I hate to be the bearer of bad news, especially to a crowd full of film geeks like myself. Nevertheless, the truth must be told: these 10 films just aren’t going to happen. Not through lunches or bribes or necromancy or even Rupert Murdoch’s cold electric fist…they just aren’t going to happen. You may think I’m being negative here, but in fact I am not. I’m trying to be as hopeful as I can, seeing as we live in a world where Jurassic Park IV, The Three Stooges, and Dumb and Dumber To are all seemingly on the mend. If those films can finally be made after years of development hell, maybe these films stand a chance. Or maybe, much like Gretchen Weiners herself, and much of Hollywood itself, they’re just trying to make fetch happen.
Some of these movies have been teased, but constantly pushed to the back burner. Even more of these movies are never going to happen thanks to precious installments being pretentious duds that thought they’d get a sequel. But a couple of the entries here simply won’t happen because a studio won’t commit to them for one reason or another. Whatever the reasoning, all of these movies have at least one person asking “when’s that going to happen? If my speculation is any indication, you’ll be lucky if any of the films listed here are a throwaway gag in a Will Smith film. However, this doesn’t mean you’re all without hope, as there are suggestions as to how you yourself can continue the journey and/or at least gain some closure to your favorite properties that just aren’t ever going to hit our screens.
10. Chris Weitz’s The Subtle Knife/The Amber Spyglass
Description: The continuing adventures of Lyra “Silvertongue” Belacqua, whom we last saw on her way to our world via the Northern Lights, followed by an adventure in the City of the Dead, and ultimately leading up to her climactic battle with The Magisterium. Unlike The Lord of the Rings, New Line decided to take the one book at a time approach with Phillip Pullman’s Narnia for Atheists series.
Why It’s Not Happening: Unless you’re a die hard fan of the books, or needed to know what happened next and ran to Wikipedia, you wouldn’t get the gag about the ending you never saw in theaters. Director Chris Weisz edited the last chunk of the film out at the last minute as a last ditch effort to tease the public with the prospect of a sequel. If he’d perhaps left the original cliffhanger ending from the books (where, again, Lyra crosses into our world), he might have had more luck convincing the studio to allow him to proceed. (Or at least had a solo installment that didn’t end so stupidly bland.)
The Last Word?: New Line officially put the films on hold October 2008. Since then, the issue hasn’t been raised, and Chris Weisz went on to ruin/continue (choose your own adventure here, kids) The Twilight Saga with the second installment, “New Moon”.
If You Really Want To See It…: …reboot the series, and do it right this time. The fact that the mortal stakes were removed from this film, particularly with the deleted ending and the survival of children separated from their daemons, is exactly what turned this film into unpalatable rubbish. Also, if New Line is allowed anywhere near this series again, DON’T let them launch another marketing campaign where their teaser solely relies on The Lord of the Rings series to push their next Fantasy trilogy. This isn’t The Shire, so stop treating it like it is.
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9 Comments
Hopefully everybody will go watch Pacific Rim 10 times each so Del Toro can have a big enough hit on his hands to be allowed to make On The Mountain of Madness. If anyone can bring Chtulu to the big screen in full justice it’s Del Toro
He really could, considering how well he flirted with the concept in Hellboy!
this article is from just the other day. it doesn’t mean yes or no…but it gives hope!
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/GraphicCity/news/?a=73345
Great piece, Out of all of them, Id like to see a Halo film. But I think the time as passed for that, the hype around the game as died down, now its call of duty, which is a shame really.
Thankfully they cancelled the COD movie because they didn’t want to “taint the brand”. That, and they’re like movies on their own. It’s redundant because there’s not much you can do with a Live Action film. At least with Halo or Bioshock, we’d see a live action visualization of a fantastic world we’ve never seen fleshed out before.
the series creator or Bioshock is Ken Levine, not Ben. I don’t mean to sound like a fanboy it’s just not his name.
Thanks for that! I’ll notify the authorities for a correction. :D
As you’ve mentioned, the Coens have hinted at several interesting projects that we might never see. “To the White Sea” is the one I’ve been looking forward to most, but there are several others, unmentioned here, that sound just as intriguing: an adaptation of Michael Chabon’s alternate-history-noir novel “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union;” an anthology film titled “The Contemplations;” and a Cold War comedy titled “62 Skidoo.” The Coens have, as you said, hinted at many interesting-sounding projects, but, fortunately, some of those projects have come to light, some brilliantly, such as their remake of “True Grit.” If you ask me, the Coens ought to make film adaptations of all of Charles Portis’s novels, especially “The Dog of the West” and “Masters of Atlantis.”
However, “To the White Sea” might still get made; the project is following the same path that the earlier Coen film “The Hudsucker Proxy” followed.
Johnny, you get a virtual high five for your Coen Brothers knowledge. And I agree with wanting them to do another Western, as True Grit blew me away upon release. It seems like as Noir as their sensibilities have always been, they were born for Westerns.
Also, 62 Skidoo sounds like a great spiritual sequel to Burn After Reading, so that would be a great pick as well.