Everyone loves a good scare, but that hasn't much helped these long-lost horror projects.
What went wrong with World War Z?
Will Guillermo Del Toro ever catch his white whale?
Keep watching to find out.
Back in 2014, Warner Bros was actively looking to expand their Shining universe, subsequently
developing two projects simultaneously.
One was Doctor Sleep, the sequel to the original based on the book by Stephen King.
The other was a prequel tentatively titled The Overlook Hotel, written by Walking Dead
showrunner Glen Mazzara and set to be directed by Mark Romanek.
The basis for Mazzara's script for The Overlook Hotel was King's supplementary work on the
history of the haunted hotel, titled Before the Play.
The short book offers a quick summary of the horrific events that have taken place at the
Overlook since its construction, focusing in particular on the very first family to
stay at the hotel.
"I wish we could stay here forever, and ever… and ever."
The tone of the script found a perfect soft spot between Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick,
honoring both fathers of The Shining.
This script pulled no punches, either: 30 pages in, a child chokes to death on the hotel's
opening night while a terrified doctor-in-training tries to perform an emergency tracheotomy.
This scene was so extreme, in fact, that it shook off Brad Pitt, who was being courted
for the lead.
When Mark Romanek joined the project, he envisioned something even grander that went back further
into the history of the hotel, which Mazzara described as equal parts The Shining and The
Revenant.
But that version never even made it into a finished script before Doctor Sleep was greenlit
— and The Overlook Hotel was shelved.
When 28 Days Later was released in 2002, it changed the game in many ways, contributing
heavily to the zombie's reclaimed spot in the pop culture zeitgeist.
The story is simple enough: a rage virus outbreak leads to most of Britain being overrun by
a terrifying breed of speedy zombies.
While it wasn't the first movie to feature numerous sprinting zeds, Danny Boyle's raw,
fast-paced, post-apocalyptic horror movie was a seismic shock to a post-9/11 audience,
as was its 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later.
Both Boyle and writer Alex Garland have kept themselves busy since its release, the former
with a Methuselah feature and the latter with an under-wraps Civil War picture, but they've
been teasing a third 28 movie for over a decade now.
Boyle hinted to Slashfilm as early as 2008 that he wanted a sequel, hinting that it would
be set in Russia.
At the time, the rumor mill had The Cottage director Paul Andrew Williams attached to
direct, before Garland squashed any notions of a new entry in 2012.
But in a 2015 interview with The Playlist, Garland said:
"About two years ago, Danny started collaborating on the potential to make Trainspotting 2,
another sequel.
In that conversation, an idea for 28 Months arrived.
I had a sort of weird idea that popped into my head.
[...] I had this thought, and I suggested it to Andrew and Danny, but I also said I
don't want to work on it [...] and Andrew said, 'Leave it to me.'
So he's gone off and is working on it."
Basically: never say never for 28 Months Later.
For most of Hollywood history, horror movies have acted as the backbone of the industry,
since they can be made on the cheap and frequently put meat in seats.
In 2013, however, Paramount Pictures decided to take a big swing with World War Z, a mega-budget
zombie blockbuster that ranked as the most expensive horror movie ever made.
While production on director Marc Forster's film was famously messy and required significant
reshoots, the very loose adaptation of Max Brooks' novel of the same name managed to
bring in $540 million worldwide.
That being the case, work soon began on a sequel — but it languished in development
hell for some time, with various filmmakers becoming attached and then departing over
the years.
The situation hit critical mass when star Brad Pitt convinced his Fight Club collaborator
David Fincher to sign on to direct World War Z 2.
Understandably, this move garnered some serious attention and brought a great deal of renewed
interest to the project.
Unfortunately, further delays and studio hesitance resulted in the project being shelved for
good in 2019.
Fincher and Pitt have certainly kept themselves busy since, but the actor teased in 2019 that
they had a "really good story" and that:
"The things [David Fincher] had planned for it just hadn't been seen yet."
In 2009, it was announced that Rob Zombie was set to write and direct a remake of the
iconic 1958 horror movie The Blob.
Years passed without any update on the project, until Simon West emerged as Zombie's replacement
in 2015.
Zombie reportedly walked from the project because he didn't feel comfortable moving
forward with another remake after his experience on Halloween and Halloween II.
According to Zombie:
"Everyone talked about what it wasn't and not what it was: 'You can't do that with Michael
Myers; you can't do that with Loomis...'
It's like people have a set of rules in their minds about how these things should function,
and you can't work like that."
In 2018, artist Alex Horley shared concept art that was unlike any blob attack ever put
to screen, featuring zombie blob monsters, towering monoliths, and whole seas of decaying
bodies.
It's all wildly different from anything in the original or its 1988 remake, featuring
all of Zombie's sleazesploitation signatures — right down to a bride blasting blobs with
an assault rifle.
Two of the most recognizable horror villains are the unstoppable Michael Myers and the
Cenobite leader, Pinhead.
"Welcome… to hell."
While Dimension Films owned the rights to both the Halloween and Hellraiser franchises,
they had two different crossover treatments in the works.
Unfortunately, the studio didn't think such a production would be a lucrative investment,
so they dropped the idea altogether.
Doug Bradley, the man under the pins in almost every Hellraiser film, told Your Move Magazine
that, after Freddy vs Jason proved to be profitable, Dimension decided they wanted their own crossover
after all.
As Bradley tells it, Clive Barker was committed to writing the script with none other than
John Carpenter reported to direct.
So why didn't it happen?
According to Bradley, the Akkad brothers, who produced Halloween, retained control over
any sequels to their movie and simply nixed the idea altogether.
We may never know exactly why they objected, but momentum waned and eventually, Dimension
lost the rights to both franchises.
Still, maybe this is for the best.
While both franchises are certainly over-the-top, it's hard to imagine this pairing working
out.
Michael Myers may arguably be evil incarnate, but his ambiguous mortality is one of the
series' greatest strengths.
To pit him fairly against a supernatural Cenobite would require a definitive and arguably unwelcome
upgrade for the infamous Haddonfield slasher.
Still, it's borderline tragic that the world lost a possible Barker-Carpenter collaboration,
leaving us wondering what might have been.
"Do you know what Haddonfield is?
Children.
Families, all lined up in rows up and down these streets.
You're telling me they're lined up for a slaughterhouse?"
"They could be."
Before Blumhouse brought the Halloween sequel trilogy to life and reintroduced scream queen
Jamie Lee Curtis back into the world of Haddonfield, we had Rob Zombie's Halloween remake, and
its sequel, Halloween II.
Despite mixed reviews from fans and critics alike, both films performed well at the box
office, and Dimension Films felt like they had a money-making venture on their hands.
Halloween II came out in 2009, the same year as another slasher release, My Bloody Valentine
3D, which was also financially successful.
This got longtime Halloween producer, Malek Akkad, and Dimension Films thinking about
a potential Halloween 3D.
Rob Zombie had already declined to return for a third film, so screenwriters Todd Farmer
and Patrick Lussier of My Bloody Valentine 3D were commissioned to pitch the sequel.
The goal was to continue the world of Zombie's remake while melding it with John Carpenter's
original, and the script was written in just eight days.
Four days into production, the Weinstein brothers, who owned Miramax and Dimension at the time,
pulled the plug on the project, having basically run out of money.
These constant delays inevitably forced Lussier out of the director's chair, but in 2011,
The Weinstein Company announced a 2012 release despite having no director, no new script,
and no actors attached.
The movie was scrapped for good when Dimension lost the rights to Halloween in 2015.
Horror fans are well aware that it's been a long time since they've seen Jason Voorhees
on the big screen, with the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot marking the last appearance of
the iconic slasher.
While the movie was fairly successful at the box office, taking in $91 million, a sequel
never got off the ground — despite being publicly touted for quite some time.
But before the ongoing, messy lawsuit over the franchise rights curbed any chance of
seeing another round of Jason-led mayhem, several pitches for a follow-up came pretty
close to happening.
The first idea that producers seriously considered was a found footage movie for what would have
been the 13th entry in the franchise, with the news initially surfacing in 2013.
However, the public reaction to this idea was so bad that it killed the project altogether,
according to a 2015 statement from producer Bryan Fuller.
Sadly, Jason would not be chasing the found-footage trend.
Another idea came from screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift back in 2017.
The duo revealed several pages for a script titled Friday the 13th: Camp Blood — The
Death of Jason Voorhees.
This movie would have seemingly brought Jason's story to a close while also taking place during
winter, meaning we would have seen the killer in the snow for the first time.
Alas, the movie never came to pass, and now the franchise is tangled in a messy web of
litigation that will likely prevent anything from happening until it is good and truly
settled.
In the 1990s, zombie movies were still a relatively niche subgenre that had yet to find mainstream
appeal.
So when Sony decided to adapt the hit video game series Resident Evil into a movie, they
hired the man who had almost single-handedly brought zombies to the big screen: George
Romero.
Romero's series of zombie movies have inspired entire generations of filmmakers, and he himself
is responsible for many of the tropes we now relate to the walking undead.
"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth."
As such, Romero and Resident Evil sounds like a match made in horror movie heaven.
Romero even went as far as to write a screenplay for the adaptation, which curious fans can
still find online.
Unfortunately, the people in charge at Capcom weren't big fans of the script, and since
they own the games, they were able to quickly kill the project.
Romero's version hewed much more closely to the source material than the later Paul W.S.
Anderson series; it was less action-packed and more horror-driven, opting to stay inside
the dilapidated manor from the first video game instead of running around an underground
facility.
It also focuses heavily on Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, two characters from the
games who wouldn't get any screen time until the Resident Evil sequels.
While the Anderson films are certainly a lot of silly fun, it would have been fascinating
to see what the Godfather of the Dead would have done with this legendary franchise.
Director Guillermo del Toro is a master of fantastical horror, so it's no surprise that
one of his longtime passion projects has been an adaptation of the H.P.
Lovecraft novella, At The Mountains of Madness.
In fact, del Toro has been trying to get this movie made for more than fifteen years.
The story follows university geologist William Dyer and his team on an expedition in Antarctica,
where they uncover fantastic and horrific ruins of a terrifying and ancient civilization.
After del Toro departed The Hobbit in 2010, it was announced that Universal Pictures was
looking to make his Lovecraft adaptation as a 3-D film starring Tom Cruise and produced
by James Cameron, but that never came to fruition.
Sadly, the studio considered a $150 million budget for an R-rated film too big of a financial
gamble.
Del Toro later revealed that At The Mountains of Madness was one of the first films he pitched
to Netflix after signing a multi-year deal with the company back in 2020, potentially
bringing a 15-year dream to life.
As it stands today, the movie is still del Toro's white whale, with no apparent movement
on the project.
Lovecraft's work isn't the easiest to adapt to film, of course, but if anyone can make
it happen, it's Guillermo del Toro.
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