Often movie studios will commission the writing of a script but ultimately decide not to use it. (Sometimes they never intended to use it in the first place.)
Sometimes, when trying to come up with an idea, they’ll dig out their Big Box of Unused Scripts and find something they like.
Once upon a time I found one of those lists the internet loves, in this case it was a half-dozen or so movies that were originally written for one franchise but ultimately used in another. The cool hook of the list was that it formed a loop: each movie on the list was originally written for the franchise of the previous entry, until you got to the end which connected to the beginning.
Sadly, I can only remember three of those. So my goal here is to see if you all can help me complete the list, though please feel welcome to just contribute movies that fit the pattern, even if they don’t fit the list.
I am willing to accept some sketchy references here. For my three, the only source is my vague recollection, although 2 are confirmed in the Trivia section of IMDB, which is less trustworthy than Wikipedia.
Here’s my starters:
Die Hard With a Vengeance was considered as a possible Lethal Weapon 4
Speed 2: Cruise Control was written as Die Hard 3
Under Siege 2: Dark Country was written as a sequel to Speed.
So what I’m looking for is a movie originally written as a sequel to Under Siege, and so on until we get to a Lethal Weapon movie that was written as something else.