Incredible Hollywood Films That Never Got Made

Hollywood is a dream factory, with the major studios churning out on average over 100 films a year in an effort to give audiences something new and surprising, while still offering a heavy dose of familiarity, in the hope of striking box office gold. As many movies as they make, there are far more movies that they don’t make, and it is typical for filmmakers to have a handful of films in development at once, just waiting for the green light and the commitment from the big stars that will allow them to move forward and make their movies.

The way the industry works, most of these movies never get made, and it often has little to do with the potential quality of the script. Maybe it was deemed too uncommercial to justify the expected budget, or maybe the filmmakers just lost interest and went with another idea. We have collected four lost gems from the Hollywood archives that never got a chance to go from the script to the screen.

E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears

Steven Spielberg is inarguably one Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers of all time, and for over five decades he has consistently delivered films that both critics and audiences fell in love with. One of his most beloved works is the 1982 classic “E.T.: Extra Terrestrial,” which at the time broke the record to become the highest grossing film of all time. Nowadays, anything that becomes a huge hit is guaranteed to get a sequel, but back then sequels were much rarer and were considered to be somewhat disreputable, with some exceptions such as Spielberg’s friend George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy. 

Nonetheless, in the wake of the success of “E.T.” there was talk of a sequel, and Spielberg worked with the screenwriter Melissa Mathison to come up with a sequel. They put together an outline which featured aliens kidnapping Elliot and his friends and torturing them on their spaceship. There may have been great potential here, but we think in this case it was best to let sleeping dogs lie and keep “E.T.” as a standalone film.

Return to Casablanca

Another of Hollywood’s most iconic films that almost got a sequel was the 1942 classic “Casablanca.” The Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman starring WW2 set romantic drama is considered to be one of the greatest films ever made, and though its story ended on a pitch perfect note which didn’t need any elaboration, there was still some desire to return to Casablanca, Morocco and continue the story. 

Sure enough, a script titled “Return to Casablanca” was actually in the works from Howard Koch, who was one of the screenwriters on the original film. The film was to tell the story of Ilsa’s son who searches for his biological father. Thankfully, it never got off the ground and the legacy of the classic film remains untarnished, at least for the most part. There was actually a “Casablanca” show from 1955 which had a ten episode run, and then another in 1983 which had a five episode run and actually co-starred a young Ray Liotta. Neither were very successful, and nor was the South American based remake in 1980 titled “Caboblanco.”

Double V Vega

Quentin Tarantino knocks it out of the park every time and is one of the finest directors of modern cinema. Every movie he makes is a big deal that gets cinephiles talking, and garnering nearly as much interest as his actual films are the films of his which he announces but never gets around to making. Many of these are actually sequels or spinoffs to his earlier works. There are “Kill Bill” sequels, “Django” sequels and team ups, and even a “Star Trek” film, but the one that fans have been most eager for is “Double V Vega,” also known as “The Vega Brothers.”

In this film, Michael Madsen would reprise his role as Vic Vega (aka Mr. Blonde) from “Reservoir Dogs,” and John Travolta would return as Vincent Vega from “Pulp Fiction.” The two fictional brothers would have appeared on screen together for the first time, but the chance to make that film has passed. Because both characters died in the films, it would have needed to be a prequel, so they probably would have needed to start filming within a decade or so for the aging actors to convincingly pull it off.

Heart of Darkness

Orson Welles is one of the most groundbreaking filmmakers ever, and his feature film debut “Citizen Kane” is widely considered to be the greatest film of all time. Orson Welles struggled in his career after that, with none of his films having the same success and many of them butchered in the post-production process by the producers. That is, if they got made at all, as Welles has an endless amount of unmade projects to his name.

One of those projects was an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s classic work “Heart of Darkness. Welles wished for this to be his first film, but it was far too ambitious of a project, being a 174-page script, and the execs declined to make it. It all worked out for us, though, because after that was rejected he pitched his idea for “Citizen Kane,” and the rest is history.