A sexist take on an iconic female superhero, Charleton Heston in blackface, and a sequel to one of the greatest films ever made. All of these poorly conceived films nearly got made — and they're not alone.
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00:00A sexist take on an iconic female superhero, Charlton Heston in Blackface, and a sequel
00:06to one of the greatest films ever made.
00:09All of these poorly-conceived films nearly got made, and they're not alone.
00:14Few movie stars have been given as many undeserved second chances as Mel Gibson.
00:18One of Gibson's many comeback attempts that never came to be was a movie about the second-century
00:22Jewish rebels, the Maccabees.
00:24You don't have to delve too deep into Gibson's problematic behavior to know that this would
00:28have been an absolute disaster had it been greenlit.
00:31Screenwriter Joe Esterház was working on the script, which ultimately got shelved by
00:35Warner Bros. in 2012 due to criticism from Jewish groups.
00:39In a letter addressed to Gibson and published by The Wrap, Esterház described many instances
00:43of Gibson being anti-Semitic and traumatizing Esterház's wife and son.
00:48No human being should treat another the way that he treated us."
00:53The script for the film may have been written with the purest of intentions, but according
00:56to the screenwriter, Gibson's interest in it stemmed from deflecting press scrutiny
01:01over his anti-Semitism and an illogical attempt to try to get Jews to convert to Christianity.
01:06Joss Whedon was geek royalty in the 2000s and early 2010s, with the girl power of Buffy
01:12the Vampire Slayer earning him a reputation as a progressive pop culture feminist.
01:17Warner Bros., meanwhile, was continually struggling to get a Wonder Woman movie off the ground,
01:21despite the character's immense popularity.
01:23In 2007, the news broke that executives had rejected Whedon's Wonder Woman script.
01:28Initially, it sounded like a classic case of an artist getting screwed over by the suits.
01:33Then in 2017, around the same time as the release of Patty Jenkins' successful Wonder
01:37Woman movie, Whedon's Wonder Woman script leaked online, and everyone realized it was
01:42terrible.
01:43Focused more on Steve Trevor than Wonder Woman and filled with cringey, casually sexist dialogue,
01:48the script was a clear illustration of the flaws in Whedon's general writing style that
01:52his fans might not have noticed before.
01:55Whedon's handling of the character just proved that he wasn't the best choice to do a Wonder
01:58Woman movie.
02:00George Dunning's 1968 animated movie Yellow Submarine has the flimsiest of stories, but
02:05the combination of psychedelic animation coupled with music by The Beatles makes for a delightful
02:10viewing experience.
02:11I liked the way they varied the animation style.
02:15It's also a movie so of its time and place that it seems completely pointless to remake
02:19it.
02:20For an inexplicable reason, however, Disney and Robert Zemeckis' studio Image Movies Digital
02:25attempted to do just that.
02:27The concept art for the unrealized remake shows that everything in the original that
02:30was cute and silly was transformed into pure nightmare fuel.
02:34Disney ended up rejecting the Yellow Submarine remake about a year and a half before its
02:38intended summer 2012 release date.
02:40Zemeckis was free to shop the remake to other companies, but ultimately, the director gave
02:45up.
02:46Long before an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics became a hit series on Netflix,
02:51multiple filmmakers tried their hand at bringing the endless to the big screen.
02:55Some of these attempts, like the version written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, could have
02:59been something great.
03:00One such adaptation, however, proved so horrible that Gaiman himself had to go to great lengths
03:04to prevent it from getting made.
03:06This terrible script was set to be produced by John Peters, the hairdresser-turned-movie
03:11mogul.
03:12Gaiman was infamous for, among other things, forcing giant mechanical spiders into 1999's
03:17Wild Wild West.
03:18Peters' planned Sandman adaptation was also poised to feature a machine-like arachnid,
03:22as well as a nonsensical plot in which Morpheus, Lucifer, and the Corinthian were identical
03:27triplets.
03:28It was the worst script that I've ever read by anybody."
03:33Gaiman also admitted to leaking the script to the then-influential movie geek website
03:37Ain't It Cool News.
03:38The site gave the script an equally savage review, and ultimately killed its chances
03:42of going forward.
03:44On paper, James Cameron directing a Spider-Man movie sounds like it should have been a good
03:48idea.
03:49After all, Spider-Man is awesome, and James Cameron has helmed some of the biggest blockbusters
03:53of all time.
03:54So, shouldn't it be a match made in heaven?
03:56You'd think that, but judging by Cameron's unmade 1993 treatment for the film, it seems
04:01this would have been a case of the elements not working well together.
04:04The major issue with Cameron's treatment is that it's ridiculously dark.
04:08His version of Peter Parker, set to be played by Leonardo DiCaprio, wasn't your friendly
04:12neighborhood Spider-Man, but instead a remorseless killer.
04:15Add in some weird casting choices, like Kevin Spacey as the Green Goblin, as well as a still-limited
04:21state of special effects in the early 90s, and it's probably best that we never got to
04:25see this film.
04:26Cameron also intended the climax to be atop the World Trade Center towers, an idea that
04:30would have been instantly dated following the September 11th attacks.
04:34So we can be thankful that legal issues ended this production, and Sam Raimi's 2002 movie
04:38ended up being Spider-Man's big-screen debut instead.
04:41Here's an example of how dramatically the culture can change in just a few years.
04:46In the 2020s, the lustful French skunk Pepe Le Pew was effectively banned from appearing
04:51in new Looney Tunes cartoons because the character's only joke is based around sexual harassment.
04:56A scene trying to make fun of his problematic nature got cut from Space Jam A New Legacy,
05:01as Pepe was last seen on screen being erased from existence in an episode of the Animaniacs
05:06reboot.
05:07This makes it all the more shocking to realize that Warner Bros. spent much of the previous
05:10decade trying to give Pepe Le Pew his own feature-length movie.
05:14In 2010, Mike Myles was announced to be voicing the skunk for a live-action, CG hybrid movie.
05:19Warner Bros. was still working on this film as recently as 2016, when a screenplay was
05:24written by Max Landis.
05:25Considering that multiple women have accused Landis of sexual assault and abuse in the
05:29years since, this would have made for a particularly disturbing match.
05:33The Toy Story 3 that hit theaters in 2010 is rightfully celebrated as one of the greatest
05:38sequels ever made, and among the best Pixar movies.
05:41However, its legacy as a powerful end-of-childhood tearjerker makes it easy to forget that in
05:45the days before Disney officially bought Pixar, news about Toy Story 3 sounded less like a
05:50promise and more like a threat.
05:52But this was all because Disney was trying to make Toy Story 3 without Pixar.
05:56Pixar was ousting in 2005.
05:58Then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner set up the Circle 7 Animation Studio to develop direct-to-video
06:04sequels for Pixar movies that had been previously produced under the Disney banner.
06:08A few plots were cycled through for another Toy Story sequel, including the toys solving
06:12a murder mystery and Buzz Beam recalled to a toy manufacturing plant in Taiwan.
06:16Fortunately, Eisner's departure from the company and Disney's subsequent acquisition of Pixar
06:21put a stop to this project, so Pixar ultimately got to develop its own Toy Story 3 for theaters.
06:27Spike Lee's 1992 epic Malcolm X is one of the rare biopics to rise above the genre's
06:32clichés and stand as a great film in its own right.
06:35We didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us.
06:39Interestingly, Lee's screenplay was a rewrite of a much older draft written by James Baldwin
06:43and Arnold Pearl in 1968.
06:45Had the script been produced back then, there's good reason to suspect the movie would have
06:49been a total disaster.
06:50Baldwin, a friend of Malcolm X's, was an inspired choice to be the screenwriter.
06:54The executives at Columbia Pictures, however, didn't support him, which prevented Baldwin
06:59from telling the story accurately.
07:01Baldwin wanted Billy Dee Williams on the lead role, but the studio reportedly wanted Charlton
07:05Heston in blackface.
07:06There's not much else you can say about such a blatantly racist concept, aside from what
07:11Baldwin himself said in The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm X regarding his decision to quit
07:15the project.
07:16I didn't want to be part of a second assassination.
07:19Rub & Tug was set to be a biopic about Dante Tex Gill, a trans masculine gangster and massage
07:25parlor owner.
07:26In 2018, Scarlett Johansson was signed on to play Tex.
07:29This was a questionable decision, to say the least, as it came at a time when the trans
07:33community was being increasingly vocal about wanting trans actors to be cast in trans roles.
07:39Johansson withdrew from the role shortly after her casting was announced, though this didn't
07:42stop her from making a laughable defense of it.
07:45Speaking to As If Mag a year later, Johansson said,
07:48As an actor, I should be allowed to play any person, or any tree, or any animal because
07:53that is my job and the requirements of my job."
07:55A better version of Rub & Tug might still eventually get produced.
07:58In 2020, Transparent writer Our Lady J was announced to be developing the story as a
08:03TV series, with the promise to cast a trans man to play Tex.
08:06However, no news about the show has been reported since.
08:10When thinking of classic movies that absolutely do not need sequels, Casablanca is pretty
08:14high on the list.
08:16"...is looking at you, kid."
08:17But that hasn't kept people from trying.
08:19Brazzaville, which was announced in 1943, never got made.
08:22It was said to be in the French city that Rick Blaine and Captain Reno planned to visit
08:26at the end of Casablanca.
08:27Howard Karch, one of the original film's screenwriters, later wrote a treatment for a sequel titled
08:31Return to Casablanca in 1980.
08:34That plot centered around Rick and Ilsa's illegitimate son searching for his dad.
08:38Cas Warner even attempted to get it produced in 2012, but it also ended up nowhere.
08:42"...it's still a story without an ending.
08:46What about now?"
08:48"...now?"
08:50Live-action anime adaptations have a mixed track record at best when it comes to quality
08:53and a downright terrible one when it comes to actually being made.
08:57One such adaptation that's been stuck in development hell is the Warner Bros. remake of Akira.
09:01It's not as if the idea of remaking Akira is in and of itself sacrilege.
09:05After all, Katsuhiro Otomo's original manga is different enough from the anime that there's
09:10room for another adaptation.
09:12Doing a remake in live-action, however, seems a bit more questionable, given the special
09:16effects budget that would be needed to do the story justice.
09:18Furthermore, doing an American remake just brings more problems, both in terms of adapting
09:23the manga's very Japanese cultural concerns and of the high risk of the characters being
09:27whitewashed.
09:29Filmmakers who tried and failed to get the Hollywood Akira made include Stephen Norrington,
09:33Rory Robinson, the Hughes Brothers, and Joma Calitzara.
09:36Most recently, Taika Waititi has been attached to the project.
09:39Akira's refusal to whitewash the cast is a positive sign, but Akira still seems like
09:43an odd fit for a director most skilled at comedies, plus Waititi has booked for many
09:48other films, which puts Akira on the back burner.
09:51The Day the Clown Cried is the movie on this list that actually got closest to being released.
09:55In September of 2024, the Library of Congress made an unfinished cut of the film available
10:01to watch for research purposes.
10:02Given the mystique that's been built up around this legendary awful Jerry Lewis comedy, a
10:07lot of film and comedy geeks are sure to be interested in checking it out.
10:10But it's probably a good thing it wasn't made available before now.
10:13The Day the Clown Cried is about a circus clown in Nazi Germany who gets sent to a concentration
10:18camp.
10:19The concept is somewhat similar to the popular but controversial 1997 film Life is Beautiful,
10:24and some have even made comparisons between the two.
10:27However, Life is Beautiful doesn't end with the clown character leading Jewish children
10:31into the gas chambers and then joining them out of guilt.
10:33Yes, that really is the ending of The Day the Clown Cried.
10:37It's no surprise that Lewis didn't want this cinematic train wreck to see the light of
10:40day in his lifetime.
10:42After all, people who have watched the rough cut have been effusive about just how astonishingly
10:46terrible it is.