8. Indiana Jones And The Monkey King
Indiana Jones and the Monkey King sounds ridiculous mainly because it has the word "monkey" in the title, but this was genuinely going to be the third Indy movie - following Temple of Doom - before it was reshuffled and reworked into Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in a roundabout way. The script, penned by the likes of Chris Columbus (who would later go onto to direct two Harry Potter movies), had Indy going off to Africa in search of the Fountain of Youth, teaming up with a 200-year-old pygmy called "Tyki," and doing battle - once again - with the Nazis. The inarguable highlight of this script - more comical in tone than the likes of Temple of Doom, something that Spielberg and Lucas were keen to embrace given the lukewarm reception to that movie - occurs when, caught up in a stampede, Indiana Jones JUMPS ONTO A RHINO AND USES IT TO CHARGE A TANK. As insanely fun as that sounds, then, it sure doesn't feel like it belongs in an Indy movie. There's also a friendly gorilla companion in the movie, too, called Bonzo, who likes to kiss Indy, and a ghost-hunting prologue set in the Scottish highlands. All in all, there are some good aspects to Columbus' screenplay - one scene has Indy playing "real life" chess with human people, for instance, something Columbus would sort of get to do in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The other aspect that makes this screenplay interesting? The fact that Indy teams up with one of his students, which makes for an interesting dynamic that had yet to be explored. Ultimately, this idea scrapped because it was believed to be way too expensive - given that downright balmy rhino chase sequence, it's not difficult to see why.