Saved From Development Hell: Difference between revisions
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See also [[The Shelf of Movie Languishment]], where it gets done but not released.
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== Anime and Manga ==
* The third ''[[Rebuild of Evangelion]]'' movie took a really, ''really'' long time to make. It was released in Japan on November 17, 2012. And the fourth took another nine years after that.
** Similarly, the ''Evangelion'' manga, which began serialization ''before'' the show ever started airing. It reached its ending in June 2013, as chapters were published [[Schedule Slip|so far and between.]]
* After the third season of the ''[[Slayers]]'' anime (titled ''Slayers TRY'') aired in 1997, a fourth season (''Slayers AGAIN'') was slated for the following year; unfortunately, [[Megumi Hayashibara]]'s (the voice of the female lead) schedule was hectic, and since the entire staff and the other actors had no interest in doing the show without her, there was no direct fourth season...[[Uncancelled|until 2008]]. There was an OVA, a movie, and some radio dramas that followed through the early 2000's. However, eleven years for a direct fourth season is an ''awfully'' long time...
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* After two years, [[Touhou Project|Maikaze]] finally released a trailer for the second episode of [[Touhou Musou Kakyou|their Touhou fanime]], which had been rumored to have been scrapped over criticism, both from ZUN, the original creator of the series, and from fans.
* [[Shaman King]]. The series was cancelled at the very last chapters due to low ratings, so it was not ended. Fast Forwards many years later, the author was given the chance to finish it.
== Comic Books ==
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* ''[[The X-Files]]: I Want to Believe'' suffered a similar ordeal, but in a smaller scale and shorter time period.
* One of the earliest examples of this was Howard Hughes's ''Hell's Angels'', which, due to Hughes's perfectionism and insistence on the latest film technology, took three years and a budget of $3.8 million to create, something unheard of at the time (and equalling somewhere on the order of $225 million in today's money). Two decades later, Hughes would take ''seven'' years to complete a similar film, ''Jet Pilot''.
* [[Superman Returns|The fifth film]] in the ''[[Superman (film)|Superman]]'' franchise was stuck in pre-production for nearly two decades. The first part of this was mostly the producers wanting to distance themselves from the failure of ''[[Superman IV: The Quest For Peace]]'', while the later half was due to [[Executive Meddling]] driving director after [[Kevin Smith|director]] after director away from the project. ''Its'' proposed sequel similarly became mired in development hell, after the lackluster performance of ''Superman Returns
* The failure of ''[[Batman and Robin (film)|Batman and Robin]]'' also caused many projects for a fifth [[Batman (film)|Batman]] movie to not take off (including a full-fledged sequel, an adaptation of ''[[Batman: Year One]]'', and a ''[[Batman Beyond]]'' film) until [[Batman Begins|a new one]] debuted eight years later.
* The rights to a live action adaptation of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' were sold to United Artists shortly before JRR Tolkien's death in 1973; it wasn't until 1994 that Peter Jackson was given approval to begin shooting (by Miramax) and [[The Lord of the Rings (film)|the first film]] was not released until 2001 (by New Line).
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* The ''[[Speed Racer]]'' live action film was first announced in 1992. Four directors later and through many casting, studio, and writer changes, the film was released in May 2008.
* The 2000 film ''Supernova'' (not to be confused with any of the many other films with that title) was in development for 12 years and cost an estimated 60 million dollars. Although the theatrical version runs only 87 minutes (the director's cut is 91), reportedly several hours of completed footage exists, much of it self-contradictory due to changes made to the script during the filming stage. Both Francis Ford Coppola and H R Giger were involved at one point.
* In a unique example of development hell continuing into post-production, the film ''[[The Exorcist|Exorcist:
* The rumors of a remake/reboot of ''[[The Pink Panther]]'' were first floated around the turn of the millennium, with everyone from Kevin Spacey to Chris Tucker to Mike Myers reportedly being considered for Inspector Clouseau (Myers was apparently the favorite of the studio, but his asking fee was too high.) It filmed as a reboot in 2004 with Steve Martin, but wasn't released until early 2006, largely due to a studio merger in the interim.
** There was also some editing done, in order to re-cast it as a family-friendly comedy rather than the more ribald, raunchy film of its original iteration.
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* A ''[[Cats and Dogs]]'' sequel was intended for release in 2005. After some story rewrites, it was finally released in 2010.
* The film of [[Richard Matheson]]'s short story ''Button, Button'' became the ''Chinese Democracy'' of the film world during its nearly four decades in development hell (though it saw a TV adaptation for the 1980s ''[[The Twilight Zone|Twilight Zone]]'' in the meantime). It would eventually be released in 2010 as ''[[The Box]]''.
* ''[[Dead Air (2009 film)
* A live-action ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' movie was announced in 2002, but didn't get out until 2009 as ''[[Dragonball Evolution]]''.
* For some unknown reason there was a 14-year gap between the fourth St. Trinian's movie (''The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery'', 1966) and the fifth (''The Wildcats of St. Trinian's'', 1980). But there's no mystery why there was a 27-year gap between ''Wildcats'' and the sixth (''St. Trinian's'', 2007); ''Wildcats'' was reportedly so dire that it's the only one not available on DVD.
* Carl Sagan wrote the 100-page film script for ''[[Contact (film)|Contact]]'' in 1985. When it went to [[Development Hell]], he just [[Novelization|made a book out of it]]. The film was finally released in 1997.
* Whilst its stay in Development Hell was rather short, ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]: [[Advent Children]]'' does fit. Announced at TGS 2003, and originally targeted for a summer 2004 release, it ended up appearing in its original form in September 2005. The reason, according to [[Word of God|director Tetsuya Nomura]], was that the movie was originally meant to only be roughly 40–50 minutes long. However, fan interest skyrocketed as soon as the movie was announced, so the script was rewritten and the movie lengthened to accommodate for fan expectation.
** ''Advent Children Complete'' again deserves a mention: it saw release in April 2009, after being announced at TGS 2006. Square Enix seem to have a habit of announcing things way before they're actually finished.
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* It took over a decade for ''[[The A-Team]]'' [[The A-Team (film)|film]] to be made, and the movie went through 11 scripts. In the first script, the team members were supposed to be veterans of the ''First'' Iraq War!
* ''[[A.I.: Artificial Intelligence|AI]]'': the story that inspired it was published in 1969, [[Stanley Kubrick]] begun thinking about adapting it in the early 70's (complete with bringing the author to adapt), brought in [[Steven Spielberg]] to the project in 1985, and many false-start announcements appeared through the 90's. Then he died in 1999, Spielberg assumed control of the project, and the film finally took off.
* Since ''A.I.'' was mentioned, two films Spielberg considered directing at the time: ''[[Minority Report]]'' (announced as early as 1998 - postponed twice, first by ''A.I.'', then by [[Tom Cruise]]'s ''[[Mission: Impossible (film)
* In 1988, Fox got interested in making a new ''[[Planet of the Apes]]'' with Adam Rifkin (who would later write ''Mousehunt'' and ''[[Small Soldiers]]'', among others). New executives made the project crash. [[Peter Jackson]], [[Oliver Stone]], [[Chris Columbus]], [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] and [[James Cameron]] were involved with the movie in the following years. It only took off after William Broyles, Jr. (''Apollo 13'', later ''[[Cast Away]]'') wrote a script in 1999, which attracted [[Tim Burton]], and led to the film released in 2001.
* ''[[Inception]]'' went through a stint in development hell that was actually self-imposed; Christopher Nolan saw the film as his personal opus and spent ten years revising the script until he was sure it was the absolute best he could make it, and everything in the complicated story made sense.
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* [[James Cameron]] wrote the script for ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'' in 1994, and planned for a 1999 release. It took ten years for technology to advance to the point where he could convincingly and reasonably depict another planet with CGI. [[Scenery Porn|He succeeded.]]
* [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] has two main examples: ''[[GoldenEye (film)|GoldenEye]]'' (which emerged from the failed third Timothy Dalton film) and the upcoming ''[[Skyfall (film)|Skyfall]]'' (EON started to arrange things. Then MGM got into financial problems, and it was kept on hold until the studio solved them). ''[[On Her Majesty's Secret Service]]'' is a minor case: it was first announced as a successor to ''[[Goldfinger]]'' (''[[Thunderball]]'' came instead due to lawsuits and such), then after ''Thunderball'' (but the winter locations made producers prioritize ''[[You Only Live Twice]]'').
* The film adaptation of ''[[Atlas Shrugged (film series)|Atlas Shrugged]]''. There were two failed attempts in [[The Seventies]] to turn it into a [[Miniseries]]—the first one fell through when [[Ayn Rand]] wasn't able to secure final script approval, while the second one had a finished script (with Rand's approval) and was gearing up for production at [[NBC]], but that too was halted after Fred Silverman came to power at the network. Rand started work on her own script, but [[Author Existence Failure|she died]] with only a third of it finished. The film rights switched hands multiple times in the ensuing decades, and at one point such stars as [[Angelina Jolie]], [[Brad Pitt]], [[Charlize Theron]], [[Julia Roberts]], [[Anne Hathaway]] and [[Russell Crowe]] were all attached. All of their deals, however, fell through, and the current rights-holders rushed through an independently-financed production [[Money, Dear Boy|in order to prevent the film rights from reverting to the Rand estate]]. The result, released in 2011 as ''[[Atlas Shrugged: Part I]]'', was critically thrashed and went largely ignored even by the conservatives and libertarians that its marketing aggressively courted.
* ''[[Superbad]]'' was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg in the mid-'90s, as a way to prove that they could write a movie script. Years later, after working with Judd Apatow on the short-lived TV series ''[[Undeclared]]'', they pitched the script to him. Originally, Seth Rogen was to play the role of Seth, and he recorded a script reading of the lines back in '02. During the early and mid-2000s, they could not find a company who wanted to distribute the film. The script also went through a few revisions, the whole idea of Seth and Evan going to separate colleges, and the emotional friendship stuff was added in a later revision. Anyway, after the success of ''[[Talladega Nights]]'', Apatow and Rogen pitched the script to Columbia, and they accepted it. But by this time, Rogen looked too old to play the role of Seth, so they had Jonah Hill take the role.
* The film version of the [[Dave Barry]] novel ''[[Big Trouble]]'' had been filmed, had a star-studded cast and was looking to be a big box-office hit...and then September 11 happened a week before the film was to be released. Being a comedy about a plane hijacking with a subplot about two teenagers playing a large-scale tag game called "Killer", the movie was shelved indefinitely. It finally appeared in theaters with little promotion in April 2002. Despite decent reviews, it failed spectacularly at the box office.
* [[Woody Allen]] wrote the screenplay of ''Whatever Works'' in the 1970s, with Zero Mostel in mind for the main role. After Mostel died in 1977, Allen shelved the project for more then thirty years. The film was eventually released in 2009, starring [[Larry David]].
* ''[[Hounddog]]'' by D. Kampmeier. The script was originally written in the nineties, but the project hasn't found financing until 2005. When production started in summer 2006, it was overshadowed by [[Paedo Hunt|accusations of sexual exploitation of the child actors involved]]. The film was shown at the Sundance Festival in early 2007, booed and basically sent back into [[Development Hell]]. It was finally ready in 2009, but was almost completely pulled from distribution at the last moment (only having 22 screens at most). It is available on DVD since fall 2010.
* ''[[Hoodwinked]] Too! Hood vs. Evil'' was supposed to be released in January 2010. And... nothing.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120104014628/http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/whatever-happened-to-hoodwinked-too.html The creator himself wasn't sure when it was going to be released], if ever. It finally came out in April 2011.
* Two MGM films, [[Cabin In The Woods]] and the [[Red Dawn]] remake were announced in 2009, both films ended up delayed for several years as a result of MGM's financial problems(they were also forced to cancel their plans to convert "Cabin" into 3-D, though most people consider that a good thing) [[Red Dawn]] also had problems securing a distributor due to it's rather "touchy" subject matter with the Chinese invading America, so MGM had to change the villains to North Koreans in post production in order to get a distributor. "Cabin" now has a release date of April 2012 and [[Red Dawn]] has finally found a distributor and is also set to come out in 2012.
* Tri-Star purchased the rights to make a film of the book ''One For The Money'' back in 1999, but nothing came out of it. Lionsgate picked up the distribution rights in early 2010, and the movie was finally made and released in January 2012.
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* The ''[[Silent Hill (film)|Silent Hill]]'' film sequel. Somewhat remedied now with the announcement of ''Silent Hill: Revelation 3D'', with a new director/writer, originally scheduled for release in 2011. As of August 2011, the film appeared to be in post-production hell, only to be saved by the announcement of an October 2012 release.
* The second [[The X-Files]] movie fell victim to Development Hell. The show ended in 2002, but the script for the movie ended up in Development Hell for six years. What was ''supposed'' to be a continuation of the [[Myth Arc]] ended up being a drawn-out Monster of the Week episode featuring a psychic. The fans were not pleased. It didn't do well.
* [[Sin City]] 2, which was supposed to be released in 2008, went on [https://web.archive.org/web/20120416091607/http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2012/04/sin-city-2-is-go-at-last.html production] and was released in 2014 (with the subtitle "A Dame to Kill For").
* A film adaptation of the ''[[Les Misérables (theatre)|Les Misérables]]'' musical has been discussed for many years, and was released on December 2012.
* ''[[Skyfall (film)|Skyfall]]'', the 23rd entry in the ''[[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]'' series, has been lagging in development hell since 2010, and was released on November 2012.
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* ''[[Ghostbusters]] 3''. The story behind the proposed third film is as strange as it gets. Rumors of multiple scripts and new Ghostbuster cast members have floated around the internet for years - to give you some perspective as to how long this has been going on, ''Chris Farley'' was being considered as a supporting character back in the 90's. Dan Aykroyd has reportedly written several scripts over the years, all of which failed to ignite enough interest to start pre-production. At one point, there was apparently a script written where the original team journeyed to a hellish [[Alternate Universe]] New York City called "ManHellton" (which, in turn, prompted the Russian video game studio ZootFly to produce a ''[[Gears of War]]''-esque [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM4cuKgGNvg tech demo] based on this proposed script in the late 00's). This, in turn, spurred the development and eventual release of ''Ghostbusters: The Video Game'', which (according to Aykroyd) may as well be the canonical third film. Yet, script and cast rumors still continue to float around - Ben Stiller, Bill Hader and Eliza Dushku have all been rumored to be potential replacement candidates. In January 2010, Ivan Reitman announced he was directing the film, and Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (''[[The Office]]'') reportedly wrote a script with Aykroyd and Ramis that they were all very happy with. Yet, there's been no word for months on the status of development. A major part of the delay seems to involve Bill Murray - as of [http://screenrant.com/ghostbusters-3-bill-murray-2-aco-99337/ early 2011], it appears the production is only waiting on Murray to approve the script before they move forward with pre-production. Whether the film will finally [[Incredibly Lame Pun|materialize]] is anyone's guess.
** Bill Murray is [[Put on a Bus|out of the picture]], at last report, and Aykroyd is currently looking for an actor to play [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute|replacement]]. Production was stated to have begun in Spring 2012, with or without Murray's involvement.
*** A production with an entirely different concept, starring an all-female version of the Ghostbusters,
* The [[Deadpool]] movie was somewhat stalled as its star Ryan Reynolds is tied up with other projects and producers are dead set on Reynolds being the star of the movie.
** The final movie will come out on February 2016.
* The [[Doctor Strange]] film: Disney has announced that Dr. Strange will be happening back in 2012. The final film will be released on November 2016.
* The sequel to ''[[Mary Poppins]]'' entitled ''[[Mary Poppins Returns]]'' had been in development hell since the first film's release in 1964, owing to creative differences between [[Walt Disney]] and ''Poppins'' series creator P. L. Travers, who rejected most of Disney's concepts for the sequel apart from [[Julie Andrews]] reprising the role. Decades later and following the debut of the musical adaptation, Travers's estate approved the development of a sequel set some 25 years after the events of the first film.
== Literature ==
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* Slightly odd example as it didn't involve newly recorded material: Neil Young's ''Archives'' self-curated best-of compilation. First discussed in the late 1980s, and announced several times since. There were rumours that Young had convinced himself that actually releasing them would send him into a terminal writer's block. First massive installment finally came out in 2009.
* Although [[Meat Loaf]] has been fairly prolific over his nearly 40 year career, the ''Bat Out of Hell'' series of albums are notorious for their stints in Development Hell. The first, released in 1977, is still considered one of the greatest albums of all time. ''Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell'' wasn't released until 1992, however, due to ongoing conflicts between Meat Loaf and songwriter/producer Jim Steinman. And finally, after an almost as long gap, ''Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose'' was released in 2006, which ran into problems including Meat Loaf and Steinman fighting over who owns the rights to the title "Bat Out of Hell" (they were ultimately awarded to Meat Loaf) and only half of the tracks being written by Steinman, and those tracks not being original works, but rather recycled from his work with other musicians and solo projects. When asked to comment on his relationship with Steinman, Meat Loaf once said "Jim and I love each other. We're best friends. It's just our managers and lawyers that can't stand each other, and they're the ones that keep starting all this shit."
* After 1997's ''Medazzaland'', [[Duran Duran]] began work in earnest on their next album. In the meantime, [[Blondie (band)|Blondie]] reunited and Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo were assigned the task of writing some songs for their upcoming album. These songs were never used for some reason and the Blondie reunion album, 1999's ''No Exit'', included only Blondie's songs. Nick and Warren decided to use them for the upcoming Duran Duran album instead. Another complicating factor was the fact that EMI (Duran Duran's record company) dropped them from the label and the band had to find a new record company. Finally in 2000, ''Pop Trash'', whose title is taken from one of the album's songs that were originally written for Blondie ("Pop Trash Movie"), was released on Disney-owned Hollywood Records.
* Simple Minds' Our Secrets Are The Same was recorded and intended for release in 1999. However it wasn't released that year because of a number of record company mergers, followed by their record company deciding they couldn't do anything with it and releasing the band from their contract in 2000. However, during this time an unmastered promo CD-R arrived in the hands of a Spanish radio host who proceeded to play all the tracks from the album over a few weeks. Fans recorded these and these recordings were subsequently bootlegged. Because of the bootlegs, an attempt to release the album in early 2003 fell through as it was considered unmarketable on its own. Eventually it was released officially as the last disc of the box set Silver Box in late 2003.
* Ohgr (Nivek Ogre of [[Skinny Puppy]])'s ''Welt'' album was originally recorded in 1995, but got stuck in legal limbo until 2001.
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* ''Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark'' may be the ultimate theater example. After being batted around since 2007, was finally supposed to open in February 2010. As of November 2010, it has had precisely one preview (in which the [[We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties|technical difficulties]] that had caused the production to be so delayed in the first place still occurred and [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/theater/29spiderman.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2 delayed the performance by over thirty minutes at one point]).
** It has an announced opening on March 2011, which the producers said was "the final postponement". [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/theater/spider-man-a-superlative-for-all-the-wrong-reasons.html?src=dayp Nobody bought it], and was postponed for summer. Considering how [http://www.avclub.com/articles/spiderman-turn-off-the-dark-terrible-or-make-it-st,51518/ the first reviews] went those extra months better upgrade the show...
** The show finally opened in [https://web.archive.org/web/20121021125021/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/151764-Believe-It-or-Not-Spider-Man-Turn-Off-the-Dark-Opens-on-Broadway-June-14 June 2011], after some major rewriting of the story.
* The Broadway revival of ''[[Godspell]]'' was scheduled to open at the end of 2008; it lost a producer and thus didn't open until the fall of 2011.
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* [[Samurai Jack]] might not get a movie, but it got a comic book continuation series, made between 2013 and 2015.
** ''And'' [[Toonami]] will air a '''new''' season!!! (Set for 2016)
* * In 2004, the CGI film ''Food Fight'' was announced (though it had been in development since the 90s, with production being halted in 2002 when the files containing the animation were stolen from a hard drive and the animators had to start over from scratch). Best described as "''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'' in a supermarket", the film promised to bring together over 80 famous [[Product Placement|beloved advertising characters]] (not to mention, the process of licensing that many food mascots took YEARS) with voice talent including Charlie Sheen, Hilary and Haylie Duff, Wayne Brady, and Eva Longoria. The creators expected it to be a real commercial hit, merchandise for the movie started appearing on store shelves before the movie even had a release date... unfortunately the film ran into countless problems as detailed [https://web.archive.org/web/20120908020250/http://www.cartoonbrew.com/cgi/whatever-happened-to-foodfight.html here.] After many years, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}X9r4pfoT1As a trailer] was finally shown at AHM in 2011, and [http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/foodfight-coming-to-dvd.html?commentSubmitted=true#comments a company has the bought the DVD rights for this film in Europe]{{Dead link}}, and the US DVD was released in 2013. [[So Bad It's Good|Alas.]]
* ''Last Days of Coney Island'' from [[Ralph Bakshi]] was announced in 2005, but due to distributor and production problems it was put on hold a few years later. Although believed to be canceled, Ralph put on a [[Kickstarter]] for the project in 2013, and the final product was released in 2015.
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