10 DC Comics Movies That Almost Happened
Even Superman can't get off the ground sometimes.
After Joel Schumacher had dragged Batman's reputation through the mud, superhero movies all but disappeared from Hollywood. It became more common for projects to fall apart before they even reached the cameras than actually make it to cinemas, but today it's a totally different scenario.
After the likes of X-Men and Spider-Man hit big at the global box office, capes and spandex officially became fashionable, and the mega success of the Christoper Nolan Batman films and the Marvel Cinematic Universe which followed has made comic book adaptations cinematic gold dust.
The rights to virtually every property on Marvel and DC's books have been snapped up, but not all of them are guaranteed to make it to the big screen. Although superheroes are more lucrative than ever, projects are still swallowed in development hell from time to time, or capitulate in the early stages.
In the DC camp, this is a problem no character - regardless of how A-list they happen to be - have proven immune to. Batman, Wonder Woman and even Superman have all had films cancelled on them, occasionally for the best, but at other times leaving the fans wondering what might have been...
10. Batman Unchained
In fairness to Joel Schumacher, his third Batman films sounds like it would have been the most bearable of the bunch, had he been given the opportunity to make it.
Warner Bros misguidedly thought Batman & Robin would turn out well and, ahead of its release, they hired the director to work on another sequel titled Batman Unchained.
The third Schumacher film would have been darker in tone - basically a two-hour apology for its predecessors - and had bold ambitions to bring back all of the villains from the previous movies, including Jack Nicholson's Joker.
In the script, the main antagonists were the Scarecrow, whose fear gas causes Bruce Wayne to see visions of his past foes, and Harley Quinn, rewritten as the Joker's long lost daughter, rather than his abused love interest.
Nicolas Cage is said to have been sought for the role of Scarecrow, which would have been worth the admission fee alone, and Courtney Love targeted for Harley. Who knows how that one would have turned out?
Warner pulled the plug on Batman Unchained after Batman & Robin was savaged by fans and critics, instead turning its attention to potential adaptations of Batman: Year One and Batman Beyond, neither of which happened, but that's okay because the world got the Nolan trilogy instead.