Unmade Gems: Films That Never Came To Fruition

Something that inevitably occurs anytime you read about a legendary filmmaker's career is that eventually you learn about a passion project of theirs that, for one reason or another, never made it to the silver screen. It is not necessarily surprising to hear about these cases, as any director's career (no matter how successful it may be) inherently has its varying ups and downs, and there's always at least one project that ended up being abandoned after months (if not years) of work. These are the ambitious endeavors that demanded too much, the ones that got away, the dreams that never came true.

But as saddening as it is to think about such unrealized potential, I can't help but wonder about what those films could have been. There is often such a clarity of vision to these cases, an evident passion for a subject matter, and an often astonishing amount of time and effort that is put into projects that unfortunately never see the light of day.

That is why I wanted to talk about three different films that remain unmade to this day, as I believe that each of these films possesses a true potential for cinematic greatness. And beyond merely explaining why these films never came to fruition, I primarily wanted this blog post to serve as a hopeful form of manifestation. Perhaps something will come of these projects, and thus all that hard work will not be for nothing.

Napoleon - Stanley Kubrick

Shortly after 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) became a successful hit that completely revolutionized the notion of what a science fiction film could be, Stanley Kubrick decided that his next film should be a historical epic about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Ever the obsessive researcher, Kubrick read over 500 books about Napoleon, his significant military exploits, and the evolving cultures of European countries in the late 18th Century/early 19th Century. He finished a preliminary screenplay in September 1969, which is freely available to read online (and I do recommend reading it to those who are highly interested, as it is a fascinating read indeed), Along with the help of some personal assistants, Kubrick created a meticulously organized card catalog (consisting of about 25,000 index cards) that detailed every place on record that Napoleon had ever visited, every important person that Napoleon came in contact with, and every major event in Napoleon's life. He scouted various locations across France, intending to shoot on many of the real sites where battles from the Napoleonic Wars had occurred. He assembled a filing system of 15,000 reference images about all things related to Napoleon and the time period of his lifetime. Kubrick's dream casting for the title character was none other than the rising star Jack Nicholson, and Joséphine Bonaparte (Napoleon's wife) was set to be played by the already legendary actress Audrey Hepburn. Kubrick had even enlisted the support of the Romanian People's Army as a means of getting enough soldiers for exact recreations of Napoleon's greatest battles. At a certain point, senior army officers had committed 40,000 soldiers and 10,000 cavalrymen to participate as extras, each one dressed in period-accurate, tear-resistant, fireproof paper costumes. Simply put, Kubrick sincerely believed that the end result had the distinct possibility of becoming "the greatest film ever made."

So what derailed this ridiculously massive production, you may ask? Some of it was obvious overindulgence, as the excessively high budget quickly became far too unaffordable for any major studio in Hollywood. But the biggest reason was a matter of poor timing, as there was another expensive Napoleon-themed film called Waterloo (1970), which was deemed a disaster both financially and critically. The takeaway for the major studios was that audiences at the time were no longer interested in lengthy period pieces, as those had started to be perceived as antiquated history lessons, while smaller independent films like The Graduate (1967) and Easy Rider (1969) were becoming the kinds of refreshingly personal movies that audiences were craving. And thus, Kubrick abandoned the project, although he soon utilized his extensive research to make another period piece set in the 18th Century, his painterly masterpiece Barry Lyndon (1975), which ironically enough, in my humble opinion, happens to be the actual greatest film ever made.

There is a darkly funny, fitting (and dare I say, Kubrickian) irony to the fact that this Napoleon film turned out to be Kubrick's Waterloo, the crucial battle that he ultimately lost. And yet, despite Kubrick's inability to make this film before he passed away in 1999, the legacy of the project is still very much so present, as Kubrick's close friend and admirer Steven Spielberg has expressed considerable interest in adapting Kubrick's material in the form of a seven-part HBO miniseries, to ensure that none of Kubrick's ambitions are limited to the constraints of a single feature film. Here's hoping that we get to see this miniseries someday, as I think there would be no better way of bringing Kubrick's biggest passion project to life.

At the Mountains of Madness - Guillermo del Toro

Of all the filmmakers who are well-known for being attached to a million different projects at any given time, Guillermo del Toro might be the quintessential case of such a director. Across his otherwise very successful career, some of the notably unmade films he's been attached to include: A gothic steampunk western adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo (which sounds unbelievably awesome, I really do hope this gets made at some point), a live-action film adaptation of the Halo video game series, a Star Wars spin-off film revolving entirely around Jabba the Hutt, an adaptation of the Justice League Dark comic series, a new adaptation of The Haunted Mansion park attraction, and perhaps most painfully, a third Hellboy film that was scrapped for being too expensive, in favor of a forgettable Hellboy reboot in 2019 (I'm certainly not still resentful about this sequence of events, if that's what you're thinking).

But perhaps the biggest project that del Toro has been unable to start filming is his elaborate adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's beloved cosmic horror novel At the Mountains of Madness (1936). This classic sci-fi horror tale is about a group of explorers on an expedition to Antarctica, who discover the ancient ruins of an alien civilization, ultimately coming across the deadly creatures that caused the extinction of the alien species. Back in 2010, del Toro had a deal with Universal to make this adaptation as a 3-D film, with his old friend James Cameron serving as a producer, and the one and only Tom Cruise starring as Dr. William Dryer. Not only is there a finished script available to read online, but there is even some released CGI test footage provided by visual effects artists from Industrial Light and Magic, showcasing just one out of the many grotesque creatures that were designed for the film. According to del Toro, over 300 pieces of concept art, storyboards, and models were finished in pre-production.

Sadly, Universal pulled the plug on the film for three reasons: They deemed the $150 million budget to be too expensive for a horror film, they refused to let del Toro make it as a graphic R-rated film rather than as a more accessible PG-13 blockbuster, and they considered the film to be too similar to the Alien prequel that 20th Century Fox was actively developing at the time, which turned out to be Prometheus (2012).

In recent years, del Toro has expressed some regrets about his lack of leniency back when he was pitching his adaptation to Universal, and he now believes that if given the chance, he would've found a way to make the film with a smaller budget and a PG-13 rating that would not compromise the creature designs he and his team had worked on. As recently as 2021, del Toro pitched his latest iteration of the project to Netflix execs, who instead decided to move forward with del Toro's most personal passion projects of Pinocchio (2022) and Frankenstein (2025). Given the major awards consideration that both of those films received, there is a legitimate chance that del Toro's version of At the Mountains of Madness might still get made, especially now that he's become focused on making stop motion animation films, like the new film he's currently working on: A stop motion adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's 2015 fantasy novel, The Buried Giant.

It just feels like the perfect marriage of artistic sensibilities for someone like del Toro to adapt the work of Lovecraft, the undisputed king of cosmic horror. So let's hope that the limitless possibilities of animation help del Toro bring these infernal creatures to the big screen.

The Hunt for Ben Solo - Steven Soderbergh

This last film is the one that hurts me the most, as it is the closest to my heart, and thus it is the one for which I am most delusionally optimistic about its chances of getting made.

After the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), the ninth installment that officially served as the end of the Skywalker Saga, Disney basically decided to focus their efforts on making Star Wars shows for their streaming service, ensuring that the shows would primarily use nostalgic appeals for fans of the franchise who were utterly dissatisfied with the disorganized narrative of the sequel trilogy.

Cut to 2024, when Adam Driver (perhaps the best actor of his generation working today) decided that there was still room for a better conclusion for his character Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, who is widely considered to be one of the few elements of the sequel trilogy that pretty much everyone loved. So Driver spoke to his filmmaker friend Steven Soderbergh, they came up with a small-scale concept that could be made at a reasonable budget, they hired Soderbergh's frequent collaborator Scott Z. Burns to write the script, and apparently the finished script (titled The Hunt for Ben Solo) was so good that every single head executive at Lucasfilm (including Kathleen Kennedy and Dave Filoni) immediately greenlit the project.

However, upon presenting the project to higher-level execs at Disney (namely Alan Bergman and Bob Iger), they reportedly took an unusually long time to read the script, and they eventuallly argued that the film did not present a logical way in which Ben Solo could return to the franchise, even though all the writers at Lucasfilm (who are all experts on the lore of Star Wars) unanimously attested to the consistent logic of the script. Now The Hunt for Ben Solo is apparently dead in the water for good, as that is seemingly the only reason why Soderbergh and Driver have been allowed to be so vocal recently about their involvement with the project.

So let me get this straight… at this current time, in which many Star Wars fans are disillusioned with the franchise and looking for something new, a new film is proposed by highly skilled artists, it is conceived to be a very affordable entry, everyone in Lucasfilm is enthusiastic about the script's quality, every fan is excited upon hearing of the film's existence, and on top of all that, Soderbergh has an admirable reputation of always delivering his films ahead of schedule and under budget, mostly because he also works as his own cinematographer and editor. This was Disney's chance to revitalize public passion for the Star Wars franchise, their opportunity to do something new, exciting, and decidedly not risky because of how little money they would lose in a worst-case scenario and how much sheer street cred they would attain as a result of a cool-movie-gets-made scenario. So with all those cards on the table, all that potential to make something truly special, Disney's ultimate choice was to… reject The Hunt for Ben Solo in favor of the cinematic misadventures of The Mandalorian and Grogu, which came out yesterday with about as much fanfare and enthusiasm as a new item on the McDonald's menu. What a wise choice, on so many undisputable levels.

The fan campaign dedicated to reviving The Hunt for Ben Solo has been quite elaborate in the past year. Back in October 2025, a plane was spotted flying over Disney Studios, with a banner that said: "Save The Hunt for Ben Solo." There have also been billboards in Times Square and customized trucks on the streets of New York, all about advocating for the revival of the project. Of course, these viral stunts have done little to convince the Disney execs to take action, but I keep on maintaining hope that eventually someone at Disney will come to their senses and realize that financing this film is a worthy investment with no real risk involved. And if the film never ends up being made, I at least hope the script is released to the public at some point, much like the Duel of the Fates script that was released a few years ago (this was the original script for Episode IX, back when Colin Trevorrow was directing and J.J. Abrams had not been brought back to the franchise).

Some other unmade films that I would've loved to see are Christopher Nolan's biopic about Howard Hughes, David Lynch's passion project Ronnie Rocket, Martin Scorsese's biopic about Dean Martin, David Fincher's adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Ridley Scott's adaptation of Blood Meridian, Sofia Coppola's version of The Little Mermaid remake, and Quentin Tarantino's proposed Star Trek film that would've apparently been about the Enterprise crew interacting with Chicago gangsters from the 1920s.

As you can see, there's a lot of great potential out there waiting to be fully realized, in spite of all the obstacles and limitations that the world presents at every turn. At the end of the day though, the titular line of an iconic song comes to mind: Don't Stop Believing.