{"id":30689,"date":"2022-08-15T23:29:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T23:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=30689"},"modified":"2022-08-25T05:16:33","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T05:16:33","slug":"never-made-destroyed-in-a-locked-safe-for-100-years-with-batgirl-cancelled-here-are-5-other-films-we-will-never-get-to-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/never-made-destroyed-in-a-locked-safe-for-100-years-with-batgirl-cancelled-here-are-5-other-films-we-will-never-get-to-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Never made, destroyed, in a locked safe for 100 years: with Batgirl cancelled, here are 5 other films we will never get to see"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sian Mitchell<\/a>, Deakin University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Batgirl has become the latest film to be added to a growing list of movies we will never get to see. The US$90 million film had been shot and largely edited, but now the whole thing will be consigned to the cutting room floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav stated<\/a> the decision to cancel the film was due to a redirection of the company strategic vision \u2013 a discouraging, but often used corporate rationale when Hollywood studios believe they will make a better financial return on a film by writing it off<\/a> as a loss instead of releasing it .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Batgirl isn\u2019t the first film to be scrapped in the history of the movie business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Infamous examples include Terry Gilliam\u2019s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote<\/a> and Alejandro Jodorowsky\u2019s plan for a 14-hour version of Dune<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are five other films that didn\u2019t make it onto our screens \u2026 at least not yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Superman Lives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Starring Nicholas Cage as the \u201cman of steel\u201d, Superman Lives also met its untimely end at Warner Brothers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin Smith (of Clerks<\/a> fame) was commissioned to rewrite a Superman script in the mid-90s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seemed to be doomed from the beginning with producer Jon Peters reportedly suggesting<\/a> this Superman shouldn\u2019t fly or wear his famous suit. Smith then got ousted from the project once Tim Burton signed on to direct, with Burton insisting on making his own version of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three drafts later and with a budget that had almost doubled to around US$200 million<\/a> the studio put the film on hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Burton and Cage eventually pulled out of the project, although Cage stated<\/a> this Superman film would have been the best one ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Revenge of the Jedi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Imagine if Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi opened with a family of Ewoks sitting silently in a retro lounge room, or a scene where Jabba the Hutt and Bib Fortuna merge bodies in a grotesque sarlacc pit accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what could have been if Revenge of the Jedi were made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both David Lynch and David Cronenberg were listed as potential directors for the third instalment of George Lucas\u2019 saga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some accounts<\/a> of the story suggest Lynch turned it down to do Dune, while Cronenberg cited his youthful arrogance<\/a> and lack of interest in doing other people\u2019s material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Marquand went on to direct the retitled film, so we are left to wonder what surreal nightmare it could have been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Uncle Tom\u2019s Fairy Tales<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This 1968 film, directed by then film student Penelope Spheeris (Wayne\u2019s World) and starring Richard Pryor, told the story of a wealthy white man abducted and put on trial by the Black Panthers for all the racial crimes that occurred throughout US history. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/70NrVDBxdKY?wmode=transparent&start=0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the film near complete, Pryor and his then wife, Shelley Bonus, got into a heated argument where she reportedly accused him of being more interested in the film than in her. Pryor responded by destroying<\/a> the only negative of the film .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fragments of the film remained, which Spheeris screened at a 2005 retrospective tribute to Pryor. The fragments became the subject of a lawsuit<\/a> filed by Pryor\u2019s seventh wife, Jennifer Lee, arguing Spheeris and Pryor\u2019s daughter had together stolen the negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of 2021, the lawsuit was still pending<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Who Killed Bambi?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Named after their song Who Killed Bambi?, the Sex Pistols were the subject of a feature film set for release in 1978. Written by Roger Ebert and directed by Russ Meyer, the film was to be a vehicle for the Pistols to break through into the US market. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZpPIcwIV46U?wmode=transparent&start=0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fox Studios shut down production<\/a> after the first day of shooting, with executives and Fox shareholder, Princess Grace of Monaco, concerned about making another Meyer sexploitation film. There were also issues with a lack of funding and infighting between the band, filmmakers and band manager, Malcolm McLaren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film was no more, but the screenplay can still be found on Ebert\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. 100 Years<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Robert Rodriguez\u2019s 100 Years makes the list for a different reason. Intriguingly, the film has a planned release date of 2115 \u2013 100 years after its completion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps not so intriguingly the film is said<\/a> to have been \u201cinspired by the century of careful craftsmanship it takes to create each decanter of Louis XIII Cognac\u201d \u2013 making it seem more like a marketing gimmick than an experiment in exhibition. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NqMKrFFvR00?wmode=transparent&start=0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only copy of the physical film was displayed in a custom made safe at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, due to open automatically on November 18 2115.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by and starring John Malkovich, the film imagines Earth in 100 years. Secrecy surrounds further details on the film\u2019s story and whether the filmmakers\u2019 have predicted an authentic vision of the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can safely assume cognac will make a cameo, but most of us will never know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sian Mitchell<\/a>, Lecturer, Film, Television and Animation, Deakin University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sian Mitchell, Deakin University Batgirl has become the latest film to be added to a growing list of movies we will never get to see. The US$90 million film had been shot and largely edited, but now the whole thing will be consigned to the cutting room floor. Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav stated the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":30690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[12320,12321,12322,403,4373],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30689"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30691,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30689\/revisions\/30691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}