10 Awesome Sci-Fi Films That Need To Escape Development Hell

4. Robopocalypse

Steven Spielberg has already explored the futuristic premise of a society in which robots have been fully integrated in his movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence, adapted from the short story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldiss. Robopocalypse, the 2011 novel by Daniel H. Wilson, could well be his next robot-themed blockbuster - that's if it can eventually manage to hoist itself out of development hell. The modern world is a place increasingly reliant upon technology - it is impossible to head into a public place without seeing countless people staring at their mobile phones or iPads. Robopocalypse posits a future world in which this reliance has reached saturation point, when a sentient A.I. named Archos is accidentally unleashed and seeks to eliminate humanity in order to protect the planet's biodiversity. If any director can rally together enough investment to do justice to the epic man vs. machine battles which follow then Spielberg is surely the one - Robopocalypse might also give him the opportunity to deliver the epic sci-fi battle sequences that were sorely lacking from his earlier adaptation, War of the Worlds. Sadly, it seems that even DreamWorks don't have enough funds to get the project off the ground, and despite the casting of Chris Hemsworth and Anne Hathaway in 2012, the adaptation of Robopocalypse has since been put on hold indefinitely.