This article contains a spoiler for Gladiator.
Some still may make it.
But for many others, the journey is over.
So: a hit book, another techno thriller, there must be a movie in it, right?
Hollywood agreed, with names such as Sigourney Weaver and Gwyneth Paltrow linked with the project.
Demi Moores name was circling as well.
However, it never got made, and Michael Crichton eventually according tothisL.A.
Timesreport returned the money.
Crichton couldnt agree to a script that he liked.
Instead, itd beTimelinethat made it to the screen next.
And that didnt exactly go to plan.
The one that fell apart?
It was a big budget passion project forMoulin Rougedirector Baz Luhrmann.
Leonardo DiCaprio who would eventually star for Luhrmann inThe Great Gatsby was cast in the lead role.
It reportedly struggled to attract the necessary international investment, and the project slowly ran out of fuel.
Luhrmann did keep battling, though.
He delayed the movie until a 2006 release date to give himself time to sort other projects out.
The writer/director was reportedlydevastatedwhen it fell apart.
ButBatman: Year Onewould have been unique.
You see, the Batman franchise was floundering in 2001.
But he came back toBSGaround 2009.
It would have been scheduled as his next film afterJack The Giant Slayer.
ButBioshockwould not be a low cost production.
Realising the games world on screen would take significant time and money, and set construction work got underway.
The problem, however, wasnt just the money.
There was, after all, no way thatBioshockwas going to be anything less than an R-rated film.
A hard-R at that, not least for the injection scenes alone.
With a nine-figure budget needed to makeBioshock, the studio in this case cut its losses.
Universal thus paid up the bill for the work done thus far, and walked away from the film.
6.Crisis In The Hot Zone
A simple case of competing projects again, this one.
But there were two problems.
Firstly, Fox was struggling with the budget, and wanted to beef up a strong male lead role.
Hence, Robert Redfords inclusion.
Foster was reportedly unimpressed, and as delays ensued, Warner Bros. was pushing ahead at full steam withOutbreak.
Instead, Carolco decided to place its bets against another (almost) $100m epic Rennie HarlinsCutthroat Island.
For real, get this guy a movie franchise already.
A script was commissioned based on an 80 page treatment by Brett Hill and David Leslie Johnson.
Darabont would have served as co-director with Chuck Russell, who had recently directedEraserstarring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And speaking of Arnie…
Arnold Schwarzenegger was all set to play Doc Savage.
Of course he was.
Arnies physique looks like a James Bama Doc Savage painting brought to life.
Arnie crowed about Darabonts fantastic script, but it sounds like funding is what ultimately shut it down.
I think thats right.
Theyre shy about making this kind of movie because it costs that much money, Arnold said in 2002.
So maybe some day they will do this movie, Arnie said.
Pre-production was well underway, with famed comic artist Moebius crafting a 1200 page book of beautifully illustrated storyboards.
Unfortunately, tight purse strings meant that neither project got off the ground.
What was in it that attracted them could not be done low-budget, Cronenberg lamented.
So I think that was the problem.
Legendary producer Dino de Laurentiis was backing the project, agreeing to stump up the not-insignificant bill for it.
But Bresson couldnt get the film to work.
12.Ghost Soldiers
Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise have, thus far, made two films together.
Yet after theyd finished shootingMinority Report, they actually had another project that they were set to collaborate on.
It was calledGhost Soldiers, based on the non-fiction book by Hampton Sides.
Sadly, this delightful bag of refried madness was never filmed.
But no blockbuster movie.
Microsoft clearly had confidence.
The message was clear: agree to the terms, you could make an offer for the movie.
And the clock was ticking.
Unfortunately, Microsoft didnt help itself here.
Movie studios rarely give one, yet alone both.
Reports suggested that Microsoft wanted $10m up front, and then 15% of the box office takings.
Pretty much every studio turned the movie down straight away.
Fox and Universal remained interested, and struck a deal to co-produce.
Microsoft wouldnt reduce its slice of the cake, nor would Jackson, and theHalomovie died fairly quickly.
Silver, thus, tried to package his own western,Hickok And Cody.
Warner Bros. was linked with the movie.
But it was not to be.
Ford did say he would like to return toHickok And Codyat one stage, but it never happened.
On the villainous side we had Jay Baruchel as Maxwell Lord and Teresa Palmer as Talia al Ghul.
As anyone who has seenMad Max: Fury Roadcan tell you, thats a real shame.
it’s possible for you to read more about George Millers Justice League movieright here.
Theres something to be said for boundless energy and creativity meeting up with the harder walls of reality.
Its a remake of the concept of the movie plus the book.
That makes more sense than it sounds, when you think about it.
They didnt have any more luck with the project than Mr. Singer did.
Singer was still speaking wistfully about hisLogans Runaround as late as 2009, but it wasnt to be.
But Coppola himself has never done much with the genre.
Mainly because he was channelling his sci-fi efforts into a film that ultimately wouldnt get made:Megalopolis.
The world was attacked and I didnt know how to give a shot to do with that.
I tried, he said.The full interview is here.
Coppola hasnt fully ruled outMegalopolisfinally happening, but it seems a very, very long shot.
And given the wealth of research and preparation Kubrick had done, theres clearly lots to go at.
This project dates back to even beforeA Clockwork Orangewas made, when Kubrick was deep into researching Napoleons life.
The planned movie would have been three hours long, charting the emperor of Frances life.
David Hemmings, Audrey Hepburn, Alec Guinness, and Laurence Olivier were set to lead the cast.
And whilst he tried to resurrect the film in the 1980s, KubricksNapoleonnever made it to the screen.
Theres a great article atViceon it,here.
Night Skieswas scrapped, butechoes of it lived onin such films asE.T.,Gremlins,Poltergeist,andCritters.
24.Nocturnal Fears
E.T.would, of course, become yet another hit for Steven Spielberg.
Heres an excerpt: The evil creatures are carnivorous.
Their leader, Korel, commands his crew to disperse into the forest to acquire food.
arrived to rescue them.
Sylvester StallonesPoe
What fascinates me about Poe is that he was such an iconoclast, Stallone once said.
It didnt work for him either.
He even has a star in mind Robert Downey Jr, who he reportedly wrote the script for.
To date, StallonesPoedoesnt look any closer to getting made.
The project is finally moving forward, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt producing and Jack Thorne penning a screenplay.
But previously,Pirates Of The Caribbeanwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were working on the film.
They put together a screenplay draft in the 1990s that covered the first two volumes ofSandman.
Warner Bros brought in producer Jon Peters though, and the studio swiftly turned the screenplay down.
Avary liked the script, and wanted to direct it.
A second draft was duly written, and Avary looked like he might bring the script to the screen.
But Jon Peters infamous for his involvement in the failedSuperman Livesproject apparently simply didnt understandSandman.
Avary and Peters couldnt see eye to eye, and the director left the project in 1997.
It stayed firmly in development hell for well over another decade.
Now imagine that, for some reason, Somerset now has psychic powers.
Theyd acquired a serial-killer script calledSolace, and planned to rewrite the lead role to accommodate William Somerset.
Most importantly it had a gang of action movie gods hard at work on the project.
Joel Silver was the producer.
Why didnt it happen?
Well, unlike many of the other movies on this list, this time it wasnt the money.
Mr Schwarzenegger wasnt pleased.
He left the project, and in the ensuing chaos, so did John McTiernan.
Every now and then there are signs of life aroundSgt.
it’s possible for you to read more with Steven E de Souza onSgt.
Rockand other projectsright here.
But not on the radar, at least not anytime soon, is a sequel to 2007sThe Simpsons Movie.
Producer Al Jean has gone on to describe the chances of another film as 50/50.
So, er, a bit like the first movie.The full interview with Al Jean is here.
Potential Supermen includedSupernaturals Jared Padalecki, Josh Hartnett, and (wait for it) Henry Cavill.
Potential Lois Lanes included Scarlett Johannson and Selma Blair.
Director McGs ironic fear of flying chased him off the project.
He was replaced with Brett Ratner…who was then replaced with McG.
It was too late.
Read : Flybyright here.
But Arnold didnt agree, and chose to do a thematically similar film,The 6th Day, instead.
Somehow, the movienever quite got in motion, and Scott eventually abandoned it in favour ofThelma And Louise.
The original hit big in 1994, and Cameron had planned to move ontoTrue Lies 2once hed finished withTitanic.
Titanic, though, would prove to be an exhaustive effort.
It ran massively over budget and massively over schedule, with the release date moving several times.
All of a sudden, Cameron could make pretty much anything he wanted.
Cameron couldnt reconcile the comedy undertones ofTrue Lieswith a story about terrorists.
Thats the way its likely to stay.
