Imagine
if Jaws had never been made; or if Francis Ford Coppola decided to go
with another project rather than a little mobster story called The
Godfather. Doesn't really bear thinking about does it movie fans? But
it could so easily have happened! A lot of things can go wrong in the
time it takes to get a feature film from page to screen; funding,
casting and even the Grim Reaper have all put paid to film projects.
Hundreds of interesting titles have been left sitting in development
hell, never to see the darkness of the movie theatre.
This week we take a look at some of the most interesting movies that never made it to our screens.
1. Alexander Jodorowsky's Dune
During the 1970's, several directors unsuccessfully tried to bring
their adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel Dune to the big screen;
Ridley Scott was one of these directors but infinitely more interesting
was the adaptation proposed by legendary cult director Alexander
Jodorowsky. Jodorowsky's Dune project only got as far as the
development stages before running into major funding problems but we
already got a glimpse of how good it could have been. With costume
designs by H.R. Giger and Jean "Mɶbius" Giraud, soundtrack by Pink
Floyd and a cast including Orson Welles, Mick Jagger and Salvador Dali,
Jodorowsky's Dune would have been one hell of a movie!
2. The Catcher in the Rye
The list of Hollywood big-hitters that have attempted to get their
hands on J.D. Salinger's revolutionary coming of age story is as long
as your arm! To name a few; Steven Spielberg, Harvey Weinstein,
Leonardo Di Caprio, Billy Wilder, Eliz Kazan, Jerry Lewis etc.etc. Yes,
since the book was released in 1951, there has been a constant stream
of adaptations and offers of purchase turned down by the notoriously
reclusive author. It was even speculated in Hollywood that the only way
Salinger would have approved a film script was if he himself was cast
as Holden Caulfield; which would be highly unlikely to say the least!
We can only speculate on the bidding wars that will happen when the
rights are finally released.
3. Kubrick's A.I.
One of our biggest film regrets is that Kubrick never got to usher his
A.I. project onto the big screen. Kubrick began working on the project
in the early 1970's but put the project on hold until he felt film
technology had advanced enough to do justice to his vision of the A.I.
world and to the character of David - who he intended to be completely
computer generated. In 1995, Kubrick handed over the reins of the film
to Spielberg, and the film only got into production following his death
in 1999. Spielberg stepped in and produced a film that, while visually
impressive, had too much of the Spielberg schmaltz about it. We can
only imagine what the film would have been if Kubrick had seen it
through to the end.
4. A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole's story is a tragic one; the author committed
suicide in 1969 aged only 31 before this classic novel was even
published. Since then of course, it has become a well-loved classic
(Toole was even awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize) and several fans
in the business have tried to get it to the big screen over the years;
including a Harold Ramis version starring John Belushi and most
recently a Steven Soderbergh adaptation with Will Ferrell as Ignatius J
Reilly. Funnily enough though, the starring role has been given to
several men who then had untimely deaths - Belushi, Chris Farley and
John Candy. Is this a Dunces curse or could it be due to the "rotund"
nature of the stars...who knows!
5. Blomkamp and Jackson's Halo
If
there's one phrase that brings fear to the heart of movie fans it's
"computer game adaptation!" There was one notable exception of this
though, when Peter Jackson became linked as executive producer of a
Halo film, with protégée Neil Blomkamp as director. Several months into
production though, the project broke down, with Blomkamp increasingly
disinterested in the project and a central character which he felt did
not work from a cinema perspective. There is an upside to all this of
course; when the Halo project fell through, Jackson and Blomkamp found
themselves with a little free time on their hands - the result of which
was one of our favourites of this year, District 9.
6. Kubrick's Napoleon
A second appearance for Kubrick in our list; but this time for a
project that was killed by the studios at the last minute. The Napoleon
project really seemed like a labour of love for Kubrick - he spent two
years researching for the film, amassing a huge collection of
historical material as well as around 15,000 photographs from location
scouting and an amazing 17,000 slides of Napoleonic imagery to be used
as reference points. The film was due to go into production directly
after the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey but both M.G.M. and United
Artists got cold feet about the project, seeing the genre of historical
epic as out of fashion and thus too risky.
Words - Ian Finnerty
Got any more? Let us know below...