What Could've Been...
They say you shouldn't dwell on the past. But when it comes to a Tim Burton Superman movie or Tarantino making Kill Bill Vol. 3, how can you not take a moment and imagine, if things had gone differently, what could've been...
Napoleon (Stanley Kubrick)
In 2023, we got a Napoleon movie directed by Ridley Scott. The one we didn't get was the one from Stanley Kubrick. After 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick began researching the famed French emperor with plans to make a Napoleon movie. But then the film Waterloo came out in 1970, bombed at the box office, and caused studios to back away from Kubrick's film as a result.
Kill Bill Vol. 3 (Quentin Tarantino)
Spoiler Alert: She kills Bill at the end of Kill Bill Vol. 2. We're not sure what the story would've been, but Quentin Tarantino did talk about having ideas for a third instalment and the possibility of the movie getting made. Then he changed his mind and has pretty much said that Vol. 3 will never happen.
Killer Crow (Quentin Tarantino)
Given that Tarantino has said he will only make 10 movies, and his tenth one seems to already be set, there are no doubt a lot of his screenplays that will never see the light of day—including Killer Crow, a spin-off from arguably his greatest movie, Inglourious Basterds.
Universal, Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Killer Crow (Quentin Tarantino)
In the original screenplay for Inglourious Basterds, Brad Pitt's character encounters a platoon of Black troopers on their own revenge mission. Killer Crow would've followed that band of troopers as they sought vengeance on the white officers who did them wrong.
Inglourious Basterds, Universal Pictures
Heart Of Darkness (Orson Wells)
Perhaps the most amazing thing about this story is that the first script screenplay Orson Wells ever wrote was an adaptation of the Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness. Or, maybe it's the fact that his inability to get funding for such an ambitious movie led to him pivoting to his fallback project: Citizen Kane.
American Zoetrope, Apocalypse Now
Nocturnal Fears (Steven Spielberg)
Since the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982, people have been wondering about, and asking for, a sequel. There have been plenty of rumors over the years, but the closest it ever came to being a reality was Nocturnal Fears.
Universal, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Nocturnal Fears (Steven Spielberg)
There was even a nine-page story treatment put together by Spielberg and screenwriter Melissa Mathison that had Elliot and his siblings captured and tortured by aliens, with E.T. coming to save the day. It was a much darker story than the first film and eventually Spielberg decided it wasn't a great idea and walked away from making a second E.T. movie.
Universal, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
The Little Mermaid (Sofia Coppola)
We all love the animated Disney film, and their live-action version was pretty good also. However, imagine if Sofia Coppola had made a Little Mermaid movie. Well, back in 2014, that's what she wanted to do.
Walt Disney, The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid (Sofia Coppola)
As you may imagine, Coppola's version would've been less-Disney, and more like the original and darker Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Unfortunately, Coppola eventually left the project due to budget issues and creative differences and it never got made.
Walt Disney, The Little Mermaid
Superman Lives (Tim Burton)
Since the last of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies came out in 1987, Hollywood's been on a desperate quest to reboot the series with a good movie. As fans of the DC hero are all too well aware, they've failed every time. But things could've been oh so different if only they'd been able to make Superman Lives.
Superman Lives (Tim Burton)
We know what Tim Burton did with Batman and Batman Returns, and Warner Bros hired him to direct Superman Lives, wanting him to bring his dark and twisted sensibilities to the project. Throw in Nicolas Cage as Superman and a script from big time comic book lover Kevin Smith, and we can only imagine how awesome it would've been.
The Devil’s Triangle (William Friedkin)
A UFO movie starring Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen, and Charlton Heston as men trapped in the Bermuda Triangle, and directed by the guy who made The Exorcist? Sign us up right now.
Howard Hughes Biopic (Christopher Nolan)
We liked Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, but it wasn't his best work. Now listen to this and tell us you aren't disappointed Christopher Nolan never made his Howard Hughes Biopic.
Howard Hughes Biopic (Christopher Nolan)
Not only did Nolan say, in 2007, that his script for the film was the best thing he's ever written, but the film also would've seen Jim Carrey playing Hughes, in what Nolan called, the role he was "born to play". However, once The Aviator got ahead of them in the production cycle, Nolan shelved his movie.
Jackie Robinson Biopic (Spike Lee)
Spike Lee didn't just think about making a Jackie Robinson biopic, he wrote a full script for the movie. In fact, he wrote five drafts—and in 2020, released that fifth draft online for fans to read.
Eastern Promises Sequel (David Cronenberg)
David Cronenberg has never made a sequel to any of his films and prior to Eastern Promises, he'd never even wanted to. With this movie it was different, though. There was still more story he wanted to tell. Particularly, he wanted to see Viggo Mortensen's character, Nikolia, "go back to Russia". In the end, the studio said "no".
Ghost Stories (Steven Spielberg)
You'd think that a WWII dramatic thriller that was going to be directed by Steven Spielberg and star Tom Cruise would have direct access to production. However, while the plan back in 2002 was to make Ghost Stories, Spielberg and Cruise's next collab after Minority Report, other movies just kept getting in the way, and eventually this one just faded into the background.
Twentieth Century, Minority Report
A Halo Movie
While fans finally got an adaptation of the uber-popular video game with the release of the television show in 2022, the possibility of a Halo movie had some big power-players behind it many years prior. After making the Lord of the Rings movies, Peter Jackson set his sights on Halo. He wasn't going to direct the film, just executive produce, with both Guillermo del Toro and Neill Blomkamp attached to the director's chair at one time or another.
Edgar Allen Poe Movie (Sylvester Stallone)
For nearly 30 years, Sylvester Stallone has been trying to make an Edgar Allen Poe movie. At one point, he was going to star in the film, but by the late 2000s, he'd talked about getting a Robert Downey Jr or a Johnny Depp to play the part. He got as far along in the process as getting Downey Jr to read the script, which the actor really liked. However, that was over a decade and a half ago—and still nothing.
Batman: Year One (Darren Aronofsky)
Back in 2000, Darren Aronofsky was one of the "it" young directors, having had two independent hits with Pi and the critically-adored Requiem for a Dream. His next move was to make his studio debut—and for a moment, it looked like that debut would come in the form of Batman: Year One.
Batman: Year One (Darren Aronofsky)
Frank Miller was going to write the script (based on his comic book arc) and Aronofsky was going to reboot the franchise after the much derided Batman and Robin from three years prior. Unfortunately, there were scheduling issues and Aronofsky was forced to move on. Thankfully, the series did eventually get rebooted nicely by Christopher Nolan.
Ronnie Rocket (David Lynch)
The cute title might not sound very David Lynch, but there are few things more Lynchian than Ronnie Rocket—the story of a one-legged detective who, upon entering a different dimension, finds himself being stalked by a dwarf with the ability to control electricity. Lynch has had this one on his brain since the late '70s, yet it's never made it past the development stage.
Mulholland Drive (2001), Canal+
Dino (Martin Scorsese)
We have to go all the way back to 1992 for the origins of the potential Martin Scorsese Dean Martin biopic. Scorsese had the rights to the Dino book and had Nicolas Pileggi (the guy who wrote Goodfellas and Casino) writing the script. Rumors back in the day also had the director looking to cast Tom Hanks as Dean Martin and John Travolta as Frank Sinatra. So what happened?
Dino (Martin Scorsese)
Budget and scheduling issues caused delays in the production—and during said delays, Scorsese went off to make Gangs of New York. But Gangs of New York took longer than expected to finish, and by the time Scorsese came back to Dino, Warner Bros had moved on.
At The Mountains Of Madness (Guillermo Del Toro)
Many great directors have passion projects, films they've always wanted to make. For Guillermo del Toro, that movie is At the Mountains of Madness. Based on a novella by H. P. Lovecraft, the film made it to development and even had Tom Cruise and James Cameron on as producers. But in the end, it all came down to one letter...
At The Mountains Of Madness (Guillermo Del Toro)
"We thought we had a very good, safe package," del Toro told Collider. "It was $150 million, Tom Cruise and James Cameron producing, ILM doing the effects, here’s the art, this is the concept, because I really think big-scale horror would be great. But there was a difference of opinion; the studio didn’t think so. 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".
Alexander The Great (Baz Luhrmann)
This one is made even more alluring due to the fact that the Alexander the Great movie we did get was Oliver Stone's downright awful Alexander in 2004. In 2002, Luhrmann made it known that he had his own Alexander the Great film in the works, and had Leonardo DiCaprio ready to take on the lead role. However, with Stone's movie moving forward as well, Luhrmann couldn't secure the financing he wanted and eventually the whole thing fell apart.
Company Of Angels (Kathryn Bigelow)
It was back in the mid-'90s when director Kathryn Bigelow became attached to the Joan of Arc movie, Company of Angels. At the time, there were actually three different Joan of Arc movies making their way through the Hollywood development process...And in the end, none of them would get made.
Gaumont, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
Company Of Angels (Kathryn Bigelow)
Things changed for Bigelow and Company of Angels when Luc Besson came on as a producer and told Bigelow she had to cast his girlfriend/wife Mila Jovovich as Joan of Arc. Well, that was it for Bigelow and she left the production. Besson then took over the director's chair and in 1999, we got The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. Bigelow would later sue Besson, claiming breach of contract and accusing him of taking parts of her script for his.
Gaumont, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
Ness (David Fincher)
Torso is a graphic novel about famed prohibition lawman Eliot Ness and the hunt for a serial bad guy in Cleveland. David Fincher had plans to adapt the graphic novel into a movie called Ness, with Matt Damon in the lead role. The film was in development, but it took too long and Paramount lost the rights to the material—thus the project couldn't move forward.
Justice League: Mortal (George Miller)
A Justice League movie from the guy who directed the Mad Max movies. Yes please! Justice League: Mortal was going to include a super dark telling of the Batman story, and Miller was set on Adam Brody as The Flash and Armie Hammer as the aforementioned Batman—remember, this is before all the disturbing Hammer headlines. This was also back in the 2000s, just before the 2008 Writers Guild of America strike. That strike pretty much ended any chance of Miller's movie making it into production.
Che Guevara Biopic (Terrence Malick)
Steven Soderbergh’s 2008 Che Guevera biopic, Che, actually started out as a Terrence Malick Che Guevara biopic. Soderbergh, with Benicio del Toro lined up to play Che, went to Malick and asked him to direct the picture. Malick had been a reporter for LIFE Magazine back in the day and was obsessed with the revolutionary. So, he went off and wrote a script. But there was one problem...
Che Guevara Biopic (Terrence Malick)
According to Soderbergh, Malick's script was "unreadable". Producer Bill Pohlad has also called Malick’s screenplay "daunting” and not an “easy” read. So, Malick was out and Soderbergh took over as director—starting all over from scratch.
Scream 3 (Starring Matthew Lillard)
Considered by many to be the worst film in the Scream franchise, Scream 3 could've looked a lot different had it not been for the awful events that took place at Columbine High School in 1999.
Scream 3 (Starring Matthew Lillard)
The original plan for the movie was to have Lillard come back from the grave and lead a bunch of Ghostface wannabes in a high school massacre. Well, after the Columbine tragedy, director Wes Craven obviously ditched that idea and along with it went the idea of bringing back Lillard's character.
