20 Upcoming Movies That Just Got Cancelled

10. Jeff Nichols' Cormac McCarthy Project

In November 2024, the brilliant Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud) announced that he was ambitiously planning to adapt the final two novels published by legendary author Cormac McCarthy.

McCarthy released the two companion novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris, in 2022 shortly before his death the next year, and Nichols intended to combine the novels into a single cinematic story.

The books follow siblings Bobby and Alicia Western, whose father helped develop the atomic bomb, and though Nichols completed the scripting process, he confirmed back in August that the film sadly wouldn't be going ahead.

According to the writer-director, production company New Regency backed out after Nichols delivered his script, which he called "challenging," while noting that he was extremely faithful to McCarthy's source material and the studio was probably looking for something more commercially digestible.

All the same, it's a damn shame that a filmmaker as talented as Nichols continually struggles to get his potential-rich passion projects made.