the final straw for the production. A second crew, filming a documentary about the making of the film, ended up creating a different kind of film about the disaster, titled Lost In La Mancha, which was later released to critical acclaim—certainly adding insult to injury.
Terry Gilliam finally completed his film in 2018 with a new cast, nearly 30 years after first pitching the idea. However, the film's journey was far from smooth as a legal dispute delayed its release, resulting in a limited release in 2020 and disappointing box office earnings.
9. When Being Old Enough Isn’t Enough
Guillermo del Toro had big plans to adapt At The Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft's tale about a group of explorers who uncover eerie ancient ruins in Antarctica. The novel had long been considered impossible to film, but if anyone could pull it off, it was del Toro.
Or maybe not.
In 2006, despite universal praise for the screenplay, Del Toro couldn’t secure the funding from Warner Bros. They were put off by the lack of a romantic subplot and the film's bleak conclusion.
In 2010, he took another shot with a different studio. After lengthy negotiations and with producers and stars lined up, Universal ultimately decided not to approve the film because Del Toro insisted on an R-rating, while the studio wanted a PG-13 version.
Del Toro refused to budge, and the film was ultimately scrapped. In hindsight, he admitted he regretted not being more dishonest. He later said, “The R [rating] was what made it. If ‘Mountains’ had been PG-13, or I had said PG-13 … I’m too much of a Boy Scout, I should have lied, but I didn’t.”
Instead, he went on to create Pan’s Labyrinth.
8. When The Funds Run Dry
In the 1980s, Carolco, a production company, emerged as a powerhouse in Hollywood, primarily producing action films. They had an instant hit with their debut movie, First Blood, which kicked off the Rambo series, and went on to achieve significant success with films like Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
However, fortunes shift, and by the early '90s, Carolco was struggling financially, mostly due to the need to buy out one of its partners.
In 1994, Arnold Schwarzenegger had agreed to star in Crusade, a film that was pitched as a blend of Spartacus and Conan the Barbarian. Sets were already under construction when director Paul Verhoeven attended a finance meeting at Carolco.
The meeting, reportedly lasting only twenty minutes, went poorly. Verhoeven refused to promise he wouldn’t exceed his $100 million budget. Perhaps Verhoeven believed the production company was bluffing.
They weren’t. Carolco pulled the plug on Crusade and decided to put their money behind another action film, Cutthroat Island, instead.
That film flopped, and Carolco filed for bankruptcy shortly after.
7. When A Sequel Just Doesn’t Cut It
Gladiator was such a massive success that the idea of a sequel was bound to be considered. However, there were a few obstacles, the first being: did Maximus Decimus Meridius actually die (Yes).
But that's just a small detail, surely.
Ridley Scott, the director of the original Gladiator, envisioned a sequel set in the same world, but without Russell Crowe’s character. Russell Crowe, however, had different plans. He enlisted Nick Cave to write a script that would allow him to return.
Though Cave was best known as a musician, he had written one screenplay previously and took on Crowe’s challenge to address the minor problem of death.
Cave worked his magic. His screenplay transformed the Elysian Fields from the original movie into a bleak purgatory by a dark sea. But being Maximus, he finds a spirit guide who leads him to the Gods, where he is offered the chance to reunite with his family—if he kills one of them.
OK.
And then, in a rather unclear manner, Maximus is somehow transported back to real-world Rome, a decade after his death, and embarks on a mission to find his son (the same son who also perished in Gladiator 1).
There’s a bit of incidental Christian persecution, just to set the mood, followed by a fight scene in the Colosseum, now flooded with water and teeming with 100 alligators (don’t ask).
Eventually, Maximus, that legendary warrior, takes a strange form of time travel, stopping at each major war before ending up behind a desk at the Pentagon, awaiting the next battle.
Even Russell Crowe struggled to take the script seriously. When asked for his opinion on the final version, he delivered his trademark blunt response, “Don’t like it, mate.”
However, Ridley Scott is still reportedly working on his own sequel, so you never know.
6. When Life Mimics Art Mimicking Life
When Francis Ford Coppola decides to make a film, you'd think it would be a straightforward task. Yet, no matter how successful you are, your projects can still fall apart, particularly when real-life events intervene.
Coppola had envisioned Megalopolis, a sci-fi film about the reconstruction of New York following a massive disaster. The project was moving along well, and casting was underway. That was in 2001. But then, on September 11, that year, tragedy struck New York when the Twin Towers were targeted in a terrorist attack.
For a period, Coppola considered pushing ahead with his project, but ultimately decided that he couldn’t make Megalopolis without it inevitably becoming a film about 9/11, so he put the idea on hold.
In 2019, Coppola revealed he was finally prepared to start working on the film again, though no significant progress has been made since. Now in his 80s, if production doesn’t begin soon, it's doubtful the film will ever be made. Coppola is mostly retired these days, but he can take pride in his legacy. Not only did he direct Apocalypse Now, but he also crafted The Godfather II, which remains one of the greatest Mafia films of all time.
5. When Someone Else Had the Same Idea
Stanley Kubrick had dreams of making a film about Napoleon.
Following the immense success of 2001: A Space Odyssey, he “sent an assistant” to follow Napoleon’s footsteps across the globe.
Quite the gig, if you can land it.
Kubrick himself had immersed himself in extensive research on Napoleon and had assembled a top-tier cast. He even managed to secure tens of thousands of real-life soldiers to serve as extras.
The project began to crumble when, in 1970, a competing film, Waterloo, featuring Rod Steiger and Orson Welles, was released. Unfortunately, it flopped at the box office, causing producers to become skittish and quickly pull out their funding.
Kubrick made several attempts to revive the project in the 1980s, but in the end, just like Napoleon, he was forced to concede defeat.
4. When the Director Really Doesn’t Want To
Close Encounters of the Third Kind had been a huge success for Steven Spielberg, and Columbia Pictures were eager for a sequel. However, Spielberg wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea.
However, Spielberg, having learned from past mistakes, knew that if he passed on the opportunity to create a sequel (Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind?), the studio could offer the film to another director. When he had declined to direct Jaws 2, they handed the project to Jeanot Swarc, resulting in a disaster.
In response, Spielberg conceived Night Skies, a dramatization of the real-life 'Kelly Hopkinsville Encounter,' in which a farm was allegedly overrun by aliens. In the script, these aliens were stranded on a foreign planet, initially terrorizing the livestock before moving on to the humans.
Alright. Spielberg then made the decision to produce the film, rather than direct it.
While Night Skies shared similarities with Close Encounters – notably the presence of aliens – it was explicitly not a sequel, something Spielberg believed would protect the original film’s legacy.
A notably darker script was crafted, and NASA revealed that Spielberg had secured a spot on their upcoming space flight, from which he planned to film opening shots of Earth from space.
Possibly due to Spielberg’s lukewarm enthusiasm for the project, Night Skies ultimately did not come to fruition. However, it wasn't all disappointment. The script sparked several other ventures, including Critters, a story about livestock terrorizing aliens, which wasn’t made by Spielberg, and E.T., which was.
3. When The Script Just Doesn’t Make Sense
In 1977, after Eraserhead earned widespread, uh, acclaim, director David Lynch revealed that his next film would be Ronnie Rocket, a project inspired by his love for 1950s sci-fi.
The film has remained ‘in development’ according to IMDB ever since.
Lynch encountered difficulty raising the funds required for the film. Perhaps the challenge lay in the script, which was undeniably unconventional. If you were to pitch it, it might go something like this: 'A detective gains the ability to enter the Second Dimension by standing on one leg. But once there, he is pursued by Donut Men and lost in an endless maze of rooms. The detective’s goal? To find Ronnie Rocket, a diminutive teenage rock star, alongside his tap-dancing girlfriend who uses her power to control electricity to create music and kill people.'
Right.
In a 2012 interview, Lynch mentioned that he was still contemplating Ronnie Rocket, but there were a few details he 'hadn’t figured out yet.'
Like, what exactly is going on in this film?
2. Sometimes an idea is just too bizarre
We all appreciate fresh innovations in films—a unique narrative style, groundbreaking special effects, or an eye-catching new stunt.
At times, however, writers can let their imaginations run wild.
Take The Tourist, for example.
Not the 2010 Johnny Depp-Angelina Jolie film set in Venice, but rather the 1980 screenplay by Clair Noto about a secret world of alien refugees hiding beneath Manhattan. It was once hailed as one of the most influential sci-fi screenplays ever.
This is all the more remarkable when you realize that the film was never made.
HR Giger, the visionary artist who contributed to Ridley Scott’s Alien, created concept art for the screenplay, which became highly sought after in Hollywood. Francis Ford Coppola even signed on as a producer, with the project being described as a mix of alien intrigue and erotica.
The studios, however, were concerned that alien-erotica might be too niche for mainstream audiences. Noto refused to alter her script, leading the studio to ultimately withdraw their support. Nonetheless, the screenplay’s impact can still be felt in many later sci-fi films, including, it is rumored, Blade Runner.
As for Clair Noto, she has largely faded from the spotlight since then.
1. When The Source Material Isn’t Fit for Film
Adapting works into films is never an easy task. Turning Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman into a movie seemed like an almost impossible challenge. With 75 comic books, none of them fitting a traditional narrative structure, it would be a monumental challenge to bring them to the big screen.
Nonetheless, Roger Avary took on the challenge, enlisting Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio—the duo behind Pirates of the Caribbean—to pen a screenplay based on the first two volumes of the graphic novel.
Roger Avary was on board with the script.
Warner Bros, however, was not as enthusiastic.
Jon Peters, the producer, struggled to grasp the concept of Sandman. He repeatedly asked for more traditional film elements, leading to the need for another draft.
A new screenplay, written by William Farmer, was created. While it was met with slightly more approval, the studio still had concerns. They asked, ‘Who’s the villain?’ and ‘Where’s the romantic subplot?’
At one point, the studio even pushed for superhero capes, fight scenes, and a plot revolving around Y2K disaster theories.
Fortunately, the project was placed on hold for the foreseeable future.
Since then, Netflix has acquired the rights to Neil Gaiman's most renowned work. With its high-budget productions, the hope is that the streaming giant can successfully bring The Sandman to the screen in a TV format.
