Development Hell: Difference between revisions

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[[File:D3poster 559.png|link=Homestar Runner|frame|[https://web.archive.org/web/20130516073531/http://www.telltalegames.com/strongbad/dangeresque3 November 2008.]]]

'''Development Hell''' becomes a sort of self-reinforcing feedback loop over time—as one director gets fed up and quits, the project is assigned to a new director, who orders a new screenplay with a new vision, which results in producers demanding changes, wash, rinse, repeat etc.

 

 

For those examples which ''finally'' became real, after years, or decades in some cases, look at [[Saved From Development Hell]].

 

{{examples}}

* An anime adaptation of ''Tonari no 801-chan'' was originally supposed to be animated by Kyoto Animation, and even had a preliminary website up for it. Then something happened and it fell into limbo. The project was ultimately cancelled, though a 90-second animated OP was created by A-1 Pictures and bundled with Vol.4 of the web manga.

* ''[[Lost Universe]]'': A series which had only one season; a second season was due to follow, but because of a financial pitfall occurring through animation studios at the time, it was held off in favor of more ''Slayers'' media.

** It's no better in Japan, where after five volumes it just ''stopped''.

* ''The Five Killers'' was supposed to be an original creation from writer/producer Eric Calderon as an animated TV series (12 episodes with a 1 hour finale) done by [[GONZO]]. A trailer is unfortunately all that came out due to GONZO's financial situation.

* After ''[[Gundam Seed Destiny]]'' ended, it was announced that there would be a movie sequel which would be the [[Grand Finale]] for the Cosmic Era timeline. However, the film's head writer Chiaki Morosawa has been battling cancer since ''Destiny'' (according to an April 2008 interview with Animage magazine, Morosawa had uterine fibroids and an ovarian cyst, and had a hysterectomy performed), so literally no progress has been made on the film since 2005.

* ''[[Despera]]'s'' production is currently on hold due to the director Ryutaro Nakamura's health issues.

 

== Buildings ==

* The San Francisco 49ers have been trying to build a stadium for years. Their latest plan had been stalled for several years, and groundbreaking began April 19, 2012.

* The Ballpark Village shopping/entertainment/apartment complex in downtown St. Louis, designed to revitalize the area. Building began in 2005 with a planned completion date of July 2009. Around 2008, building stopped as financier Bill DeWitt refused to spend any more money on the project (and he is a multi-billionaire who makes a lot of money off of the St. Louis Cardinals, so his penny-pinching is completely inexcusable). Cut to late 2011, and it looks it will never be finished (due to DeWitt's frugality and the state basically neglecting the city and its needs).

 

 

* An animated ''[[Elf Quest]]'' movie has been "coming soon" since the mid eighties. Though much of the (albeit scarce) pre-production art looks great, it's still never gotten further than that and will likely never be produced.

** Supposedly, the primary stumbling block is that [[Executive Meddling|studio executives kept trying to persuade the creators]] to [[Race Lift|make all the dark-skinned elves whiter]], and then losing interest when the creators refused to even entertain the possibility. [[Society Marches On|In this day and age]] that probably isn't such a huge issue, so there is still some faint hope.

* This has happened in the industry for a while. ''[[Camelot 3000]]'', a series from DC Comics in the early 1980s. A 12-issue monthly series, the first issue came out in December 1982 and the last one in April 1985.

 

* The ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fanfic ''[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/264446/1/Hearts-of-Ice Hearts of Ice]'' by Krista Perry Fisk. An epic in both size and subject matter, ''Hearts of Ice'' first appeared in 1997, and over the next two years, Fisk (then unmarried and writing under her maiden name of Perry) turned out some 25 chapters of exceptionally high-quality story, with the 25th -- the penultimate chapter -- ending on a heartbreaking [[Cliff Hanger]]. And then ''stopped writing for ten years''. She finally completed it in 2009, but not before it gained the nickname "The Great Unfinished Symphony of ''Ranma'' Fanfic".

 

* ''[[Science Ninja Team Gatchaman|Gatchaman's]]'' CGI film, is officially dead after ''[[Astro Boy (film)|Astro Boy]]'' bombed and Imagi Studios went flat. A 2013 live-action adaptation was made instead.

* [[The Movie]] of ''[[Clerks the Animated Series]]''. Originally planned as ''Clerks: Sell Out'', wherein Dante and Randall decide to make a movie about their escapades in the Quick Stop, this got an animation test in 2006 and was supposed to go straight to DVD a little while after ''Clerks 2''. However, according to [[Kevin Smith]], Disney still own the rights to the series and all designs related to it, which essentially negates all possibility of there being a movie any time soon.

* ''Blue Planet'', a CGI sci-fi action movie planned by now-defunct Rainbow Studios (later aquired by [[THQ]]), with a video-game tie-in. A trailer was released, to widespread acclaim, which showcased the for-the-time high-quality CGI, parodies of Pixar's ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'' and ''[[A Bug's Life|A Bugs Life]]'' characters, and a soundtrack featuring "More Human Than Human" by [[Rob Zombie]]. Much of the already-shot footage was recycled for the time-in game, which was eventually released as ''[[Deadly Tide]]''.

* In the late 1990's, Fox and [[Matt Groening]] signed a deal to make three films based on ''[[The Simpsons]]''. The first film was released in 2007. Since then, absolutely ''nothing'' has been heard about the sequels (rumors have had one of the films be based on ''Itchy and Scratchy'').

** The last news about the subject was in 2014.

* ''Invisible Monsters'', based off of a book penned by Chuck Palahniuk (of ''[[Fight Club]]'' fame), has been in development for forever and a half.

* ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]''. It had a French version successfully released in 1966, but those guys over at Hollywood are still stuck on this.

** At one point, Frank Darabont was involved and wrote a script. That was in ''2005''.

* Dreamworks was going to make a ''[[Nomes Trilogy|Bromeliad]]'' movie. Where'd that go?

* And a couple of years ago{{when}} the big news was that [[Sam Raimi]] was directing ''[[The Wee Free Men]]'' from a script by Pamela Pettler (who wrote [[Tim Burton]]'s ''[[Corpse Bride]]''). Since the initial announcement, nothing. Pratchett apparently vetoed a script that "had all the hallmarks of something that had been good, and then [[Executive Meddling|the studio had got involved]]", and now thinks "it probably won't happen."

* The unfinished 1938 production of ''I, Claudius'' was waylaid by an accident involving its lead actress and by the difficulty that Charles Laughton had in getting into Claudius's role. Only a few scenes from the film were ever publicly released in the 1960s. (The DVD release of the TV version of ''[[I, Claudius]]'' includes a documentary which features this footage.)

* The ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' movie is rather notorious for its stint in Development Hell amongst its fanbase. The filmic style of series VII was considered a dry-run for the then relatively-certain movie production, and the project itself got as far as script readings and prosthetic make-up tests for Robert Llewellyn (the actor who portrays Kryten) in the early '00s. However, the project mysteriously disappeared soon afterwards with very little mention of how production was proceeding or indeed any indication that it was even still alive. Doug Naylor, one of the co-creators of Red Dwarf, cleared up the matter with a statement on the Series VIII DVD, explaining that the movie had run into serious financial difficulties, and Grant Naylor Productions were having problems garnering enough funding from potential investors. With the 3-part special ''Red Dwarf: Back To Earth'' airing in April 2009, it is likely that the Red Dwarf movie will never see the light of day, although some may argue that if the specials do well enough it may provide the movie with a second chance.

* The film version of ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]'' has been talked about for at least 10 years now. There was a rumor back in the day that it would resurface in 2008—as an HBO series. Nearly two years later, we still have nothing. Rumor has it HBO passed on this, saying it's too dark. ''Seriously.''

** Given that the comic revolves around a character going on a quest to kill God, it's understandable why people are hesitant to touch the property, it's likely too controversial for any major studio to helm.

** As of Q2 in the year 2012, the live-action Evangelion movies were still in development hell. Apparently, the producers got so far as that they needed Gainax to hand over the rights so they could get moving finally. ...that's when things fell apart. When ADV went to buy the rights they had optioned, Gainax backed out, citing certain unfulfilled conditions. The producers lost their window with the studio (at least for the moment), and ADV sued Gainax over the rights. This happened Q3 2011, and no word has been heard since. Given both ADV's and Gainax's track record with managing money, this may take a while.

* ''[[The Sandman]]''. Considering that the people interested in filming it were Joel Schumacher and [[Executive Meddling|Jon]] [[Giant Spider|Peters]], though, it may be fortunate that this film never got off the ground. One of the proposed scripts is available online. The script Roger Avary and the guys behind ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' worked on was a pretty sweet blending of the first two collections and the "Endless gather again for the first time" scene from ''Season of Mists''. But then the script was sent in for rewrites under Jon Peters, and Neil Gaiman called the script not only the worst ''Sandman'' script he'd seen, but one of the worst scripts he'd ever seen.

** He was also planning an adaptation of ''Domu: A Child's Dream'', by [[Katsuhiro Otomo]] (better known for ''[[Akira]]''), which has apparently been called off due to rights issues.

* ''[[The Dam Busters]]'', a remake of the 1955 classic. Mel Gibson bought the rights in the late 1990s but never made much progress past rumors of filming in west England. Peter Jackson obtained the rights a few years ago and rumor has it that filming had begun in 2009. Then Jackson decided to scrap the film and restart in 3-D.

* There's a lot of [[Marvel Universe|Marvel]] films that appear to have stalled.

* ''[[The Punisher]]'' sequel to the 2004 version was in this condition before getting cancelled. In 2007, Thomas Jane, who would have played Jigsaw in the sequel, refused to appear, stating his intent to buff up for the role was not worth a movie he just didn't believe in.

* The [[Wesley Snipes]] western ''Gallowwalker'' was shot in 2006, with reshoots done in 2009, but as of 2012 remains unreleased (partially due to Snipes's legal issues, which previously led to delays in the reshoots).

* The film rights to ''[[The Borribles]]'' have been bought several times since the first book came out in the late 1970s -- and in fact as of the late 2010s are ''currently'' in play. But no project has ever gotten past the simple ''proposal'' stage.

* The Jim Henson Company has been planning a ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'' movie and ''[[The Dark Crystal]]'' sequel for quite some time. Every now and then, they'll announce ''The Dark Crystal'' sequel, but no progress appears to have been made. This was parodied by ''[[Robot Chicken]]'', which joked that the primary reason it's not going forward is that today's kids don't want to watch an all-puppet film.

** As with ''Good Omens'' above, a ''Dark Crystal'' prequel series, ''[[The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance]]'', will air on [[Netflix]] in summer 2019.

 

== Food ==

 

 

* Donald Knuth's ''The Art of Computer Programming'' was started in 1962 (which may as well be the Bronze Age as far as computer programming is concerned) and not all the volumes are out yet. Initially not helped by Knuth deciding to create a typesetting system from scratch since he was not satisfied by what was available.

* [[Timothy Zahn]] and [[Michael Stackpole]] collaborated on a six-issue [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] comic for the ''[[X Wing Series]]'' which bridged over into Zahn's [[The Thrawn Trilogy|Thrawn]] [[Hand of Thrawn|books]]. It's called [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Reenlistment_of_Baron_Fel The Reenlistment Of Baron Fel]. But the [[X Wing Series]] comics were canceled [[No Ending|abruptly]]. So Zahn and Stackpole worked on the script and turned it into a four-chapter novella, something that they've done before. And Del Ray did not buy this script. Both versions are languishing on their hard drives, and it's been something like ten years since the [[X Wing Series]] was going.

 

 

* ''[[K9]]'' was first announced in 1997. It subsequently premiered in the UK in 2009, airing its full season in Scandinavia in 2010.

* The team behind ''Human Giant'' announced that MTV had allowed them a third season. Unfortunately, they couldn't film much because Aziz was busy on ''[[Parks and Recreation]]''. Since then nothing has been said.

* The Sci-Fi Channel announced in 2002 that they would produce a ''[[Quantum Leap]]'' television movie featuring Sam's daughter as a new leaper. A proposed release date of 2004 was given, and the movie's writer even gave a ''QL'' fansite [http://www.quantumleap-alsplace.com/quantum2/castandcrew/treycallawayinterview.htm an interview] about the plot, but ultimately nothing ever came of it.

* No fewer than ''ten'' pilots were made between 1996 and 2010 for a revival of the ''[[Pyramid]]'' game show franchise. Even with a successful revival from 2002 to 2004, the pilots just kept coming in the subsequent years.

 

* [[The Blue Nile]] are the kings of this trope. They spent five years in between the first and the second album, seven years between the second and the third, and eight years between the third and the fourth. Very little [[Executive Meddling]] is involved in the production; it's all because the band takes this long to produce these songs '''on purpose''' and it shows.

* [[Limp Bizkit]]'s ''The Unquestionable Truth (Part 2)''

* The line-up of [[Van Halen]] which featured Gary Cherone of [[Extreme]] imploded after the critical and commercial failure of their sole studio album, ''Van Halen 3''. Eddie Van Halen would go through drug and alcohol addictions, survive tongue cancer (he apparently still smokes cigarettes) and a divorce to longtime wife [[One Day At a Time|Valerie]] [[Hot in Cleveland|Bertinelli]]. A reunion tour in 2004 with Sammy Hagar followed, on the heels of a two-disc anthology with two new "Van Hagar" recordings (similar to the failed reunion in 1996 with David Lee Roth for [[Greatest Hits Album]] ''Best Of Vol. 1'', but the Roth reunion never happened), but Eddie's re-emerging alcoholism led to poor performances and Sammy's second departure, this time taking founding bassist Michael Anthony with him to form [[Chickenfoot]]. Eddie would sober up, rehire David Lee Roth, and begin a world tour with Eddie's son Wolfgang replacing Anthony. ''A Different Kind Of Truth'', Van Halen's first new album in fifteen years, and its first with Roth since ''1984'', would be released to commercial and critical success in 2012.

 

* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]:'' Since updates to rulebooks and models for different armies are largely based on player demand, and player demand is in turn based on the availability of up to date rulebooks and models, some teams spend years in development hell. This was exemplified by the Dark Eldar who went ''over a decade'' without an updated codex while the much more popular space marines received seven. They were mercifully [[Saved From Development Hell]] with an excellent new codex and model range, but others [[Demoted to Extra|haven't fared so well]].

:Games Workshop recently started work on updating older books, which thankfully will see a resurgence of the forgotten armies. However the Sisters of Battle are notable in that while they're not as old as the Dark Eldar, they might very well have to wait quite a bit longer given that they're getting a Magazine Codex (which usually means development on them has halted and they're just getting lip service in the meantime). Even more notable is that the army is so old, they're the only ones who still require you to use metal models for the entire army (every army, even the Necrons and Dark Eldar, had plastics for troops. Sisters are not so lucky).

** Mekton Zeta itself was subjected to a lot of development hell. The first sourcebook for the edition was out over a year before the rulebook was released. The mecha in it were constructed with a hybrid of ''Mekton II'' and ''Zeta''rules and contained a number of substantial differences to the construction rules from either. By the time that Zeta was released, the rules had been further revised, leaving the book effectively obsolete and unsupported.

 

* Richard O'Brien has, for years, planned on making a sequel to the ''[[Rocky Horror Picture Show|Rocky Horror Show]]''. So far, however, nothing beyond a few rumors and some scrapped script ideas. All that's known about the yet-to-be-made sequel is that it would've involved Frank N Furter coming back to life.

** The first "leaked" script, ''Revenge of the Old Queen'', began making the rounds in the late '90s, though it reads more like a glorified [[Fanfic]]. Last year, O'Brien announced that he had finally begun writing the playbook for a true sequel, entitled ''Rocky Horror: The Second Cumming''. See the Discussion page for a more detailed version.

* A musical version of ''[[The Man Who Fell to Earth]]'', which would have been closer to the original novel than its 1976 film adaptation, was announced for Broadway at the turn of 2000, and had a dedicated website with song demos and costume designs. The project never got further than a few more demos. Curiously, there were unrelated plans for a new film adaptation of the book for 2009, but that project never made it further than an IMDb page. Both projects may have suffered for the fact that the story has a ''huge'' [[Downer Ending]].

* The Broadway version of ''[[Love Never Dies]]'' was set to open Fall 2010, but it was pushed back first to Spring 2011 and then indefinitely.

 

== Theme Parks ==

 

 

* In ''Muertitos'', the equivalent of Hollywood is actually ''called'' Development Hell, in a [[Shout-Out]] to this. The story arc it appears in actually primarily parodies [[Adaptation Decay]] and [[So Bad It's Horrible]], however.

* ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'' commented on ''[[Star Wars Galaxies]]'' [https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/03/17/a-genuine-appraisal here].

 

* [[The Masked Girl]] had a year between release of the opening and release of the actual first episode.

* Jack Douglass (of [http://www.youtube.com/user/jacksfilms jacksfilms]) has been promising a [[YouTube]] version of "Choose Your Own Adventure" since 2008.

* [[Shiny Objects Videos]] promised a fully stop-motion animated video back in 2010. It, uh... hasn't panned out.

 

* The three ''[[Code Lyoko]]'' OVAs. Reports conflict as to whether they were finally cancelled, but evidence points to their cancellation. <s>In a similar vein, the live-action series, which was announced as "in discussion" a year ago and has not been heard from since, is probably in danger of becoming this.</s> Actually, some recent PDFs found on Moonscoop's website suggest that they are in the late planning stage/early filming stage. Of course, who knows about release dates...

* Nelvana holds the rights to the ''[[Little Critter]]'' characters and at least a couple of scripts were written around 2000, but nothing further has been heard since and it is assumed development was dropped.

 

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{{reflist}}