10 Films That Were Stuck In Development Hell For Years

Nowadays, getting a superhero movie greenlit seems pretty easy, with countless Marvel and DC projects coming out in recent years and set to dominate cinema screens for the foreseeable future, but back in the 80s and 90s, the idea of turning a comic book into a film was viewed with more than a little trepidation.

The concept of an X-Men movie goes back as far as 1984. Comic book legend Stan Lee and long-time X-Men writer Chris Claremont pushed to make the film happen and got in touch with James Cameron and the doomed Carolco Pictures to make it happen. Cameron lost interest over time and, as mentioned previously, Carolco filed for bankruptcy in 1995.

Marvel kept pushing for a film but production companies weren't keen on the idea until 20th Century Fox saw that the classic X-Men cartoon was actually very popular with kids. Various writers, including Joss Whedon and John Logan were attached to the project until Bryan Singer eventually signed on as director.

Again, the script underwent multiple rewrites and various characters were changed around and removed to meet the budget limitations, slowing down production even further. Interestingly, Hugh Jackman, who made the role of Wolverine his own in years to follow, was a last-minute casting decision after Russell Crowe and Dougray Scott backed out.