A movie takes a lot of work. It requires hundreds, if not thousands, of people working towards a common goal. It can take years to go from pre-production to official release.
Sometimes, however, even after years and years of hard work, a movie can be canceled with no intention of ever seeing the light of day. Most recently, this is the case with the HBO Max Batgirl movie. As that story unfolds, we may find out exactly why it was scrapped.
'Batgirl'
DC Comics has been going through something of an identity crisis when it comes to their big screen adaptations. What started as a Zack Snyder-led cinematic universe became a series of barely-connected movies alongside more mature standalone fare. Then, during the pandemic, a plan was implemented to realign the cinematic universe under a revamped vision.
Batgirl was going to be an HBO Max exclusive movie that established the new Bat-Family status quo with Leslie Grace as Batgirl, JK Simmons reprising his role as Commissioner Gordon, and Michael Keaton after returning to the role of Batman in The Flash. Then, after the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, new CEO David Zaslav canceled the movie in August 2022, even though production wrapped in March 2022, citing a new direction for the DC Comics property. The events are still unfolding, but currently, the nearly-completed film will never see the light of day.
'The Fantastic Four'
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Batgirl is not the first superhero movie to be shelved after production was completed. In the 1990s, iconic movie producer Roger Corman produced a live-action Fantastic Four movie that may or may not have been produced without the intention of release. In Corman's signature style, the movie was low budget and cast with relative unknowns. Still, because of the relative lack of superheroes on the big screen, especially when compared to today, fans were excited.
Production completed, the movie was advertised, and a premiere date was set. Then, the premiere was canceled, and the movie was never released. Officially, the movie's cancellation has never been revealed, but it has long been rumored that it was never meant for release and was a play by producer Bernd Eichinger to keep the rights to the property. Images, clips, and even bootleg copies of the film have leaked, but Marvel fans are still left wondering what could've been.
'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote' (2018)
Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote has actually been released. However, because the movie had one of the strangest and most difficult productions in cinema history, the movie that was finally released in 2018 contained none of the original footage that was shot in 2000. It was essentially a whole new production. The production troubles are so legendary that, before the movie finally finished production, a whole documentary feature, Lost In La Mancha, was made and released in 2002 about the film's original failed attempts.
While the 2018 version of the film stars Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce, the 2000 production was cast with Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort. Though several production elements changed over the years, the script, a wacky absurd take on the classic novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, remained full of the trademark Gilliam style. Was the film worth the 29 years of production? Thankfully you can watch it and decide for yourself.
'The Day The Clown Cried'
One of the most known unreleased movies, The Day The Clown Cried, was supposed to be Jerry Lewis' The Great Dictator, a comedy that tackled the heartbreaking nature of World War II and The Holocaust. The film starred Lewis as a clown who is taken into a concentration camp during the Holocaust. That concept caused many controversies as people believed it would make light of one of the worst atrocities in human history.
Now, we know that it is possible in films like Life Is Beautiful and Jojo Rabbit. Who is to say that Lewis couldn't have pulled it off? Unfortunately, the controversy, combined with production budget issues, resulted in the film never finishing production and being pulled from release. However, in 2015, Lewis donated a rough cut of the film to the United States Library of Congress under the condition that it not be shown until 2024, so who knows? Maybe we will someday see if Lewis pulled it off after all.
'The Collected'
This one is a weird case because the movie has sort of just disappeared. The Collected was supposed to be the third in the horror movie franchise. The series followed the crimes of a masked killer who collects people in his basement. It's an extreme horror movie in the vein of the original film, The Collector, which was released in 2009, with a sequel, The Collection, following in 2012. The series creators Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton confirmed in 2012 that the third film was in development, but the film stalled in development hell for years.
In September 2019, The Collected finally began filming but was mysteriously stopped shortly after. Production failed to resume on schedule, and the COVID-19 Pandemic happened in early 2020, killing any hope the project would resume soon. In April 2021, Dunstan claimed that props from the set were stolen and that the creators had lost the rights to the film, effectively killing the movie.
'The Hunt'
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The Hunt was meant to be controversial, but no one could have predicted how controversial it would end up. The film is a Blumhouse action movie starring Betty Gilpin as one of several small-town American conservatives who are kidnapped and hunted by rich, liberal elites for sport. The movie is a satire of the current state of American politics. The Hunt tried to use outrageous situations to highlight the absurdity of American discourse. However, the subtlety was lost on some before the movie ever came out.
One person who misinterpreted the movie's concept as a promotion of the murder of conservatives was the President of the United States, Donald Trump, who tweeted, "The movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos." The film's controversy and the 2019 mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso convinced the studio to pull the film off its release schedule completely. The film was finally released in March 2020, right when the COVID-19 pandemic caused the mass closure of movie theaters. The Hunt just could not catch a break.
'Empires Of The Deep'
Intended to be China's response to James Cameron's Avatar, Empires Of The Deep was an incredibly ambitious fantasy film set to be released in 2011. It occurred in a world where eight mermaid kingdoms protected the oceans from magical threats. The film was a passion project of Chinese billionaire Jon Jiang, who partially funded the movie in the hopes of living out his dream of making movies.
The film was projected to be budgeted at $130 million, but with the stops and starts the film went through, it's unclear how much was spent. With three different directors taking over production, the film finished filming but continued to deal with production issues. Jiang is still passionate about releasing the movie, but as of 2022, it is still unreleased.
'Gods Behaving Badly'
Marc Turtletaub's Gods Behaving Badly is a unique situation because, though it hasn't been officially released, the film premiered at the 2013 Rome Film Festival. The film is based on the Marie Phillips novel of the same name. It features a top-notch cast, including Christopher Walken, Alicia Silverstone, Sharon Stone, Edie Falco, John Turturro, and Rosie Perez, just to name a few. It tells the story of a couple running into Greek gods living in modern-day New York City.
The film's premiere was anticipated not only because of the impressive cast but also because it was Turtletaub's directorial debut after a successful career as a producer. Unfortunately, the film was met with incredibly negative reactions. So bad that the film was never shown again.
'I Love You, Daddy'
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Louis C.K. was a "jack-of-all-trades" in Hollywood, proving himself to be a successful stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and director, mainly through TV shows like Louie and Horace and Pete. His 2017 feature film, as writer/director/star, I Love You, Daddy, was a Woody Allen-esque comedy that was allegorically about Allen himself. The film starred C.K. as a TV writer whose young daughter (Chloë Grace Moretz) begins dating a much older filmmaker (John Malkovich) with a long history of rumors surrounding his personal life.
Adding to the meta-story of Louis C.K. making a movie about Allen, a filmmaker with a history of alleged sexual misconduct, is that the movie itself was never released because of C.K.'s own sexual misconduct. The film premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival to critical acclaim and was set for a fall release and Oscar campaign. Then, a week before the film's scheduled release, The New York Times posted an article with five women accusing C.K. of using his power in the industry to sexually exploit them, threatening consequences if they spoke out about it. C.K. later admitted to the accusations, and I Love You, Daddy's distributor, The Orchard, dropped the film.
'Rust'
The unfortunate truth is that if everything happened without issue, Rust would have likely come and gone without a ton of fanfare. The low-budget western was made by an up-and-coming filmmaker, Joel Souza, with a cast led by Jensen Ackles, Travis Fimmel and Alec Baldwin. Unfortunately, the film hasn't been released because of a tragedy on the set during production in late 2021.
On October 21, 2021, while filming a scene in which Baldwin's character shoots a gun toward the camera, the prop gun he was using fired an actual bullet, injuring Souza and killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. The shocking events sent shock waves throughout Hollywood, causing many to question the safety protocols on the Rust set, resulting in stricter regulations around prop guns in many productions. We will probably never see Rust, and maybe that's for the best because no movie is worth someone's life.