For all the billions of dollars and years of work invested in making a movie,
things sometimes go terribly wrong. Here are some films that are out there somewhere,
on a shelf, but have never been released.
With a cast including Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Zach "Gremlins" Galligan, 1984's Nothing
Lasts Forever is the strange brainchild of Saturday Night Live alum Tom Schiller,
who wrote and directed the film, and the show's producer, Lorne Michaels. Due to unknown legal
issues, the film never made it to either the big screen or home release, though it's played
on German and Dutch TV and was granted a single unceremonious airing on Turner Classic Movies.
"You will get everything you want in your lifetime,
only you won't get it in the way you expect."
The film takes place in a Brazil-like surrealist world where the Port Authority
has actual authority over all of New York, underground hobos rule the world,
and Bill Murray is a bus driver who makes trips to the moon.
"Try to keep away from conceptual art."
The whole thing seems too strange to exist, but a trailer lives on YouTube,
and, if you dig long enough, you may be able to find an unauthorized copy of the whole thing.
Horror fans are serious about continuity, and the complicated mess of sequels, prequels, and reboots
released after Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre don't make it easy to follow. In 1998,
the director's son, William Hooper, added his own entry to the canon with All American Massacre,
a 1970s-set prequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 that has never been publicly released.
The film's biggest bonus is that it includes actor Bill Moseley reprising the role of Chop Top,
Leatherface's deranged brother. It also promised to delve into the origin story of the murderous
Sawyer family. Years later, William turned to Kickstarter to complete post-production,
but failed to secure the $8,000 funding — possibly due to the trailer that accompanied the campaign,
which struck some fans as amateurish. The film's Facebook page has gone from intermittent updates
to silence, so it's possible the film will never see the light of day. Meanwhile,
the franchise has migrated from studio to studio,
with the latest reboot, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, released by Netflix in 2022.
Conceived in the tradition of terrible 1980s college frat movies, Spring Break
'83 features a cross-section of stars from today and yesterday,
including a pre-Reacher Alan Ritchson, Erik Estrada, John Goodman, Morgan Fairchild,
Joe Pantoliano, and even Lee Majors from The Six Million Dollar Man. The plot centered around a
group of four friends who get their revenge after being bullied by the rest of their
high school graduating class. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know how they do it and
whether it's funny since production shut down because they weren't paying anyone.
After the plug was pulled, additional filming went forward a few months later
and director Mars Callahan told followers that his cut was complete. Big Sky Pictures'
now defunct website posted dozens of production photos and even a preview
of the beginning of the film, but to date, the film is stuck in limbo.
In 2012, Tom Hooper, the director of Les Misérables did something that seemed new
by recording the film's entire musical score live, with the actors singing on
set and without any fancy studio overdubs, even when they may have needed them. But Les
Misérables wasn't the first film to be produced this way. Take, for example, 2004's Temptation,
directed by Mark Tarlov, which we'll never get to see, even though it employed actual singers.
Temptation featured an all-star cast of Broadway notables like Adam Pascal from Rent,
as well as future Avatar, Star Trek, and Guardians of the Galaxy star Zoe Saldana.
The rock opera is reportedly a musical interpretation of the Faust legend,
mixed with a murder mystery and a sprinkling of surrealistic animation.
The film was only shown once, at the 2004 New York Musical Festival,
but producers claim to want to finish the film, despite director Mark Tarlov's death in 2021.
Dutch director Richard Raaphorst's horror film, Worst Case Scenario, is about an army of German
zombies that rises from the dead to exact revenge against England over a devastating soccer loss.
Allegory? Maybe. But whatever its merits, it's unclear how much of the movie actually exists.
Filming began in 2004, but only a little footage has been seen, mostly in a couple
of popular trailers. In fact, the official promo was nominated for a 2006 Golden Trailer Award,
and some zombie fans dubbed it the best trailer they'd ever seen. Unfortunately,
it's likely the trailer is all we'll ever see of the movie. The production was canceled in 2009.
If there's a lesson to be learned from Batgirl, it might be that no property
is safe from the whims of studios, even a proven multimedia franchise like Batman.
"Batman speaking."
Warner Bros. Discovery dropped $90 million to bring Batgirl to movie screens. It was
loaded with talent, including Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon; J.K. Simmons as her dad,
Commissioner James Gordon; Brendan Fraser as the villain, Firefly; and Michael Keaton,
who reprised his role as Batman. With Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah behind the camera,
it seemed, at least on paper, that Batgirl was headed for blockbuster status.
But something went wrong. Warner Bros. Discovery canceled plans to release the film to theaters or
even broadcast it on Max. The move was shocking, given that Batgirl was still in post-production
at the time of the decision. No official reason was given for the move, though industry experts
have pointed to several allegedly negative test screenings and the potential tax write-off for WBD
to drop the expensive project. There are currently no plans to release Batgirl to any platform.
Sorry, Aaron Taylor-Johnson: you aren't the first live-action incarnation of Kraven the
Hunter. An unnamed actor played the formidable Spider-Man foe in a 1974 fan film produced by
students at New York University. The short, titled Spider-Man versus Kraven the Hunter,
was a 30-minute color film shot on 16mm by Bruce Cardozo {kar-DOH-zoh}, who would
later provide visual effects for The Avengers and Thor.
Cardozo's film drew on The Amazing Spider-Man #15, which kicked off Kraven's long run as a
Spider-Man adversary. According to those who saw it, Kraven was faithful to the tone and
look of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's comics, and even featured extensive visual effects
that allowed Joe Elliott's Spider-Man to crawl up buildings. The finished product
was so good it earned a thumbs-up from Stan Lee and played at comic book conventions for decades.
Kraven won Marvel's support but not its financial backing or distribution rights. As a result,
the film languished in Cardozo's personal collection until his death in 2015. Reportedly,
the only known copy of the film was stored on Cardozo's computer, which was destroyed
around the time of his death. Currently, it exists only as a handful of screenshots.
After several hits with low-budget martial arts films like Bloodsport 2, siblings and producing
partners Alan and Diane Mehrez set their sights on the mainstream market. They sunk $5 million
into a gangster-themed comedy-drama called The Good Life and hired a cast of familiar faces,
including Dennis Hopper, Andrew Dice Clay, mob movie vets Frank Vincent and Tony Sirico,
and Frank Stallone, who also corralled his brother, Sylvester, into a cameo.
But the film was in trouble from the start, and after only 15 days, unions picketing
the largely non-union crew shut the film down. The production was moved from Miami,
Florida to Ixtapa, Mexico, where things only got worse. Titanic, which was filming nearby,
ate up the local resources. Eventually, several members of the cast and crew were fired,
and the water traps on a golf course location were teeming with crocodiles.
Still, the Mehrezes finished The Good Life and released a promo
reel that prominently featured Sylvester Stallone.
"You wanna dance, you gotta pay the band, you understand?"
This displeased the action star and his brother, who filed back-to-back lawsuits
against the producers totaling $50 million. A settlement was reached, but The Good Life never
saw a theatrical release. Currently, a brief 17-second clip is available to view on YouTube.
What happens when you bring together two Oscar-nominated actors, a pair of
acclaimed Saturday Night Live writers, and a producer whose list of credits includes
everything from Fast Times at Ridgemont High to Yellowstone? The answer is "disaster," that is
if you're talking about Arrive Alive, a 1990 comedy starring Willem Dafoe and Joan Cusack.
Produced by Art Linson and written by SNL vets Michael O'Donoghue and Mitch Glazer,
the film was intended as a vehicle for Bill Murray, who would have played a low-rent
detective investigating a complex scheme involving a Florida Native American tribe.
"What are you looking for in a movie?"
"Well, you know, you want manners. You really do. You guys, there's gotta be manners involved."
According to Glazer, Murray passed in part due to the film's violent content — one
scene involved a killer whale biting off its trainer's head — and Dafoe took over as lead.
Three weeks after the start of production, Paramount pulled the plug on Arrive Alive.
Sources differ on the exact reason, but the studio allegedly wanted to
change the tone of O'Donoghue and Glazer's script by adding more slapstick elements.
Dafoe was reportedly uncomfortable with a broader approach and left the production,
leading to its cancellation. Regardless of the reason, Arrive Alive exists today
only in script form, although a YouTube video claims to include three stills from the film.
The thin line between passion project and vanity film was underscored by Chinese real
estate mogul Jon Jiang when he set to making the fantasy feature Empires of the Deep.
Conceived as the start of an epic franchise like Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings,
Jiang sunk the equivalent of $130 million into the film, which concerned a battle between
mermaid kingdoms and a demonic warlord. Jiang used his deep pockets to initially
attach The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner and Italian actress Monica Bellucci.
Piles of money can buy talent but it can't make them produce under impossible circumstances.
Language barriers, dangerous conditions, and constant, illogical script changes dictated
by Jiang caused several directors and actors to quit the production, which was ultimately
credited to three separate filmmakers. Worst of all, a trailer was broadly mocked online for its
subpar special effects and incomprehensible plot. Empires failed to find distribution,
despite costly reshoots and a massive crowdfunding campaign, and remains unreleased,
though Jiang insisted as late as 2016 that the film was ready for distribution.
Hoping to rebound from a string of costly flops like the late 90s film Mercury Rising,
Bruce Willis signed on as both star and producer of Broadway Brawler in 1997. The film,
intended as a sports-themed romantic comedy a la Jerry Maguire, featured Maura Tierney as
the love interest to Willis' washed-up ice hockey champ, and Oscar winner Lee Grant
as director. The $28 million project had all the hallmarks of a hit until Willis pulled the plug.
After 20 days of filming, Willis fired Grant, cinematographer William A. Fraker,
and several others over dissatisfaction with their work. Dennis Dugan, who directed
numerous Adam Sandler comedies, was brought on to replace Grant but lasted just a day before the
project was abandoned. Twenty-five years later, Broadway Brawler remains unfinished and unseen.
Though often cited as one of the greatest filmmakers in motion picture history,
Orson Welles frequently struggled to complete his projects, and in many cases,
failed to even get them off the ground. His uncompromising artistic vision and mercurial
personality led many financiers to withhold or pull support for his work. As a result,
Welles left many unfinished projects after his death in 1985. Some, like The Other Side of the
Wind, were completed by collaborators, while others, like The Deep, remain uncompleted.
An adaptation of the novel Dead Calm by Charles Williams — which was made into a film with Nicole
Kidman in 1989 — The Deep starred Welles, Jeanne Moreau, and Laurence Harvey as ocean voyagers
drawn together by murder and deception. Welles directed the film on a sailboat off the coast of
Yugoslavia between 1966 and 1969. But financial and technical problems prevented Welles from
completing production, and the death of Harvey in 1973, along with the loss of the original
negative, torpedoed any chance of salvaging the project. Other than clips included in the
1995 documentary Orson Welles: One-Man Band, The Deep has gone unseen for more than five decades.
In the mid-1980s, late night television viewers in certain markets had their senses assaulted by
a commercial for Blood Circus, an ultra-low-budget feature that appeared to mix professional
wrestling, aliens, bargain basement gore, and a rock singer shrieking about gold jewelry. The film
was a vanity project from Santo Victor Rigatuso, a notorious figure in the as-seen-on-TV market,
who created Blood Circus as a promotional vehicle for his Santo Gold jewelry line.
"The Santo Gold heavyweight championship wrestling belt is awarded to the winning
tag team in the new science fiction space wrassling movie comedy Blood Circus.
Santo Gold was the subject of numerous federal cease-and-desist orders for the
outlandish claims made about the jewelry, which was essentially gold-plated metal.
Rigatuso reportedly spent a fortune on Blood Circus, but failed to land a distributor for
the film. Reviews that called the picture incomprehensible probably didn't help. Still,
Blood Circus played for a week at several theaters in Baltimore before disappearing,
although clips are available on YouTube. Rigatuso, who later spent time in prison
for mail fraud charges, continues to promote Blood Circus through his ramshackle website.
Few animated features have had a streak of bad luck like DreamWorks' Me and My Shadow. The
film began its convoluted existence in 2010 as a comedic fantasy tale about a human who discovers
that his shadow has a life of its own. Conceived as a mix of traditional hand-drawn animation and
CGI, Me and My Shadow landed Josh Gad and Bill Hader to voice its human and shadow heroes,
with Kate Hudson as Gad's love interest. Initially slated for a 2013 release,
Shadow was pushed to 2014 to make room for the release of
Mr. Peabody and Sherman. When that film flopped, the troubles began.
"I don't want this one, Mommy. He's sarcastic."
DreamWorks Animation underwent a massive restructuring that saw the loss of 500
jobs and the cancellation of several animated projects, including Shadow.
But the story didn't end there: Edgar Wright revived the project in 2015 and
wrote three drafts of a new script before Comcast bought Dreamworks and
ordered another round of restructuring. In a cinematic case of collateral damage,
Shadow was canceled for the second and final time. Approximately 12 minutes of
test animation and concept galleries are all that remain of the movie.
Though its title suggests a sequel to 1999's 10 Things I Hate About You,
the 2012 romantic dramedy 10 Things I Hate About Life was, in fact, a stand-alone film made by
some of the same creatives responsible for the 1999 movie, including director Gil Junger and
producer Andrew Lazar. Evan Rachel Wood and Thomas McDonnell were cast as the despondent
lead characters who find a reason to live in each other, and funding came in part from a
pair of independent companies, the U.K.-based Intandem Films and Mad Chance Productions.
Filming began in late 2012 but was halted in early 2013 when Intandem
chief Gary Smith stepped down as the company faced financial losses. However,
in conversations with industry press, Smith's replacement, Robert Mitchell, cited Evan Rachel
Wood's pregnancy as the reason for the shutdown and claimed production would resume in 2013.
By 2014, the only active component of 10 Things I Hate About Life was a lawsuit filed against
Wood by Intandem for breach of contract after she left the film before completion. Wood fired back,
saying that Intandem had failed to pay her. The standoff resulted in the demise of the movie,
which exists today only as a trailer and production photos. A 30-minute segment,
screened for potential investors at the American Film Market in 2013, appears to
have disappeared without a trace, though the original screenplay surfaced online in 2022.
An unlikely partnership between Jamie Foxx and Ken Jeong resulted in not one but two
unreleased feature films. Oscar winner Foxx and Afterparty 2 star Jeong announced an informal
collaboration in 2012 that would involve each appearing in a film that the other wrote:
Foxx would star in Jeong's comedy After Prom, and Jeong would co-star in Foxx's
All-Star Weekend. Jeong's film appears to have vanished — there's no information
about it after 2013 – while All-Star Weekend was completed in 2016 and slated for a 2018 release.
But the comedy, which stars Foxx and Jeremy Piven as NBA obsessives, was shelved for the
indefinite future, despite having A-listers like Robert Downey, Jr., Eva Longoria,
and Benicio Del Toro in the cast. It's possible that some of the film's humor contributed to
its status. Coverage of the film noted that Downey played, quote, "a Mexican" in the film,
while Foxx, who played multiple characters, appeared as a, quote, "white, racist cop."
When asked about Weekend by Cinemablend, Foxx said,
"We're trying to break open those sensitive corners where people go back to laughing again."
What Foxx meant by "sensitive corners" is unclear,
but All-Star Weekend is in limbo for the time being.
Randy Quaid was still a beloved, Oscar-nominated character actor in 1999,
when he teamed up with Michael Caine and Catherine McCormick to star in The Debtors,
a comedy about individuals with addiction issues. The film had only a handful of
screenings, which generated such a negative response that the project was shelved.
The decision to pull the plug on The Debtors was reportedly rooted in a conflict between Evi Quaid
and software billionaire Charles Simonyi, who invested more than $12 million into the project.
"Don Bigbucks. Chance wanted me to sit in for him."
Simonyi was apparently displeased with some of the film's content,
including a fairly graphic sequence at a concert featuring the German industrial band Rammstein,
and won an injunction against the Quaids that prevented them from releasing the film.
The Quaids, who'd invested more than $3 million of their own money in The Debtors,
were forced to declare bankruptcy, marking the beginning of years of personal and professional
downfalls. Though The Debtors has gone unseen since the injunction, the Quaids attempted
to make the film available via the streaming platform DaCast. More recently, it was listed
on the Indian streaming service Binged, which noted that the film is "not streaming in India."