MOVIES THAT ALMOST HAPPENED

What are some interesting ones?

>Francis Ford Coppola's MEGALOPOLIS was in active development between 1998 and 2001. The script, penned by Coppola, centers on Serge Catalan (Russell Crowe), a wealthy and successful architect who is lauded by his groundbreaking designs but reviled for his excessive lifestyle. Upon learning that the ambitious Mayor of New York City, Frank Cicero (Robert De Niro), and his associate Gene Hamilton (Warren Beatty), an elderly billionaire, are developing "Cityworld", a cutting-edge casino mini-city at the heart of NYC to solve its economic problems, Serge approaches the government with a cheaper and sleeker alternative of his own design, "Megalopolis", entirely made from the nanotechnology-based polymer Megalon. This sparks a decades-spanning rivalry between Serge and Cicero, which is further compounded when Cicero's estranged daughter Julia (Parker Posey) develops a relationship with Serge, and by Cicero's obsession with the notion that Serge murdered his wife, with whom Serge was having an affair.

>Coppola's draft is over 200 pages, featuring over 100 characters. Over 1,000 pieces of concept art were produced, and Coppola had already shot 30 hours of secondary photography. The project was scrapped due to the September 11th attacks and the studio's general wariness of a big-budget 3h+ sci-fi political drama.

>Nicolas Cage, Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman and Paul Newman were also slatted for high-profile supporting roles.

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>scrapped due to the September 11th attacks
I don't get it, why would the attacks cause them to cancel the project?

>cityworld

wow, great writing

Paul Verhoeven's CRUSADES (1991)

>In 1095 A.D., thief Hagen (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is caught stealing from an abbey, but avoids execution by faking a miracle and is recruited by the corrupt Pope Urban II (Christopher Macdonald) as a propaganda tool in the Crusades against the barbaric muslims who have besieged Jerusalem. Hagen's commanding officer is his psychopathic, sadistic half-brother, Count Emmerich of Bascarat (Gary Sinise). After Hagen disfigures Emmerich's face in retaliation for Emmerich raping an innocent young woman, Emmerich arranges for Hagen to be sold into slavery to the Saracens.

>By a stroke of fate, Hagen's old friend, con man Ari (John Turturro), turns out to be a distant relative of Prince Ibn Khaldun, and arranges for Hagen to instead become a soldier for the Saracens. Journeying to Jerusalem, where he intends to escape, Hagen instead finds a peaceful realm where Christians, Jewish and Muslim co-exist in peace and realizes the Crusaders are the enemy. He also falls in love with Khaldun's sister Mira (Jennifer Connelly) and rallies the people of Jerusalem to stand against Emmerich and his army in a bloodthirsty battle.

>Verhoeven's script is notorious for it's subversive approach, portraying the Saracens as noble warriors unfairly persecuted by the Latin Church, and it's dark tone and graphic violence, with scenes such as Hagen stumbling upon a pedophile rape orgy in a church; Hagen caving in Emmerich's face by bludgeoning his helmet, which later has to be sawed off alongside chunks of Emmerich's face; Emmerich raping teenage girls on a medieval bathtub filled with grapes in order to savor the tainted juice that the smashed grapes produced; Hagen being stitched to a live donkey and having to tear himself free, among others.

Ridley Scott's I AM LEGEND (1999)

>Architect Robert Neville (Arnold Schwarzenegger) becomes the last man on Earth after a virus wipes out most of the planet's population and turns the remnants into "Neocytes", monstrous creatures averse to sunlight. Neville then relocates to a fortified house in Los Angeles, and becomes an alcoholic.

>During a scavenging mission to gather supplies, Neville is nearly killed by the Neocytes, but manages to escape. One of the creatures is injured, and Neville takes pity on it and brings it back to his house, where it receivs a blood transfusion. It soon becomes clear that Neville's blood can revert the virus' effects, and the Neocyte reverts to its human self, a young woman, Emma, who bonds with Neville and eventually becomes his lover.

>Neville attempts to produce more blood samples, dreaming of curing the human race, but is ambushed by Neocytes led by Alpha, a vicious tribal leader with fragments of intelligence who doesn't want civilization to be restored. After Alpha burns down the house, destroys the blood samples and kills Emma, an embittered, vengeful Neville arms himself and launches a vicious campaign against Alpha and his pack, killing them all at the cost of his own life. As the Neocytes becomes the dominant species on the planet, Neville becomes a boogeyman figure among them, and the tale of his brutal vengeance spreads through other tribes until Neville becomes legend.

Concept art for the Neocytes.

the grifter

Oliver Stone's RETURN TO THE APES (1993)

>In the near future, humanity is on the verge of extinction due to a deadly virus. Geneticist Will Robinson (Arnold Schwarzengger) discovers that the plague is a genetic time bomb created in the Stone Age. He then travels back in time with pregnant colleague Billie Rae Diamond to a period when Palaeolithic humans were at war for the future of the planet with highly evolved apes led by supreme commander Drak. Robinson and Billie Rae discover a young human girl, Aiv (pronounced Eve), to be the next step in evolution, and that it was the apes that created the virus to destroy the human race. They protect her from the virus, thus ensuring the survival of the human race 102,000 years later. Billie Rae gives birth to a baby boy named Adam, who falls in love with Aiv long after the deaths of Robinson and Billie Rae, and their descendants become the Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

This would have been so stupid, maybe even worse than the Burton one. Only good thing is Arnie.
>Aiv (pronounced Eve)
This made me laugh so fucking hard for some reason.

jankovsky's dunn

I hope Verhoeven gets raped by a modern day saracen migrant

not being flippant, but are you old enough to recall the instant ramifications that event had on the entertainment industry? no one would touch the subject of 9/11 until Spike friggin Lee did so with 25th Hour. all those big name NY film directors wouldn't touch it for years, and i'm talking about Scorsese, Allen, etc. seems studio money was hesitant to invest or possibly just insure large NY-based projects, too. hell, even David Bowie couldn't release an album he wanted to, not that that had much to do with Coppola's situation, but the hesitancy of investors, and maybe even Coppola himself, to continue with the project after 9/11 is just one of those things that you had to live to fully get.

>A Topiary by Shane Carruth

i'm super pissed off this film never happened. the screenplay's amazing. Carruth should repurpose the project and pitch it as a tv series. Netflix would scoop it up in a heartbeat. they scooped up The OA. need i say more?

Why was Arnie considered for all these?

Frank Darabont's COMMANDO II (1986)

>Three years after the events of COMMANDO, John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is running a private security firm that employs highly-trained ex-soldiers. They are hired to protect the corporate headquarters of a multinational corporation, but Matrix soon discovers that the corporation is secretly selling weapons to terrorist organizations across the globe. The corporation bribes Matrix's employees to turn on him and kidnap Matrix's girlfriend and daughter to lure him into a trap. Matrix must then infiltrate the very building that he fortified and face off against the men that he trained in order to save his family and prevent the next generation of guns from threatening innocent lives.

The script was later reworked and became DIE HARD.

This.
My favourite episode of The Simpsons was also removed from syndication for a few years due to "they stick all the jerks in tower one"
Americans as a whole were ridiculously sensitive about anything involving the attack.

I feel like it's ALMOST getting the point of the books, but it misses it just at the end. Sounds better than what we got though.

dude was the biggest box office draw in the 80's and 90's before he went all political. plus, with these projects, he'd worked with each director before in some capacity, so there's that.

>Allen
Oh yeah, the well-known thriller director Woody Allen most of whose films are set in a fantasy version of the Upper West Side. Allen made a New York tribute for the 9/11 concert, but why the fuck would he make a movie about 9/11? I'm old enough to remember the hysteria but I don't see why you're assuming any of them would address the subject.

This would have been terrible, like every Coppola-originated project.

TOTAL RECALL 2: THE MINORITY REPORT (1991)

>One year after the events of TOTAL RECALL, Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has exposed the rampant human corruption in Mars and been named to captain of the newly-created NYPD Pre-Crime Unit, which uses psychic mutant children from the slums of Mars to prevent impending crimes. Quaid is soon named as a future murderer and must go on the run to prove his innocence and prevent the misuse of the psychics.

i'm not assuming anything, it was the resounding criticism of the time and quite valid from my pov. these filmmakers were all called out by film critics and other filmmakers for refusing to touch the subject. also, please refamiliarize yourself with Allen's ouevre. he has some very poignant thrillers scattered throughout his more comedic and fantastic fare, mate.

i think it was Spike Lee who said 9/11 was the elephant in the room no other filmmaker seemed to want to acknowledge for years after.

i love Coppola's stuff, even Jack,Tucker, and Twixt. Tetro has been his best latter days film, though. needless to say, they aren't the masterpieces his earlier films were, but they're entertaining in their own right.

>Gladiator 2: Christ Killer
>written by Nick Fucking Cave

>In the script, Maximus is granted eternal life by the Roman gods, so he spends most of the film trying to reunite with his son, who has joined an army of early Christians. There are a lot of epic fight scenes (duh). But the best part is the finale, which is apparently a montage of Maximus showing up during battles throughout modern history, including World War II and Vietnam. The script ends with Maximus in the Pentagon.

It sounds pretty bad

Twixt literally comes off as made by someone with college entry level knowledge of filmmaking.

No. This won't work, I was there. Nobody "called out" anyone in 2001, it was still the real people era, remember? The issue was hypersensitivity about depictions of New York period. Allen made the first of his two thrillers to date in 2005. Please grow up.

Spike Lee, in order to promote himself, implyed that everyone else was a bitch. What a surprise.

mate, i was attending NYU that fall. graduated in 2003. throughout those years, all the names i've mentioned were criticized. everyone was anticipating a response filmwise from the NY based filmmakers. also, Allen had made serious films by 2001, Crimes and Misdemeanors among them, and because his films were so embedded in NY or NY culture, he was sought to respond using the only platform he uses - well, besides music. they were all called out by plenty of NYers, professors, and critics. maybe i'm mistaken about other filmmakers, it has been nearly 20 years. i bet a quick perusal of google and articles from that time will produce evidence of it.

all the ones in your head because you have no ambition

Don't forget that LotR: Two Towers was almost renamed as a result also. The people that whined about all that shit were the precursors to today's SJWs

>As the Neocytes becomes the dominant species on the planet, Neville becomes a boogeyman figure among them, and the tale of his brutal vengeance spreads through other tribes until Neville becomes legend.

Leningrad and other projects Leone could have made had he been immortal, journey to the end of the night adaptation would have been interesting

Daniel waters script for catwoman. It was even crazier than batman returns, I love this guy's sense of satire. In an ideal world, waters and Darin Morgan would have received all the money to do whatever they wanted. Instead they never got much recognition.

Crusades and I am legend always come to mind. I still don't understand why someone in Hollywood doesn't pick up walon green script and tries to adapt it. Someone like hardy could pull off the role.

Unforgiven took like 20 years to get made. Sometimes I wonder how many amazing scripts are buried in Hollywood drawers and will never see the light of day while they mass produce shit like emoji. The coens for example have some really good scripts they have not directed for some reason, like to the white sea. Malick the English speaker is a beautiful script and proof he really knows how to write traditionally. Whatever pieces of unproduced writing people like David milch or John milius have buried in their safes.

But that was the point of the book. That humanity's time had ended and the new civilization had risen and Neville was the real monster from their point of view.

The script ended with Megalopolis blowing up at the heart of New York City.

>What are some interesting ones?
Justice League Mortal

You fucking pleb, it's literally the reason the title is "I Am Legend"

>Coen brothers' To The White Sea
>American gunner is shot down over Tokyo in 1942, survives the landing and begins to make his way North, in an attempt to reach Alaska. He leaves behind a trail of dead bodies, some killed in self defence, others in questionable desperation.
>Almost no dialogue after the first ten minutes.
>Written by David Peoples (adapted Blade Runner and wrote Unforgiven)
>Brad Pitt signed on to play protagonist
>this movie was never made
>mfw

what the fuck

>have an idea for a short film
>won't just sit down and write the script already

I'm a pleb at life

By your fellow students, who were probably oblivious dipshits.

Nobody was "called out", Nobody. There is no evidence because it was just you and fellow wastes of space kvetching.

Anyone who's seen Crimes and Misdemeanors or any appreciable number of Allen's films knows that his real interest in current affairs is pretty much zero. His films are about ethics, freedom, love, all the universal stuff. Nobody can really have expected him to "respond" except people who didn't like him anyway and wanted to use his "silence" as a criticism. Grow up.

This sounds like it would have been amazing

>halo movie
>turned into district 9

I lived through it and none of that shit made any sense even at the time. Why did everyone sperg out so hard over a fairly minor disaster?

Someone post the Dazzler movie

reee

Halo movie would be so easy to do, as no matter what all you would have to do is make the end a scene for scene remake of

youtube.com/watch?v=3rridXskgWg

with details changed to fit the context of the movie

Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune

>after making money making batshit insane cult films, Chilean director AJ^ got the rights to Dune.
>said he wanted to replicate the feeling of LSD with the movie.
>Hired Moebius to do the storyboard and character designs, H.R. Giger to design the Harkonnen Homeworld, Alex Foss to do architectural designs, and Dan O'Bannon to do special effects.
>Each Planet would have its own theme music, with Atreides planet being Pink Floyd, Harkonnen Planet being french prog rock group Magma
>Director cast his 12 yo son to be Paul, made him study shitton of martial arts for the role.
>cast David Carradine as Duke Leto, Salvador Dali as the emperor, Dali's girlfriend(?) as Princess, Mick Jagger as Feyd Rautha, Fuckin' Orson Welles to Be Baron Harkonnen.
>would have ended with Paul being killed, turning into a planet consciousness that converted Arrakis into an ocean planet, then flying through the cosmos to spread universal enlightenment.
>was pitched before Star Wars was a thing, would have cost 15 million in 70's US money at a time when only "realistic" stories sold, and would had been like 6-10 hours long.

-Whole thing flopped even with all the prep done, promises made etc.

-Giger and O'Bannon kept in contact, helped Scott make Alien.

-Jodorowsky used the ideas he got from the movies to make comic books, the most famous being "The Incal" and "The Metabarons"

why did you fucking remind me? it was probably too smart for executives

I can't find a good article on it but the Evangelion live action film ADV was going to make with Weta back in the day. It wouldn't have been good (especially with their budget vs. special effects at the time) but it would've been neat to see.

That said many of the ideas were moved to Rebuild so it's not a total loss.

>In 2012 there was a version in negotiation with director James Bobin and potentially starring Zach Galifianakis.[20]

sounds like Nick Cave was playing God of War

I really wanted to like Twixt but it was shit

>shot down over Tokyo
>landing
>begins to make his way North, in an attempt to reach Alaska

Are americans this bad at geography? I thought those meme videos were staged

I would watch the hell out of this.