10 Terrible Movies That Should Have Stayed In Development Hell

10. Watchmen

Watchmen had been in the works for over 20 years by the time Zack Snyder finally managed to bring it to the big screen, and after decades stuck in development hell the end result turned out to be one of the most polarizing comic book adaptations ever made.

The reaction was split right down the middle, with fans praising such a faithful live-action take on the source material, while much of the criticism was based on the exact same reasons. For the uninitiated, Watchmen was a frustratingly complex and almost impenetrable anti-superhero movie, while those in the know celebrated the fact that the supposedly unfilmable graphic novel had turned out so well.

After sinking $185m into the project, not to mention the countless millions that were spent developing it when Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass were all attached at various points over the years, Warner Bros. ended up taking a huge loss on Watchmen when it failed to even recoup the budget at the box office.

Having been in the works since 1986 and passed through the hands of Fox, Universal, Paramount and Revolution Studios before WB managed to get it made, all of that effort hardly seemed to be worth it once the reviews came in and Watchmen ended up firmly in the red.