'Real Life' movies that inexplicably remain unmade

Cafe Society
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Sometimes you see a news story, or a series of news stories, that you are sure will be quickly snatched up by Hollywood or the networks for entertainment purposes, but they never get made. I’m still waiting on the following movies/miniseries/eps of some LawnOrder clone:

The Susan MacDougal Story – her travails in prison as Ken Starr’s victim. Woulda thought Lifetime would be all over this one.

“I Was Barney Frankel’s Love Slave” Frankel was a wealthy investment advisor who got wealthy by talking people into giving him money to invest, then keeping it for himself. When he finally got busted, the cops found a mansion full of sexy female “assistants” whose primary duty seemed to be playing bondage and dominance games with Frankel. But they didn’t find Frankel – he skipped to Europe with one or more of his “assistants.” I think he finally got caught/turned himself in. One of his "assistants’ committed suicide and BDSM gear was found in her room, but they cops didn’t do much about it because she had a history of depression and suicide talk. We’re talking PRIMO material here.

“The Bondage Lawyer” – A Chicago lawyer was forced to issue a public apology when it was discovered he had a long history of talking job applicants into letting him tie them up and photograph them as part of the “interview” process. I don’t think he went to jail, but it was a pretty lurid story. Makes you wonder about legal jobs in general.

The Judicial Gag Order – A judge had to leave the bench when one of his female staffers accused him of maintaining a long relationship with her where he played bondage games with her. He was married, and not to her. Great Lifetime stuff.

I guess the “problem” with these as entertainments is that the perps didn’t actually kill or rape anyone. And with so MANY perps willing to go that extra step, I guess producers, directors and writers would rather stick with the old reliable serial killer plots. I personally am sick of the endless depressingly grim series of serial killer stories that Hollywood churns out and would like to see some different stories, but I guess I’m weird in that way.

Any other news stories that really OUGHT to be TV movies, but haven’t been?

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I saw an IMAX movie once about The Story of Flight. The bit about the Wright Brothers made me think their was a hell of a good story there waiting to be told.

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There have been several (good) documentaries on Shackleton’s polar attempt with the Endurance, but I don’t know if there has been any nondocumentatries. I heard a rumor that one was in the works, but haven’t heard anything in a while.

The guy who collected 1 zillion pudding cups to get the frequent flier miles is kinda cool, but may lack enought conflict to be a movie.

Brian

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Has the viewing public ever seen The Oprah Winfrey Story, The Monica Lewinski Story, or the Daniel Pearl Story? I don’t know if I’d watch any of these specials, but all three kind of seem like the stuff that could get made into two-hour television specials. And perhaps the stories of one or more of these people has appeared on television and I just don’t know it–except for the occasional episode of NYPD Blue or Star Trek, I don’t really watch that much television.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a Robert Blake special sometime in the next year or two.

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His story was adapted as a plot point in Punch-Drunk Love, starring Adam Sandler and Emily Watson. A strange but strangely nice movie, that one.

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I think they made a biopic about Shackleton’s adventures starring Kenneth Branagh which was released just a year or two ago – premiered on A&E or some other such cable channel IIRC. Increidble story, that’s for sure. Probably available on video.

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It’s a big can o’ worms, but I’d love to see somebody do an epic, balanced biopic of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Beware, I know Evil Captor’s game. Indeed…I know Evil Captor. DON’T I…DON’T I? You just want real life BONDAGE movies, eh? :wink:

Anyway, I can’t believe that with all of the ‘dead man walking’ and ‘life of david gale’ movies and the interest in forensics, that the story of Gary Dotson and Kathy Webb hasn’t been made. She falsely accused him of rape and he served seven years for it before she ‘found god’ and decided to let him off the hook. Amazing.

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Salon recently ran this story about an acclaimed South Korean film director and his actress wife, who were kidnapped by North Korea in the late '70s (the same time they were kidnapping Japanese citizens to teach their spies Japanese language and culture) and forced to make numerous propaganda films, including a Godzilla-like monster movie. I’d suggested to a friend of mine even before this thread appeared that it would make a fascinating and bizarre film (“like Misery meets Red Corner”). Among the wacky highlights:

– Kim Jong Il, now “Great Leader” of North Korea, has apparently been fascinated with film for decades, and wrote a guide for North Korea’s movie industry: “On the Art of the Cinema”. He has repeatedly sought foreign distribution deals for the 60+ films a year North Korea produces, only to be frustrated by the fact that… they’re all basically unwatchable.

– After the director, Shin Sang-Ok, was kidnapped, he spent four years in a labor camp, before meeting with Kim and learning the reason he had been taken. Kim blamed the imprisonment on his subordinates’ misunderstanding, and the fact that he’d personally been very busy (and you thought your last visit to the DMV was bad…).

I’d expect Hollywood to think the story was “too Korean”, and do an Americanized fictionalization (Steve Martin as the director? Julia Roberts as his wife, the diva actress? Cedric the Entertainer as a wacky, film loving African dictator?) but truly the truth here is much weirder than fiction.

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Well, yes you do know me, sex god that I am. :wink: And I must admit, there might have been some slight sampling error in the movie prospects I selected. But the thread is by no means confined to real life bondage movie prospects. If people want to suggest bizarre stuff like Shackleton’s adventures at the South Pole or the life of Martin Luther King Jr., well, who am I to stand in judgement? I believe in being open-minded and tolerant about such things. (Man, I wish they had a halo smiley.)

**Anyway, I can’t believe that with all of the ‘dead man walking’ and ‘life of david gale’ movies and the interest in forensics, that the story of Gary Dotson and Kathy Webb hasn’t been made. She falsely accused him of rape and he served seven years for it before she ‘found god’ and decided to let him off the hook. Amazing. **

Oh, yeah, that would be perfect Lifetime channel movie fodder. I see Christina Applegate as Kathy Webb and the kid who plays Superboy on “Smallville” as Gary Dotson. Title: “Error of Fate!” The trailer would have Webb saying, “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!”

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this is the sort of thing that makes you wonder … Hollywood loves to make movies about filmmakers. The way I see it, you could sell it as a sequel to “Bowfinger” with Stever Martin as the director as you suggest, and Heather Graham as his wife, kidnapped while making the sequel to “Fake Purse Ninjas” by a Micronesian island king who’s nuts about movies and wants to make movies that will make his island seem like a great tourist destination.

Plus of course, the kidnapping would have to involve tying up a naked Heather Graham. Possibly some tickling as well. Yeah, I think that would be necessary to make Heather’s character live and breathe, alrighty.

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I always thought a film about the Red Baron from WW I would make a great subject.

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Have they made any movies about World War 2 yet? If not, that’s great material.

In that vein, I’m really surprised no movies have been made about the Rwandan genocide and there have been only a couple about Cambodia’s (The Killing Fields is the only movie off-hand which I can think of). Maybe because it’s still a fresh blemish in our minds or because it wasn’t systematically cruel like the Holocaust but was more the country rising up against others and hacking them to death with machetes.

The beginning of the Rwandan genocide played like the beginning of a bad movie anyways. The presidents’ plane crashed suspiciously and the Hutus blamed the Tutsis and within hours had the capital roadblocked in numerous places and were beginning to slaughter the Tutsis.

Have they made any movies about the failed Everest expedition where numerous climbers were caught in a storm and would up dying? There might have been a TV movie about it, but I’m not quite sure.

–greenphan

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Perfect thread for me – I’m a big history freak, and I have a thousand awesome ideas for movies plucked from the dusty ol’ books. Makes me wish I was a big-shot mogul so I could get 'em all made. Anyway…

Aurelian – All about my favorite (severely underappreciated) Roman Emperor. Can’t you just see the cinematic possibilities: Bulgarian farmboy becomes powerful emperor, resurrects the rapidly declining empire, captures the beautiful and exotic Queen Zenobia of Palmyra (who I see as Isabelle Adjani), before being betrayed and murdered by his own men. The death scene, done right, would be Oscar worthy. Pitched battles, glorious triumphs, swell costumes, beautiful queens, heartbreaking betrayal. And the merchandizing! That’s where the real money is. Aurelian lunchboxes, Zenobia Barbie dolls…the possibilities are endless!

Justinian II – No, not the more famous Justinian I, this is the second Justinian, who is quite possibily the only emperor whose life is more cinematic than Aurelian’s. Cocksure teenager gains great power and is deposed and mutilated by jealous rivals. He flees to the Khazars and marries the (exotically beautiful, I’m sure) Princess Theodora, the sister of the Khazar khagan. She learns of her brother’s plan to murder her husband, and, after an agonizing scene in which she weighs her loyalty to her brother against her love for her husband, tells Justinian. He strangles the khagan with his bare hands, and he and Theodora have a son. Along with several loyal supporters, Justinian retakes his city by climbing through the aqueducts, then becomes emperor again with Theodora and their son, Tiberius, at his side. But then! betrayal from the Khazars, and Justinian is murdered. The last scene could be his mother Anastasia pleading in vain for mercy from his murderers, while little Tiberius seeks sanctuary inside a church.

Thoughts: both emperors have highly cinematic storylines, but Justinian’s comes complete with a romance, which Aurelian lacks. On the other hand, Aurelian wasn’t a psycho like Justinian, so it all balances out, I suppose. They’d both make awesome movies.

Gesualdo – Might make a great mini-series. Prince Carlo Gesualdo, musical genuis and madman, discovers his wife (and first cousin) in bed with another man. Flying into a jealous rage, he stabs them both to death, then flees to northern Italy to avoid persecution. There were rumors his second wife had him whacked. Sex, murder, mayhem, and great music.

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Has there ever been a movie on DB Cooper? There may not be enough story to tell, though.

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Here’s something I always thought would make a good movie, or at least a good video game: Depict what it probably would have been like if the U.S. hadn’t dropped A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and did an amphibious invasion of mainland Japan. That would have made Normandy look like a walk in the garden.

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I’m holding out for a movie about the Aroostook War. It’s got it all: lumberjacks, militiamen, President Martin Van Buren, and so on. Mel Gibson could play General Winfield Scott. Forget Korea- this is America’s real forgotten war. I guess Hollywood is put off by the fact that there was no actual fighting and only one casualty. But let’s face it, people will see anything as long as we can get Mel Gibson.

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nfm

EG

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Always wanted to see a film about the most famous event (at the time)–that crucial showdown that put Wyatt Earp’s name in newspapers across the country, that questioned his reputation, and made him a household name.

Not that thirty second shootout at Fly’s Photographic Studio (which was some distance from that whatchamacallit corral).

Rather his infamous decision as referee in the Sharkey-Fitzsimmons boxing match in, iirc, 1893/4/5/6, somewhere around there. Was he bought off? Some think so, some argue it was a fair call based on his judgement.

Sir Rhosis

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9/11?