For every iconic blockbuster, there are plenty of ambitious ideas that don’t see the light of day – these got further than most.
Some movies sound great on paper but don’t work out in actuality. Some do work, but frustratingly don’t get finalized and shown on the big screen. It’s not just Batgirl – here are a few other movies we wish had been completed.
Superman (Starring Nicolas Cage)
More specifically, this would’ve been called Superman Lives and would have been directed by Tim Burton. Millions of dollars were spent and development got farther than most others on this list, but Burton’s various difficulties with Warner Bros. and those he was working with eventually drove the project to be canceled.
Lord of the Rings (Starring The Beatles)
After A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, the fab four were on a roll in the world of cinema. They were fans of Tolkien’s book and wanted to make an adaptation long before Peter Jackson, with Stanley Kubrick directing and their own music backing them up. Certainly ambitious, it’s a shame the star power of the group couldn’t get it going.
Napoleon
Speaking of Kubrick, the man spent countless time and effort researching a biopic on Napoleon, even gathering dirt from the sites of the battles he fought. While studios weren’t interested, some of the R&D went towards Kubrick’s 1975 epic Barry Lyndon.
Giraffes on Horseback Salad
Salvador Dali and the Marx Brothers? What could go wrong? As it turns out, the wild ideas in Dali’s head had no logical progression, and the finished product would have been more of a dream sequence than an easy-to-follow hit film. While a graphic novel was created from the screenplay many decades later, it’s fun to imagine what this could’ve been.
Who Killed Bambi?
Since the aforementioned Beatles had a lot of success with films starring them, why don’t we try it with the Sex Pistols? The result would’ve been this. Legendary film critic Roger Ebert wrote the script, and it would’ve introduced the band to America (rather than a single or album). What a hell of an introduction!
Uncle Tom’s Fairy Tales
The iconic comedian Richard Pryor wrote and starred in this movie, which actually was made – but is lost to time. The plot isn’t known either, but it’s similar in some ways to Jordan Peele’s Get Out. A wealthy white man is kidnapped by a Black Panther-esque group and is made to answer for the atrocities of racism in America. Prescient stuff!
