10 Cancelled Movies That Would Have Made Billions

Giving up on these movies was throwing money down the drain.

Paramount PIctures

Unlike within the medium of video games, motion pictures don't tend to end up cancelled mid-way through production. Only on very rare occasions will a film that has already entered shooting end up being shut down (Terry Gilliam's ill-fated adaptation of Don Quixote, for example); what's more likely, then, is that a film will find itself cancelled during those initial stages, way before shooting starts, when concepts and potential plots are being thrown around with all the splendor of confetti at a wedding.

Most of the time, proposed movies are cancelled because the money couldn't find its way to the right people at the right time, but there are other reasons, too; creative differences, lack of direction, egotistical producers, failure to find the right actors, and just plain bad luck can all stop a potentially marketable motion picture from moving forwards. Sometimes that can be a good thing, as problems prevent a real turkey from making its way into the world. But that, as they say, isn't always the case...

Sometimes movies that would have probably grossed about a billion dollars - or close to that amount - slip through the cracks, depriving movie studios of guaranteed blockbuster gold. Here, then, are 10 proposed films that - had they been made - could have probably grossed close to the billion mark...

Contributor

Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.