With recent news of a potential Forrest Gump sequel, Movies.ie looks at ten movie sequels that never were
Plans for sequels don’t always come to fruition for one reason or another. Only this week Eric Roth was discussing a potential sequel to Forrest Gump, which, according to the screenwriter, was halted after the 9/11 attacks.
He told reporter that a script for a follow-up to the Oscar-winning Tom Hanks drama had been handed over to studio the day before the attacks. “It’s a continuation really – I want to start the movie literally two minutes after the end of the last one, with him on the bus bench waiting for his son to get home from school, explained Roth.
“But I turned in the script the night before 9/11. And we sat down, Tom and [director Bob Zemeckis] and I, looked at each other and said we don’t think this is relevant anymore. The world had changed. Now time has obviously passed, but maybe some things should just be one thing and left as they are.”
With this in mind, here’s a list of other sequels that got left on the drawing board…
Total Recall 2
The death of Carolco didn’t stop Mario Kassar trying to revive some of his most lucrative franchises over the years, and a sequel to Total Recall was long talked about as one of those projects. Sadly, with no sign of interest from Arnold Schwarzenegger or director Paul Verhoeven, it was in trouble from the off. What’s likely to have killed this for good though is the performance of the sequel Kassar did get off the ground in recent years: Basic Instinct 2…
True Lies 2
James Cameron had long talked about doing a sequel to True Lies, but in the wake of the world-conquering Titanic, he seemed reluctant to step back behind a camera. That said, he kept mentioning True Lies, which could have panned out into a Bond-like franchise, yet the atrocities of September 11th are likely to have ended any enthusiasm or interest Cameron had in the project.
Jinx
There was talk, in the light of the success of Die Another Day, that a pseudo-sequel based around Halle Berry’s character would be in the offing. But Jinx never happened, as Berry continually proved that she couldn’t bring home the box office bacon unassisted. It was a project people quietly stopped talking about…
Mad Max 4
There have been several attempts to bring Max back to the silver screen for one more outing, and even in recent times, it’s believed that Mad Max 4 had a production office on the Warner Bros lot. Yet Mad Max 4: Fury Road (it had a title and everything) seems to, in spite of the intentions of George Miller (who’s trying to get it moving again), be nowhere close to a cinema screen. The latest reports suggest it may go ahead without Mel Gibson, which would be a bit, erm, odd…
E.T. 2
In the light of the success of the original, there was talk of a second film that would have seen Elliot in space, and needed E.T.’s help to get back to Earth. It didn’t sound very good really, did it? Fortunately, Spielberg and co decided that the original was best left as it was…
Airplane III
A film that did, apparently, at least make it to the drawing board. The idea was that the team behind the second film would make a third, but the box office numbers killed the idea.
Titanic: The Prequel
This was primarily paper talk at the point where Titanic was dominating the global box, but it was strongly mooted that the Jack and Rose story would be made into a film of its own. Thankfully, it never was.
Gladiator
Another film that was set to get a prequel, and some reports suggest it was even scripted. However, with none of the parties concerned seemingly interested in getting the project going, Gladiator 2 is set for a life in development hell.
The Bodyguard 2
Kevin Costner has never done a sequel, but if you believe him, the closest he got was a script he was working on for a Bodyguard sequel. His co-star? Princess Diana. Her untimely death ended the project, and Costner only talked about it in the years that followed, so she never had a chance to confirm or deny the story.
ID4Ever
1996 was the summer of Independence Day, and the height of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin’s clout. Inevitably, talk surfaced of a follow, with the working title of ID4Ever. Devlin and Emmerich, after some discussion, decided not to press ahead with the project, and Devlin has recently confirmed that they never will.