Adam Sandler’s tribute to Chris Farley on SNL last week got me thinking. Farley was slated to star in a biopic of Fatty Arbuckle as his first serious role, but obviously never got the chance. I really would love to see that movie. That and the John Belushi version of Ghostbusters.
So what are your choices for greatest missed opportunities and unmade masterpieces in film?
Jodorowsky’s Dune would have been very interesting, although from the documentary I’m not convinced it would have a good film.
I really think Heath Ledger was a great actor and had some really great roles left in him. His death at a tragically young age was an artistic loss.
Guillermo del Toro’s version of At The Mountains Of Madness got started and scrapped a couple of times. I don’t think it will get made.
And, for that matter, I would have very much liked to have seen del Toro’s version of The Hobbit.
Citizen Kane was not Orson Welles’ first choice for his feature film debut. He had wanted to film an adaptation of Heart of Darkness. Welles was going to play the protagonist Marlow (no surprises there) and the entire movie was going to be filmed from Marlow’s point of view. So Welles while would be the center of the movie, he would hardly appear - he would only be seen in occasional reflections.
RKO felt the idea was too experimental (and the proposed budget was too high) so they passed. Welles came up with the more conventional proposal for Citizen Kane instead.
I was going to say Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, but it finally got finished (and was released in the USA about a month ago).
Do these have to be movies that somebody actually attempted or planned to make, or can they just be movies that we wish existed but they don’t?
Because in that latter category, I nominate a really good CGI adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World with Stephen Fry as Professor Challenger and Hugh Laurie as Lord John Roxton.
For decades there was talk about a Keith Moon biopic, with Mike Myers to play Keith. The movie never got off the ground, and Mike is too old now.
Similar to the OP’s, Lou Costello was at one point considered to star in a biopic of Fiorello la Guardia, a downright dramatic, non-comedic role. But he died relatively young.
I still want to see I, Robot with Harlan Ellison’s script and good CGI, dammit!
id of loved to see the movie of the alienist that other than a tiny preview never happened for some reason
There is nothing I enjoy more than a gigantic clusterfuck of a movie, so definitely Superman with Nick Cage.
A Confederacy of Dunces
One Moon was stopped because Townshend would not allow his songs to be used in the movie. That may have been a different movie.
I read that Nolan planned to keep Joker around as a recurring villain. He was apparently tired of comic book movies where the bad guy dies at the end, and bring in a new one for sequels.
me too on that one yeah,
I remember at the end of Keaton’s Batman …the big gasps was joker died …
people were actually pissed …
I was really hoping to see a “Star Man 2” just so I could find out what those marbles are for.
Well, it would be ridiculous to do a movie about Keith Moon without using Who songs.
Besides, since Pete already sold out to the CSI franchises it’s rather hypocritical.
The greatest movie we will probably never see?
“The Day The Clown Cried”.
I was/am disappointed the movie ‘The Last Full Measure’ is not going to be made. It was to be the third in a civil war trilogy. ( ‘Gettysburg’ and ‘Gods and Generals’ being the other two )