The greatest films never made

Eddie Constantine in Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville

I learn from Richard Brody's new book Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard, that prior to settling on Alphaville with him, Godard wanted American expat tough-guy portrayer Eddie Constantine to play the lead role in an adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend.

The mind fairly boggles at the notion: Jean-Luc Godard's I Am Legend, starring Eddie Constantine.

What are your favorite unrealized movies, in the mode of this, or, say, David Lean's Nostromo? There are hundreds out there, for sure...

On a side note, it's pretty droll how Lou Reed has turned into such an Eddie Constantine lookalike in recent years, no?

Comments

[bill]

Wow. That would have been...something. I'll go ahead and admit to not being, for various reasons, much of a Godard fan, but I still would have seen the hell out of that movie, had it ever come to pass.

As far as unrealized movies, this one was a hoax, but a few years ago the Internet claimed that at one point Orson Welles was planning on making a Batman movie. Like I say, it was a hoax (which I knew before I even read the "article", which was filled with little clues, as I remember), but even so...

And speaking of Welles -- and not unrelated to the above for other reasons -- am I remembering this wrong, or did he at one point kick around the idea, however weakly, of doing "Dracula"?

[Dan]

I have to disagree, Glenn, great casting aside that sounds like a dodged bullet. Part of that is simply personal preference but it's difficult for me to see Godard doing anything INTERESTING with it. More like we'd see Ben whittling a stake for an entire damn reel.

As for "lost films", my personal favorite is actually a total hoax. You might remember the story going around a few years back that Orson Welles wanted to follow up "Citizen Kane" with "Batman", and that it fell apart over casting disputes (i.e. Welles wanted to play Batman). I knew it was BS the moment I read it but the idea of Orson Welles making a Batman movie just makes me smile, somehow.

[Dan]

Oh, and bill? Stop reading my mind. :-)

[Glenn Kenny]

Yeah, that was pretty spooky. But neat.

As for Welles' 'Dracula," it was a Mercury Theater radio production. Recounting it to Peter Bogdanovich, Welles said, "'Dracula' would make a marvelous movie. In fact, nobody has ever made it; they've never paid any attention to the book, which is the most hair-raising, marvelous book in the world." That aside, I can't find any evidence that Welles ever tried to make said movie himself...

[Mike De Luca]

I feel I must temper the two Godard sidechecks with a bit of high-sticking. As someone who loved the bleakness and setting of "Alphaville", with its modernist architecture and claustrophobic corridors, I feel a Godard "I Am Legend" would have been a rather chilling, stark, monochromatic vision of the apocalypse. It would have certainly topped the latest incarnation, and Godard would not have allowed the film SPOILER to turn into a commercial for Jesus. And don't get me started on the gag involving Bob Marley's last album. And yes, Eddie Constantine and Lou Reed. The resemblance is disturbing.

[Mike De Luca]

Oh, and Glenn, have you heard of the Swedish garage rock band Lemmy Caution Strikes Back? They kick ass.

[bill]

Wow, Dan, that was creepy.

As for what you say about Godard (again, this is for Dan), I know you're exaggerating with the "whittling for a reel" comment, but something in that vein is exactly what a film of that novel needs, and has never gotten. Something to really drive home the solitude and periods of boredom, without being showy about it (like the mannequins in the most recent version).

My own concern would have been that every so often he would have periodically inserted clips news clips of Che Guevara, and, I don't know, Turtles concert footage, or something.

[bill]

Oh, and Glenn, regarding Welles' "Dracula" -- that's right, now I remember. I also remember, in that Bogdonavich book, Welles saying that he wished someone like Polanski would make it. Again, that doesn't really count as an actual unrealized film, but...

As for one that DOES count, I would have really liked to see Charles Laughton's "The Naked and the Dead". Or, really, ANY follow up to "Night of the Hunter".

[Matt Miller]

And for an actual Welles unrealized project that would have counted, I have to go with the first-person "Heart of Darkness" that he planned, pre-Kane.

[Tony Dayoub]

David Lynch's Ronnie Rocket.

Also, it'd be interesting to see what different direction Mulholland Drive would have gone if Lynch had sold the pilot to ABC, as originally planned.

[bill]

Supposedly, Lynch was going to turn "Ronnie Rocket" into a graphic novel (or perhaps simply a "comic book"), but I heard that a long time ago, and to my knowledge nothing has come of it.

[Glenn Kenny]

Aaaargh, 'Ronnie Rocket.' The non-realization of that one actually hurts, whenever I think about it...

[bill]

Speaking of ones that hurt: the Coen Brothers' "To the White Sea". Which, incidentally, I still have hopes of seeing one day.

One of the biggest, if not THE biggest, stumbling blocks for "To the White Sea" was the fact that it would have been virtually silent. After watching "No Country for Old Men", I thought that it functioned as a sort of dry run, because there are long stretches of that movie with no dialogue at all. With a hatful of Oscars to show everybody, maybe the Coens can one day get that one off the ground.

As for "Ronnie Rocket", I still have hopes for that one, as well. With "Inland Empire", Lynch seems to be kissing off all the traditional ways of getting movies made and distributed. Since I believe he's still passionate about "Ronnie Rocket", maybe he'll find a way.

Anyway, I can hope.

[Dan]

Mike, I've got to ask..."commercial for Jesus?" You can't leave me hanging like that, details, man, details!

For the record, I personally liked the movie. The third act was a little stock, and CGI when you could go practical is always a bad idea, but Smith hands in an excellent performance and I really liked Francis Lawrence's work as well.

[Mr. Pete]

Aronofsky's Batman, which he was planning on doing in B&W, shot handheld, sounded great to me.

[Matt]

Dan and Mike, have you seen the alternate (i.e. original, replaced-after-test-screenings) ending yet? As drama it's merely adequate, but it completely changes the meaning(s) of the film and feels much more like a natural continuation of what's preceded it (and it's no longer remotely a "commercial for Jesus" - the butterfly is still significant, but this time it's used for a moment of unexpected empathy rather than Signs-esque "everything happens for a reason" bullshit, and the film basically allows Neville's "There is no God!" to stand unchallenged).

The difference between the 2 cuts is particularly interesting if you think of them as competing Iraq allegories, with the creatures as "insurgents" and Neville as the occupier trying to give them what he thinks they need. (It's telling that the 2 cuts diverge right after Neville's line "I want to help you! Let me help you!") Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I really feel like it's there if you look for it; they could almost have released them as the Red State and Blue State versions.

All of which has nothing to do with the greatest films never made. Hold on, I'll think of something...um...

Guy Maddin's The Dikemaster's Daughter probably would've been interesting, 'cause when is he not interesting? Also Jodorowsky's Dune, with (if Wikipedia's to be believed) Mick Jagger as Feyd and Orson Welles as the Baron, among others.

[tk]

I wish Stanley Kubrick had made his adaptation of Wartime Lies, the Louis Begley novel about an aunt and nephew fleeing the Nazis in Poland. When I first heard about in the early 90s, it was apparently going to star Julia Roberts. Since I'm not that huge a Kubrick fan, I think I really just miss the making-of footage of Kubrick and Roberts trying to work together. I'm thinking Shelley-Duvall-in-the-Shining, turned up to ee-LEV-en.

[tk]

I wish Stanley Kubrick had made his adaptation of Wartime Lies, the Louis Begley novel about an aunt and nephew fleeing the Nazis in Poland. When I first heard about in the early 90s, it was apparently going to star Julia Roberts. Since I'm not that huge a Kubrick fan, I think I really just miss the making-of footage of Kubrick and Roberts trying to work together. I'm thinking Shelley-Duvall-in-the-Shining, turned up to ee-LEV-en.

[bill]

Speaking of Aronofsky - his adaptation of Theodore Roszak's "Flicker". That one might still happen, too! I have faith!

[Matt]

Kubrick! That reminds me...Spielberg's A.I. was so ambitious-yet-flawed (it'd be one of his best movies...if it *worked*) that I can't help but pine for what Kubrick would've made of it had he hung onto it and seen it through to the end (not that he would've lived long enough to anyway).

[Dan]

Matt, I did see that ending and to be honest: I loathed it and it marks one of the few times that those audience surveys were actually RIGHT. I liked the idea of the "darkstalkers" as being more human than we think, but it just doesn't fit with the rest of the film (not to mention being a rather ripe wedge of cheese). I thought the ending they went with wasn't great, either, but of the two bad options, I'll take that one.

[I.F. Stone]

Kubrick's Napoleon.
Kubrick's Blue Movie.
Dumont's Untitled End of the World/Detective Procedural.
Kerrigan's In God's Hands.
Coppola's Keitel Apocalpyse Now.
Zemeckis' Stoltz Back to the Future.

[bill]

Kubrick's "Aryan Papers".

As for the ending(s) of "I Am Legend", if you took both those endings, smooshed them together, and removed/added a few elements, you'd have the ending of Matheson's book.

[bill]

Which (regarding Matheson's ending), I hasten to add, is what they should have done.

[Matt]

Dan,
I agree that the original ending has its shortcomings. I just think it makes for interesting viewing in light of current events: the 2 cuts offer very different answers to the question "Why don't they see that he's trying to help them, and stop attacking him?" In the rejected ending, the answer is "Because he's actually hurting them." He gives up his "prisoner" and gets the hell out of Baghdad, I mean New York. In the theatrical version, the answer is "Because they're fucking bloodthirsty maniacs who can't be reasoned with! You can't help them; blow them all to hell!"

The rejected ending also, for whatever it's worth, echoes the ending of the original novel, not in terms of plot events but in terms of what Neville realizes about himself and his enemies. Not that that would automatically make it good (I happen to think the novel falls apart toward the end), but it's another reason why I can see the filmmakers originally wanting to go there.

I admit I'm also giving it bonus points just because I'm a dirty heathen who was overjoyed to see the "God works in mysterious ways" crap purged from the climax. If the rejected version had been the only one I'd seen, I imagine I'd've liked it less. But as an alternative to what I'd already seen, it was...refreshing, and it helped me articulate what my problems with the theatrical ending were (even as it's got problems of its own).

[Bill C]

I'm fairly certain that Tim Lucas' face just melted at the prospect of a Constantine/Godard I AM LEGEND. Myself, I really don't see how it couldn't be more interesting than either of the book's three adaptations.

I tend to think of unrealized projects as be-careful-what-you-wish-fors in the wake of GANGS OF NEW YORK, but I'll chime in with Altman's BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS (with Sterling Hayden as Kilgore Trout) and Cronenberg's BASIC INSTINCT 2.

[bill]

I really like "Gangs of New York", so most of these are painful to think about.

[Matt]

Now and then I wonder if David Lynch would've done a better job with Return of the Jedi than he did with Dune. I know Lucas would've kept him on a pretty short leash (which I believe is why he opted not to do it), but I think he would've brought out some interesting and different qualities in the actors, if nothing else. And maybe he could've shoehorned Dean Stockwell in there somewhere, as the Emperor or something.

(Yes, I know he didn't work with Stockwell before Dune, so that idea doesn't really make sense. Let a man dream...)

[D Cairns]

Richard Lester's Flashman (Britain's most-decorated coward in Alfghanistan), Send Him Victorious (near-future right-wing take-over of Britain), Victory (Conrad adaptation scripted by Pinter.
More Pinter: Joseph Losey's Proust film.
Sam Fuller's The Lusty Days (Civil war epic).
Alexander Mackendrick's Mary Queen of Scots (the storyboards exist), Rhinoceros (with Peter Sellers and Peter Ustinov).
Robert Hamer's A Pin To See the Peepshow.
Ken Russell's Beethoven, Clockwork Orange, The Angels, Moll Flanders (apparently back on).
Hitchcock's Mary Rose, Kaleidoscope-Frenzy.
Clouzot's L'Enfer (about an hour of cut footage exists).
Ophuls' Modigliani.
Leone's Seige of Stalingrad.
Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, The Defective Detective, etc

[Griff]

Altman's production of RAGTIME.

[Tim Lucas]

I would have loved to see an Eddie Constantine I AM LEGEND. The thought of him driving around an empty Paris, swigging scotch off the shelves of abandoned bars, and socking it out with rubber-fanged vampires is enough to make me suffer an exquisite sense of loss. Just knowing that this one project never happened is enough to confirm what I have always said: that the power of cinema is in the wrong hands.

There was also talk in the early 1980s of Amos Poe directing a remake of ALPHAVILLE, with King Crimson's Robert Fripp and Deborah Harry in the Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina roles.

Another great unmade movie: TERMITE TERRACE, Charlie Haas' script about the behind-the-scenes realities behind the invention of the great Warner Bros. cartoon characters, which Joe Dante tried to get financed for years.

My Mario Bava book describes a wonderful unmade project of his called ANOMALY. A spaceship encounters a vast mural in space adorned with the likenesses of terrible creatures. The ship ventures through an opening in the mural, disturbs a powerful force within and makes its getaway... but the figures on the mural come to life and pursue the ship as it journeys earthward. I can't imagine the third act of such a piece, but the first two acts sound more compelling than the storylines of most of the films Bava actually made.

[bill]

You know, with some of these, I ALMOST half-wish that some other filmmaker would pick up the gauntlet. I know somebody did that with Welles's "The Big Brass Ring". I haven't seen it, and I don't have much doubt that I'm not missing anything, and I realize that these dead projects are best left alone (if the filmmaker is no longer around, anyway), but a very small part of me wants to see these movies made anyhow. Like "Anomaly". I mean, what the Christ? I want to know what the hell happens now!

[Bill C]

I like GANGS OF NEW YORK, too, lower-case Bill, I just think, after 25 years of Scorsese talking it up, its mystique preceded it. I guess I should've saved myself some trouble and said TOYS, though.

[bill]

Well, that's true. "Gangs of New York" does get better on multiple viewings, after you're able to shake off your expectations.

But, yeah, "Toys" is a better example. Much better...

[Tony Dayoub]

I would have liked to have if seen Tim Burton's Superman starring Nicolas Cage. Didn't sound promising, but an interesting failure to be sure.

Also John Boorman's Lord of the Rings for much of the same reasons.

Godfather IV which I had heard talk of Coppola doing, if III had succeeded, structured as a parallel to part II. It would have contrasted Vincent's consolidation of power, with Michael's "resignation" filling in the gap between II and III with Pacino playing his actual age at the time.

Hey, maybe Coppola (

[bill]

"...and I don't have much doubt that I'm not missing anything..."??

Sigh...

[Tony Dayoub]

Didn't finish that last thought.

Hey, maybe Coppola deliberately sabotaged III by casting his daughter? His disdain for the franchise was well documented.

[Stephen Bowie]

Peckinpah's "Summer Soldiers," written by Robert Culp and S. Lee Pogostin (the writer/director of "Hard Contract").

Just a tip: if you're reading about Jerry Schatzberg's (DP: Vilmos Zigmond) un-released Dandy, The All American Girl, play Can's Bel Air, from Future Days. They go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

[lazarus]

I second the mention of Leone's Stalingrad, and I suppose we'll have to settle for Tornatore's Leningrad, which is supposedly in the works. At least he's using Morricone.

Also, no mention of Welles trying to shoot Heart of Darkness in POV as his first film for RKO?

[Dan]

Matt, I think a lot of people shortchanged the film because it wasn't the exact ending of the book (and we'll be here all day if you get me started on "fans" who shred anything that isn't a word-for-word adaptation)...but when you look at the movie? It's closer than it might seem at first glance.

The "darkstalkers" are NOT animals. What do we see in the film? That they are capable of logical thought (they set a trap and bait it), that they can form a society and emotional attachments, and that they can form a plan and execute it. Are they what we would describe as rational? No, but, then, neither is Neville, and they have excellent reason to view him as a threat: he's been picking them off one by one, and when they find out where he is, they act quickly with a strategy to hit him where he's weakest and overwhelm his defenses. They are, essentially, cavemen; not technologically advanced but dangerous to underestimate.

Of course, then you've got that whole "Where the hell did they find the floor plan of his house and the information about his defenses" problem, but we're not talking about screenplay mechanics right at the moment. :-)

[Griff]

Schatzberg's DANDY, THE ALL-AMERICAN GIRL was shown at Cannes in 1976. A year or so later, MGM very gingerly released it as SWEET REVENGE; it also aired on pay-cable under that title in the late '70s.

[bemo]

Cronenberg's Basic Instinct II, you say? How about Total Recall? If I remember correctly, he went onto Naked Lunch(?), so not much lost, considering that eXistenZ is a much more multi-layered confection if what he worked with was the basic 'is he, or isn't he?'

And Lynch's Monroe biopic.

I have a thing for Davids.

[Evan]

For me, it has to be Scorsese's adaptation of Nick Tosches' Dino. I seem to remember hearing that Tom Hanks might have played Dean Martin. That might have been pretty amazing...

[Jack]

Confederacy of Dunces.

[Kent Jones]

THE CREW (Antonioni - great script), GENESIS (Bresson), THE CRADLE WILL ROCK (Welles - nothing to do with that crummy Tim Robbins movie), BEYOND THE AEGEAN (Kazan), THIEVES LIKE US (Rowland Brown), any one among the many Cassavetes projects that didn't get off the ground, SCHINDLER'S LIST (Billy Wilder).

[Kent Jones]

And let's not forget the collaboration between Renoir and Brecht that almost came to pass.

[Lou Lumenick]

Hitchcock's TITANIC
Capra's THE FORTY DAYS OF MUSA DAGH
ETHAN FROME with Davis and Crawford

[Aaron Aradillas]

Considering what finally got made, I think I would've liked Ratner's Superman over Singer's. Hell, Bay's Superman would've at least MOVED.

Just tryin' to keep it real.

In all seriousness, I would happily donate my life savings towards Scorsese's Dino or Lee's Jackie Robinson Story. Also, I seem to recall Woody Allen wanting to do a jazz biopic of Coleman. I know very little about jazz, but I would love to see Woody Allen do a real biopic.

Finally, Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards would be nice to see one day.

[Jordan]

We've yet to see if Wendell Harris will ever complete a second film, but his idea for Negropolis, an epic satire that would take place in ancient Rome except the ruling elite would be black and the slaves white is the most inspired idea I've ever heard of that never had a chance at seeing the light of day. Harris wanted Howard Stern as a Jewish Alexander the Great and Oprah Winfrey as Cleopatra, while reserving the film's lead role the emperor Canigula, (yes you read that right) for himself. There's no way that would not have been great.

[Glenn Kenny]

Man, you guys are rocking my dream world.

What can I add? Bunuel's "Lord of the Flies." Bunuel's "Johnny Got His Gun." All of Vigo's unrealized projects, particularly what would have been his Simenon adaptation, "L'Affaire Saint Facre."

Bertolucci's "Red Harvest."

A very recent one: Scorsese's "Frankie Machine," starring Robert DeNiro, from a Koppelman/Levien screenplay.

[matt lynch]

A coworker of mine and I enjoy coming up with hypothetical projects and then discussing what they'd be like. Our two recent favorites were both Dr. Seuss adaptations: Aleksandr Sokurov's "The Lorax" (which we maintain could actually be a viable project) and Peter Watkins' "The Butter Battle Book".

[Stephen Bowie]

Frankenheimer's version of Revolutionary Road, or the adaptation of Styron's Lie Down in Darkness that he hired Richard Yates to write, which would've starred Henry Fonda & Natalie Wood (it fell apart when one or the other of them noticed the incest angle). Or the version of Breakfast at Tiffany's that Frankenheimer almost made with Marilyn Monroe -- boy, would I rather have that than the Blake Edwards.

Altman's "Death, Where Is Thy-Sting-a-Ling-A-Ling," written by Roald Dahl and to have starred Cary Grant.

Hitchcock's "No Bail For the Judge," for Audrey Hepburn and Laurence Harvey, or "Mary Rose" (from J. M. Barrie), for Tippi Hedren, post-"Marnie."

The third film in Robert Towne's projected "Chinatown" trilogy, the one that was supposed to end (if memory serves) with it snowing in Los Angeles.

[D Cairns]

Bunuel's The Beast With Five Fingers,
Robert Florey's Frankenstein (with Lugosi)
Preston Sturges' Invisible Man treatment...
Apart from the Bunuel, I'm glad we got the films we got, but I wouldn't mind seeing the alternate world versions.
Raoul Ruiz wants to make Jekyll and Hyde...

[Kent Jones]

Didn't Buñuel have a hankering to do UNDER THE VOLCANO? Michael Powell was very close to doing THE TEMPEST with James Mason and A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA. Tarkovsky, if I remember correctly, came close to doing HAMLET in Monument Valley. One of the most famous unmade projects is Dreyer's JESUS.

[Owain Wilson]

Andy Kaufman's THE TONY CLIFTON STORY.

James Cameron's SPIDER-MAN.

The originally intended RETURN OF THE JEDI, as described by departing producer Gary Kurtz.

Also, in reference to the very first post, there are test photos of Orson Welles in the Batman costume. I saw them ages ago but can't remember where.

[bill]

David Mamet's Jekyll & Hyde film, "The Diary of a Young London Doctor" (or something like that). I also heard something about a Victorian-era serial killer film that Mamet was working on called "Sleight of Hand".

[Lord Henry]

Peckinpah, or Kubrick's, version of ONE EYED JACKS (Brando fired them both before taking over as director). Terry Gilliam's WATCHMEN.

[Matt Miller]

"Also, in reference to the very first post, there are test photos of Orson Welles in the Batman costume. I saw them ages ago but can't remember where."

Yeah, and I saw the original Return of the Jedi ending where Lando died.

Welles' Batman was a hoax perpetrated by comic book writer Mark Millar about 7 or 8 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles_Batman_Hoax

[Matt Miller]

"Terry Gilliam's WATCHMEN."

I was wondering how long it would take for somebody to bring that up. Personally, I've never understood the appeal. Gilliam's aesthetic and themes are completely antithetic to those of Watchmen--Gilliam excels at putting interiority on the screen, and there's almost none of that in the comic.

As far as Watchmen goes, though, no offense to Zack Snyder, but I'm disappointed we didn't get to see Paul Greengrass' take on the material.

[Graig]

David Mamet's remake of HIGH & LOW starring Steve Martin would have been fascinating, I bet. Or maybe not. Still, I would have been there opening day.

[Dan]

I'm disappointed Greengrass didn't get a shot at "Watchmen" myself. Although don't sell Gilliam short: I think he would have been able to pull it off.

[bill]

I'd never heard about Mamet remaking "High and Low". That's one of my favorite films, so leave it alone, I say, but as far as remakes of great movies go, that does sound awfully interesting. If for no other reason than to get Martin working with Mamet again.

Speaking of Kurosawa remakes, whatever happened to Jim Sheridan's remake of "Ikiru", written by Richard Price and starring Tom Hanks?

[Bill C]

I'll add (or second? I've lost track) David Lynch's ONE SALIVA BUBBLE (which was to star Steve Martin). Funny script.

Also, Fincher's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III.

[Owain Wilson]

I strongly suspect that in three weeks I could add the Frank Darabont script of INDIANA JONES IV to this list.

[Dan]

@Matt Miller

You missed a real lost film in that Wikipedia article: Orson Welles' "The Shadow?" Oh man. OH MAN. What we lost when that didn't get funding.

[Dave Kehr]

Harry Waldman published a book with McFarland in 1991 called "Scenes Unseen: Unreleased and Uncompleted Films from the World's Master Filmmakers, 1912-1990." It's full of tantalizing glimpses, complete with script excerpts in some cases, of unrealized projects from a wide range of filmmakers, from Paul Fejos to Yasujiro Ozu. There's a fascinating account of Max Ophuls' 1941 adptation of Moliere's "School for Wives," which was interrupted by the star, Louis Jouvet, when he learned that Ophuls was sleeping with his mistress, Madeleine Ozeray. And then there is Josef von Sternberg's 1937 "I, Claudius," an adaptation of the Robert Graves novel that was to have starred Charles Laughton and Merle Oberon; 20 minutes of footage survives and can be seen in the British documentary "The Epic That Never Was."

[koppelman]

Flicker by Aronovsky? I hadn't heard that rumor, but I'd love to see the film. Hell of a book.

[C. Jerry Kutner]

For me, the greatest films never made were Eisenstein's version of AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY, and the Charles Laughton version of THE NAKED AND THE DEAD (mentioned above) in which Laughton was going to collaborate with Stan Brakhage (!) on certain sequences. Add to the list Alfred Hitchcock's MARY ROSE, the Garbo/Ophuls collaboration on THE DUCHESS OF LANGEAIS (planned as Ophuls first color film), and that Alain Resnais project, THE MONSTER MAKER, with a screenplay by Stan Lee!

[Campaspe]

Marcel Carné's La Fleur de l'âge, started and never finished, all footage lost.

[josh]

Bob Fosse's Chicago.

Billy Wilder's Catcher in the Rye.

Peter Bogdonovich's Lonesome Dove, starring John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Henry Fonda. I can't recall where I read about this, but McMurtry originally wrote the story as a script for Bogdonovich. The film fell apart when Wayne left the project. This would've been in the mid 70s...

I liked Gangs of New York, too, but I would love to see the version Scorsese envisioned in the late 70s, when he wanted to treat it as a science fiction story, with Malcolm McDowell starring.

[bill]

This thread is making me sad.

[Mike Keegan]

Wasn't there an attempt by Terrence Malick to film 'Blood Meridian' in the early 80s?

That Altman 'Breakfast of Champions' makes my head hurt.

[chris_wells]

Wasn't Kerrigan's IN GOD'S HANDS completed, only for the negative to be destroyed in a house fire? That's especially tragic.

[josh]

Didn't Altman want to do Angels in America, too?

[bill]

"Wasn't there an attempt by Terrence Malick to film 'Blood Meridian' in the early 80s?"

I just got sadder.

[Glenn Kenny]

Before we get ahead of ourselves, I need to put in a correction to Mike's comment: the indeed ghastly adaptation of Vonnegut's 'Breakfast of Champions" he saddles Mr. Altman with was in fact the work of Altman's one-time protege Alan Rudolph. Whatever Altman might have had to answer for, that film should not be inaccurately added to the aggregate...

[Joel]

During my freshman year of college, I went to a Q and A with Tony Kushner and asked about the (then-upcoming) Altman adaptation. He mentioned that they had written a scene together in which Roy Cohn orders his limo driver to run down Jane Fonda when they see her on the street. Also, I like Breakfast of Champions, but I'm an insufferable Rudolph fanboy. Forgive me.

[John]

Lean's NOSTROMO, for sure, but even more his two-part, Robert Bolt-scripted epic story of the mutiny on the Bounty. Part 1 was gonna be called THE LAWBREAKERS, part 2 THE LONG ARM. Lawbreakers was eventually adapted by Bolt into the script for the Mel Gibson / Anthony Hopkins film THE BOUNTY, and it's really good, but...

What else? Bernardo Bertolucci's adaptation of RED HARVEST. (I wonder if MILLER'S CROSSING was'nt inspired in some way by this...BB talked a lot about his plans in a 1983 interview.)

Sam Peckinpah's film of Stephen King's original screenplay, THE SHOTGUNNERS.

John Milius' CONAN THE KING, LeMAY, MANILA JOHN, GERONIMO, and THE VIKINGS.

Scorcese directing Paul Schrader's script GERSHWIN. Schrader's script about Hank Williams. And Schrader's first draft of Close Encounters, which was called KINGDOM COME, sounds really, really interesting, based on the descriptions I've read--kinda CE3K meets MISHIMA, if you can imagine that. I'd like to see it as a TV movie or something....

[Mike De Luca]

And will we ever see Steve McQueen's
"Yucatan", or is the rediscovered project currently languishing in development hell?

[Joel]

Miller's Crossing has to have been inspired by the possible Bertolucci Red Harvest. The scene with Tom being taken back to the woods by the Dane is an homage to The Conformist, right down to the opera-singing dude taking a piss and the sound of creaking tree branches. I never realized WHY they referenced Bertolucci, but I do now.

[Kent Jones]

BLOOD MERIDIAN was written in 1985, and it doesn't seem like Malick's kind of material. There is a mythical film for which he shot so much footage in the early 80s and subsequently abandoned. He also wrote a brilliant script to have been filmed in German about Freud and Breuer called THE ENGLISH SPEAKER. The McCarthy novel has been eyed by many filmmakers (Mike Nichols owned it for a while). I think it's essentially unadaptable.As a friend of mine puts it, it lives on the page.

RED HARVEST dates back to the early 70s. I read the script once, and I thought it wasn't so terrific. Strangely, despite the fact that it's been the "inspiration" for so many movies, that's another unadaptable novel.

[gorilla Bob]

Speaking of Malick, he was working on a version of "The Elephant Man." Project was dropped when Lynch came out with his movie.
The Jodorowsky Dune, with Mick Jagger & sets by Salvador Dali. This never happened, but it certanly sounds like more fun than the Dune that did happen.
Bob Clampett was working on an animated version of John Carter of Mars. Too bad that never happened, but I can dream...

[Owain Wilson]

A faithful adaptation of Ian Fleming's thrilling novel, MOONRAKER, would have been a truly awesome late Sixties Connery-era Bond movie.

[Lord Henry]

Re: BLOOD MERIDIAN. I could be wrong, but I think Tommy Lee Jones has had the rights for years. After THREE BURIALS...I'd be interested in seeing his take on that material.

I second the vote for David Gordon Green's A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES.

[C. Jerry Kutner]

Malick wanted to do a Jerry Lee Lewis biopic - it eventually became GREAT BALLS OF FIRE, but without Malick or his screenplay.

I'm sure the Carl Dreyer JESUS would have been great, but the dream Dreyer project I really wish could have been made was his adaptation of Faulkner's LIGHT IN AUGUST.

3 potentially great films that weren't made because the director died - Leone's STALINGRAD, Eisenstein's IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART III, and Welles's KING LEAR.

[Preston]

'The Alien', a short story by Satyajit Ray that he was going to shoot with Colombia Pictures starring Marlon Brando and Peter Sellers before it was hijacked from him by a hollywood 'agent'. The original story was about an extra-terrestrial that befriends a boy in a Bengali village. Ray was sure that Spielberg's 'E.T.' would not exist if the script hadn't circulated so widely in Hollywood 10 years or so before 'E.T.'s release.

While we're at it, Ray's take on 'Gandhi' would be pretty amazing.

[Matt]

Please tell me that Marlon Brando was the extra-terrestrial and Peter Sellers was the boy.

[John]

Kent,

Man, I'd love to read that script for RED HARVEST. Too bad BB did'nt make that in 73 or whatever...it would've been Conformist meets Milius' Dillinger, or something...which is, uhm, kinda Miller's Crossing, come to think of it.

I'm not sure if I agree it's unadaptable, but I do think a straight-up direct adaptation of it would be a little pointless by now. As you pointed out, it's pretty much been so thoroughly strip-mined by filmmakers over the 20th century (Kurosawa, Leone, Bertolucci, Milius, the Coens, most of Warner Brothers output from 1930 to 1958, and the entire genre of Film Noir)that a film of the novel would feel very familiar to many people. Still, Bertolucci's take on it as a struggle between capitalism and socialism and a way to explore the American labor movement is intriguing.

[John]

Oh, and just remember: for decades, THE NEW WORLD was a lost, unmade Malick project too. Jack Hill claims Mailick wrote it as they were finishing up DAYS OF HEAVEN and that he would urge Malick every time he'd see him, "Do the Pocohantas movie!!!" So maybe someday we'll see THE ENGLISH SPEAKER (how did I forget that? That's another script I'd love to read / hope to see filmed) and NOSTROMO, and all these others too.

[Kent Jones]

John, I like Hammett but I think RED HARVEST is unadaptable for the simple reason that it's so skeletal: unlike his other novels, it's bare bones, like reading a theorem. Which means that in order to adapt it, you have to transform it.

I remember the script being passable, notably absent of any baroque flourishes on the one hand and political excavations on the other. Probably a first pass.

[John]

Hey Kent

I agree reg. Red Harvest's minimalist qualities. (Among all the people who have been inspired by it, I forgot to mention Walter Hill, who's Last Man Standing is Red Harvest by the most roundabout way possible--a remake of Leone and Kurosawa's unofficial adaptations!!!) I defer to Mr. Jones, whose essay on Big Wednesday is the best appreciation of that wonderful film I've ever encountered.

I'm looking at on old paperback copy of Red Harvest from 1972 on my bookshelf as I type this...I'm going to have to read it again! : )

Returning to the The Great Unmade: I got to read the famous unmade script Harrow Alley one time (it was in a film school library under the bizarre title "Newgate Prison's Condemned Keep", beleive it or not)and honestly? People would ask me, is it really the greatest script ever, ect ect...And I would find myself shrugging. It's good, no question, but did'nt quite live up to it's rep. Read like a cross between "Witchfinder General" and "Gangs Of New York".

[John Touhey]

Robert Bresson's "Genesis" is the great heartbreaker of unfilmed projects in my opinion. I was waiting and waiting for that film to be made--argh!!! I wonder if Bresson's widow will ever allow the script to be published? I'd be curious to read exactly what he had in mind.

[bill]

"I got to read the famous unmade script Harrow Alley one time... It's good, no question, but didn't quite live up to it's rep. Read like a cross between "Witchfinder General" and "Gangs Of New York'."

But...that sounds like the greatest thing ever.

[John Touhey]

There was a short-lived screenwriting magazine called "Scenario" in the mid-90's. They published Walter Newmann's "Harrow Alley" script in the Fall 1995 issue (volume 1, no. 4). It's definitely worth checking out. In my opinion, the script is a masterpiece. Beautifully drawn characters and an engrossing plot. It's my understanding that Emma Thompson was attempting to produce the film, but she was doing a script rewrite.

Another great, unrealized film: Andrei Tarkovsky's adaptation of "The Idiot," originally intended to be split into two films.

And Akira Kurosawa's "Runaway Train."

[don lewis]

I don't have anything to add (except to echo bill's sentiments at how damned depressing this all is) except to say Ridley Scott is doing BLOOD MERIDIAN and that's not something I'm terribly excited about.

And also to echo someone's earlier comment: why the hell NOT make some of these screenplays that are just lingering about? I mean, is it politics or what? Apparently original ideas that require funding are few and far between but why not go back and pull some of these scripts from development hell? Lame.

[Lord Henry]

Hmm, Ridley Scott's BLOOD MERIDIAN? With a screenplay by William Monahan, I see. Not sure what to make of that. Could go either way.

[Kent Jones]

John - thank you.

John Touhey - I've read GENESIS. It's about 30 pages long, and it's fascinating, but extremely minimal. Bresson also had another film he was going to make after L'ARGENT called LA BELLE VIE. If my memory is correct, it was (like most of his later fillms) about young people.

There are piles of "legendary" unproduced scripts out there, but I don't think anyone's going to be digging them up and filming them. Film scripts are such site-specific organisms. They need momentum behind them. And as Alexander Mackendrick says in his book, they aren't written, they're re-written.

[Stephen Bowie]

Walter Brown Newman discusses "Harrow Alley" at length in William Froug's terrific book of interviews from the early 70s, THE SCREENWRITER LOOKS AT THE SCREENWRITER, which may have helped perpetuate the legend of that screenplay. The first director seriously attached to it was Huston, and then George C. Scott owned it for a while. It's a black plague epic that Newman also described as "autobiographical."

[Joe Valdez]

Terrific post, Glenn, with lots of tremendous reader feedback. Of the abandoned projects mentioned, David Fincher's "Mission: Impossible 3" intrigues me the least, the Coens' "To The White Sea" the most.

I would have loved to have seen "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" with Peter O'Toole as Holmes and Peter Sellers as Watson, even if it had been a musical as Billy Wilder first conceived it.

"Lonesome Dove" directed by Peter Bogdanovich at his mid-1970s career peak, with John Wayne (Gus), James Stewart (Woodrow McCall) and Henry Fonda (Jake Spoon) in the leads would have been a classic as well.

[Dan]

Don, the reason Hollywood doesn't go back to these screenplays is usually the reason they didn't get produced in the first place: either it's hard to see how it'll make money and therefore, no chance, or whoever owns the rights won't let them go for a sum considered reasonable. Honestly, I think sometimes it's better to let them lie; "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" was absolutely brilliant, until they made it.

[Lord Henry]

Peckinpah's version of Robert Sabbag's SNOWBLIND.

Check out David Weddle's Peckinpah biography, IF THEY MOVE, KILL 'EM, for an hilarious anecdote recounting Peckinpah's "wooing" of potential financiers in South America.

[Lord Henry]

Sorry to be obsessively posting on this, but I've just remembered a good one -- Donald Cammell's proposed production of Marlon Brando's original screenplay, JERICHO.

The screenplay was good, but defiantly eccentric. As one would expect, I suppose.

[Kent Jones]

Lord Henry, I assume you've read FAN TAN, the novel written by Cammell based on Bradno's ideas for a story about pirates in the China Seas.

[don lewis]

Over at Movie City News there's a link to a story about how Mick Jagger wanted to play Alex in John Schlesinger's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The Beatles also wanted to do the soundtrack. Sometimes it's good certain things don't get made...

[Lord Henry]

I gave that one a swerve, Kent, when it first came out. Is it worth a look?

As a long-time Cammell fan (yes, even WILD SIDE), I've been patiently waiting for DUFFY to appear on DVD. Still hasn't happened.

Never mind, though, there's always Richard Stanley's THE BONES OF THE EARTH, based on a Cammell script, to look forward to!

[bill]

You mean like the "Lord of the Rings" film starring the Beatles?

[Kent Jones]

I've never read FAN TAN myself, but I have it. I'm sure it's interesting.

Didn't the Stones begin and then abandon a film about the trial of Oscar Wilde, with Jagger as Wilde?

[Dan]

Whoa, whoa, wait, back up. Lord Henry, Richard Stanley? Doing a Cammell script? Seriously! Wow. Please tell me this is actually SHOOTING and isn't just seeking funding.

[Lord Henry]

Sorry to get your hopes up, Dan, but according to IMDb it looks like THE BONES OF THE EARTH is on hold while Stanley concentrates on getting another project set up beforehand. The Cammell script it's based on is called THE CULL, apparently.

[Dan]

...Damn. Stanley is one of those directors who never got a fair shake. I picked up the five-disc "Dust Devil" DVD Subversive Cinema put out last year, which is essentially Stanley's entire filmography in a case. "Devil" is a flawed film but a pretty stunning one regardless.

[bill]

Hmm...I've had "Dust Devil" in my Netflix queue for a long time, but I haven't, up to now, been able to work up much enthusiasm for it. Maybe I'll give it a whirl soon.

[Dan]

"Dust Devil" is definitely unique. It never found a wider audience because it was too gory for the art film crowd and too artistic for the gorehounds. But it sticks with you, if you let it in.

[bill]

Then let it in I shall!

[bill]

David Cronenberg's "London Fields". That one, apparently, is officially in the crapper, as I've just heard that David Mackenzie now has the rights to the novel.

That's a pisser.

[Lord Henry]

The Auteur David Mackenzie (I've always wondered, How many bad films are you allowed to make before you are no longer an auteur?) also has the rights to Georges Simenon best book, THE STAIN ON THE SNOW. What an appalling vista.