Producing a film is a massive risk for the studio and all those involved in the shooting process. That’s, of course, unless the movie is a safe bet, like a sequel to Star Wars or the Avengers. Sometimes the risk is not justified, and the film fails, and sometimes, on the contrary, it becomes a hit for no apparent reason.
There are also some projects that have not been given a fair chance and get stuck in development hell, so the world will never know what would come out of them. Do we really need Forest Gump 2 or Superman Lives with Nick Cage? I guess we’ll never find out.
So here are nine potential hit movies that were never made.
1. Mortal Kombat 3
Although the critics didn’t exactly love the first Mortal Kombat, the audience liked it. Even today, it’s considered a classic. The sequel turned out to be much worse than the original, and everyone hated it. But guess what, they’d already planned the third part only to realize that “Annihilation” was a box office failure. They even had the first draft of the script! Alas, the world will not see that masterpiece.
2. Halo
Gamers have been waiting for a high-quality adaptation of their favorite games. And so one day, Microsoft decided to transfer their legendary Halo series to the big screen. They got a great writer, and producer, but the movie studios could not agree with Microsoft on the work process. As a result, the Halo movie got trashed, but years later, we still got the mini-series.
3. World War Z 2
The first film had its issues: the script was rewritten a bunch of times, there were problems with the police, and the production budget went overboard. After the movie had moderate success at the box office, it was decided to shoot the sequel, which we were supposed to get in 2019. So what happened? They could not find a screenwriter or director; the lead actors had scheduling issues, and so on. No World War Z 2 for us, I guess.
4. Spider-Man 4
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is loved by many fans and critics much more than the Amazing Spider-Man or Disney’s Spider-Man. But this series was not planned as a trilogy. The director signed a contract with the studio, and they managed to persuade Toby Maguire to put on the superhero costume once again, but then the production hell began. The project fell apart after Toby and Kirsten couldn’t come to the set, the script was still full of holes, and in the end, Sam Raimi simply left.
5. Superman Lives
In 1998, Tim Burton was due to begin filming a solo movie about Superman with Nicolas Cage in the titular role, but after a year of preparations, the studio closed the lid on it. Cage was the most upset since he was a massive fan of Supes. He even named his son Kal-El!
6. Forrest Gump 2
A movie about Forrest’s son and his adventures in the 90s? Yeah, sure, I’d watch that. But the reason why we never saw it was because the script was finished on September 10, 2001. Yeah, that’s some horrible timing. It’s still not officially canceled, but it has been almost two decades.
7. Kill Bill Vol. 3
Quentin Tarantino wanted to do the third Kill Bill, but he never went through with the script. Probably because there was no script aside from the one in Tarantino’s brain. At least we know it would be about the Bride’s daughter, avenging her mother.
8. Harley and Joker
After the quite controversial success of the Suicide Squad, DC planned to put Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and Jared Leto as the Joker into a movie filled with some crazy shenanigans. Instead of that, we got Joaquin’s Joker and Birds of Prey, so that’s a win!
