[UPDATE 10/14/2015] A mere month after publishing this article 2 of the projects listed in this post have developments! Y the Last Man is being developed as a TV show shortly after the rights reverted back to Brian K. Vaughan and James Cameron may pass his project of Battle Angel Alita to director Robert Rodriguez!

I have honestly lost count and often lost track of the many movies I’ve noticed were announced, mildly promoted, and then vanish into oblivion and never mentioned again. Even after some of the proposed filmed generated a significant amount of interest from potential audiences these films, for whatever reason, never materialized. Some of the films genuinely had strong positions on my ‘radar’ but thanks to time, and some alcohol, these movies vanished from memory and were never mentioned or updated and get stuck in IMDB listing as ‘in development’. Here’s my list of movies that I vaguely remember being announced and I want to see made dammit:

 

Captain Planet and the Planeteers

With comic book movies and the like making serious bank at the box office, movie studios got keenly interested in trying to be apart of the superhero craze. Studios began looking everywhere for whatever could be the next great box office cash cow. Enter: Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Sony announced that they were in negotiations 2 years ago and genuinely had my attention and I expected for that to graduate to them having my interest. Sadly, due to my laziness to bother to read through their e-mail hacks, I have no idea what happened. Fans have gone ahead and made an awesome fan trailer to try to ignite interest but Sony has been pretty quiet about this title for quite some time. Shame too because these fans had a damn good premise for using those powers and could definitely have a hit on their hands with merchandising if this was handled properly.

 

Y: The Last Man

It’s been nearly 10 fucking years since this movie was originally announced!! To my understanding there was a director associated, proprosed cast, and more ready to get started with making this a real film. It’s mind-boggling to think that Brian K. Vaughn could get 4 seasons of Under the Dome greenlit but not this hot topic. No idea what the hell I’m talking about? Here’s the basic plot for this story:

 

Y: The Last Man is Vaughan’s attempt to subvert the classic male fantasy of being the last man on earth. In the series, something (speculated to be a plague) simultaneously kills every mammal possessing a Y chromosome – including embryos, fertilized eggs, and even sperm with the exception of Yorick Brown, a young amateur escape artist, and his Capuchin monkey, Ampersand. Society is plunged into chaos as infrastructures collapse and the surviving women everywhere try to cope with the loss of the men, their survivors’ guilt, and the knowledge that humanity is doomed to extinction. Vaughan meticulously crafts the new society that emerges out of this chaos, from the conversion of the phallic Washington Monument to a monument to the dead men, to the genesis of the fanatical ultra-feminist Daughters of the Amazon, who believe that Mother Earth cleansed itself of the “aberration” of the Y chromosome, to male impersonators becoming valued romantically and professionally.

Why does this movie not exist??? It sounds incredibly awesome and incredibly inexpensive to make. It’s not like you have to hire ILM or Weta to do special effects for populating a world of women. Just hire a bunch, fly them someplace desolate or some movie studio and GET THIS MADE. Shia LeBouf may not be the perfect casting choice for this one anymore, but there are PLENTY of young actors that would jump at this role. Or did they already make a sitcom of this?

 

Voltron

This one is a heart breaker. After Transformers got released, made hundreds of millions of dollars, there was a totally predictable search by studios for properties that were cosmetically similar and could deliver the same results. Enter Voltron the story of 5 space explorers who crash land on a weird planet with a hidden beautiful princess along with some hidden robots and more fantastic backstory that had “film franchise” painted all over. Aside from the story similarities to Star Wars this had the makings of something FANTASTIC… but also very very expensive. I mean, all that flying around space and giant robots fighting monsters and stuff could break the bank for a lot of studios. Relativity and company announced a movie back in 2011. Nothing since. For shame Relativity, for shame. This one still has a lot of potential to be a great long term franchise if studios shake the financing fear and I fully believe there’s a generation of parents that would love to force their kids to love this as much as they’re forcing their kids to love Star Wars.

 

Ghostbusters 3

I almost don’t even want to bring this one up. I can’t even think about this without cursing. Fucking movie was supposed to be fucking made by now. Fucking bullshit. We know the story. The sequel kinda sucked so Bill Murray hates sequels. The cast has aged horribly. Rick Moranis is retired but willing to participate. People forget there’s a 4th Ghostbuster.

MAN, fuck Ghostbusters.

Harold Ramis… R.I.P.

Halo

This movie always had me scratching my head. Sure the games are fun as hell, and somewhere in between those bullets is a narrative that I barely follow but why the hell would I want to sit in a theater watching a Master Chief that doesn’t respond to my Xbox controller? He does stuff on his own? I can’t control the shooting? Why would I want this? Even with Neil Blomkamp, Steven Spielberg, and other great filmmakers behind this film why the hell did they think I wanted this as a movie?

 

Maybe a TV show, but not a movie. No, no, no… Only person finishing this fight is me.

 

Neon Genesis Evangelion/Akira

I really really enjoyed both Evengelion and Akira. Eva more than Akira because it was a weird and barely comprehensible visual gore show but I was still impressed.  I lumped these 2 together because they basically have the same story. There was a time when studios was grabbing up licenses for anime’s like they came out of a vending machine, and making promises of using their newly acquired film rights to actually make a movie. Heck, some really talented filmmakers surprisingly also wanted to get involved with the production of said films despite fans’ disbelief that they even had an interest in the genre. I have no idea what sparked the interest for studios to buy these rights. Maybe just to sit on them so another studio couldn’t make them? Akira was the closest to actually being released as it actually had a cast and director and may have even began some principle photography. In hindsight I believe these would have been terrible movies. I don’t trust Hollywood with translating anime to film. Hell, I don’t even trust Japan with that shit.

 

Battle Angel Alita

I remember falling in love with this story. It was the summer of 2000 and I was in Summer School reading THIS graphic novel for a book report for English class. This graphic novel contained nudity, a steam punk city, people with weird robotic prosthetic arms/legs/everything. Somehow my teacher had no problem with this AND James Cameron got the rights to this movie. It’s was over 10 YEARS ago that Cameron and has firmly shelved this franchise from ever seeing the light of day. Sure, he claims he’s going to make this movie after he’s finished with Avatar 3 but since it’s been almost 6 long years since the first Avatar with no signs of production, thanks to his refusal to move forward with a sequel until technology catches up with his vision, it’s painfully clear that this movie will never be made. Heck, he’s not even sure how many Avatar films he wants to make. He’s too busy scuba diving or something. You can read more of my thoughts on this here.

BTW: I got a B+ in that English class.

Twins 2

I mention this movie because I have an odd fondness for the first film. I don’t even think I was old enough to fully appreciate the pseudo science of cloning when it was released but I do remember spending time watching this back when Channel 11 in NYC was called “The Movie Station”. Good times for a fun Comedy film. A sequel was discussed and ideas were tossed around for Eddie Murphy or Roseanne Barr to be a lost sibling or something but thankfully the idea for a sequel was crushed and prevented before they damaged my childhood memories.

 

Thank you baby Jesus for putting a stop to this travesty in the making.

 

Gladiator 2

Ridley Scott still can’t make a movie in this day and age without the television commercial stating “FROM THE DIRECTOR OF GLADIATOR”. Gladiator was so good and so popular that there were endless discussions about a sequel for the movie. The only problem was that they kinda killed the hero in the first movie. The studios were so anxious there were even ideas of having a film take place in the underworld or hell or something and we could follow Maximus kicking undead ass or some other sort of foolery. Those ideas didn’t go any further than ideas and a sequel was never made.

 

Honestly, I think we’re all the better for this.

 

Mrs. Doubtfire sequel

Robin Williams considered returning to the character for some crazy reason. I presumed he was in the same boat as Nic Cage, Wesley Snipes, and countless other Hollywood actors who didn’t pay taxes. They got caught and now have to do lesser things for money. Williams never made this movie before his passing apparently due to him not liking any scripts that were produced. Clearly Williams saw the Big Momma’s House sequels and realized it was stupid to try to justify his character putting that costume and makeup on again. Just. Plain. STUPID.

 

Roger Rabbit sequel

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was another one of those great movies I discovered back when Channel 11 was The Movie Station. I would flip through channels daily hoping that either Roger Rabbit or Short Circuit was on TV. I still don’t fully understand how or why my childhood was denied a sequel to this fun mash up of every cartoon character mashed together in one awesome film, copyrights and character ownership be damned. Daffy Duck meeting Donald Duck? Check. Mickey Mouse meeting Bugs Bunny? Check. Goofy, Betty Boop, Dumbo, Chip, Dale and more all were present and accounted for in this movie. Still, no sequel. I think there was a short that was released and played before Honey I Shrunk the Kids or something but NO FRIGGIN SEQUEL. Actor Bob Hoskins wanted nothing to do with a sequel. Go Figure. Director Rober Zemeckis is pretty warm to the idea. Great guy. It’s been a few years but nothing has happened. No posters, no trailers, no animation cels being leaked. NO UPDATES. And to this I say:

 

WE. WERE. ROBBED.

 

CATWOMAN : BATMAN RETURNS 2

I love the Michael Keaton Batman movies. Prince soundtracks, some awesome costume work, and Michael Keaton hanging upside down to sleep, what wasn’t to like? The second Batman movie was even more spectacular than the first with an increase in action, scale, stakes, violence, and friggin sex appeal. Seriously, the scene where Michelle gives herself a cat bath? What else does a preteen need to see than a woman in tight leather licking herself clean while being ogled by some deranged looking Devito? This movie even had this weird thing in which Catwoman had some weird 9 lives allowing her to survive being shot at point blank as long as she was within her limit. It made absolutely no sense and I loved every bullet. The movie ended with Catwoman seemingly surviving everything and implying a return in a future installment with her appearance in front of a Bat-Signal. It never happened and it still hurts. Instead we moved forward to a Val Kilmer sequel that added a Robin but dropped a Cat without any explanation. I held out hope that maybe the character would cameo or appear in future installments but it seems that WB had no further interest in the character at the time and instead moved the franchise into a different direction. I don’t understand why this happened, but I do know that it still pains me.

 

Unbreakable 2

Unbreakable was an unorthodox superhero movie that wasn’t based on an existing comic book but was deeply rooted in comic books. Strange, yet true. Samuel L. Jackson as Mr. Glass loved the medium and went out of his way to create himself as a comic book villain in the real world. It was pretty interesting stuff at an intriguing time for director M. Night Shyamalan and while not necessarily a commercial hit like The Sixth Sense it struck a chord with comic book fans. People with real life conditions assuming the character traits of fantasy characters? Definitely worth further exploration, and Sham-man mentioned interest in a sequel more than once. Instead we got Avatar and my childhood was damaged twice in one swing. Shame on you Sham. Shame on you.

 

Beverly Hills Cop 4

I love Eddie Murphy movies. Wait, let me rephrase that: I love EARLY Eddie Murphy movies. Trading places, Harlem Nights, Coming to America and Beverly Hills Cop were all fun movies starring Murphy that gave the impression that this guy had longevity in the Hollywood comedy world. Then he decided at some point he wanted to make movies his kids could watch and stepped away from his sterner stuff and instead we got Pluto Nash. Fast Forward a couple of decades and his kids are FINALLY grown! With that time he no longer had a necessity to avoid his brash comedy and could return to the stuff we loved, right? He even announced an interest in bringing the series back and returning to his loved form of comedy, and showed some signs, but then things began to stall. And then things stopped. And now things are…unanswered. I no longer hold out hope for Murphy to be that guy again. He’s just not interested.

 

Kill Bill 3

Quentin Tarantino once mentioned an idea for the daughter of Vivica Fox’s character to return to Kill the Bride. It never happened. I’m not as invested in seeing this story but the idea was sound and the action and dialogue in this series were pretty awesome. I could live with or without this one but it’s still a good excuse to revisit this insane world of Kill Bill. It certainly wasn’t a necessity as the 2nd film pretty much gave the film a satisfying conclusion and answered a lot of questions, but it was a good idea to get more milk from this cow.

 

Wanted 2

Wanted made me believe in James McAvoy as an actor. Not from his insane ability to mimic an American accent or the fact that he convinced audiences he could be an action star. No, he made me believe in him when he beat his friend/co-worker with a keyboard. The sense of humor this film employed was pretty friggin funny and echoed the things many of us may like to do in similar circumstances. The story of bending bullets and secret societies of divine orders of mud baths or whatever was cool too and studios wanted to make another entry but were married to the idea that it would only be a good idea if Jolie was on board. I still have no idea why. Make McAvoy train a new apprentice. Make it a hot chick and make sure she can satisfy the skinny arm poster. Do all these things and beat someone with a keyboard, I’ll buy that. Maybe there’s still hope for this one but I pretty much think this project is dead.

 

IN CONCLUSION

Writing this list brought me down emotionally a lot more than I expected when I began writing. I knew I was attached to these movies but I didn’t expect all the heartache to resurface the way it has. Who knows. Maybe the respective studios will read this and go “Oh shit, I forgot I was supposed to make that!”. Probably not.