10 Cancelled Movies That Would Have Made Billions

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

By Sam Hill /

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.

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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...

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