4. Indiana Jones And The Saucer Men From Mars
Given the huge success of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, both Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg were up for making a fourth Indy film if the right idea came about - unfortunately for them, this was also around about the time that George Lucas started to think about alien plotlines, and we all know how that turned out. Still, Lucas was thinking about "Indiana Jones and the Alien Movie" as far back as 1993, and pitched the notion of having everybody's favourite archaeologist going up against creatures from another planet to an unenthused Spielberg and Ford. George Lucas hired screenwriters Jeb Stuart and Jeffrey Boam at different points to work on the script, which does share lots of similarities with the likes of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but was ultimately its own beast: the movie primarily seemed to exist as a sort of Indiana Jones: Greatest Hits compilation, with all our favourite characters - including the likes of Marion, Willie and Short Round - coming back at different points in sort of glorified cameos. The main plot concerned Indy going in search of his wife-to-be, one Dr. Elaine McGregor. McGregor, who Indy would have met in the film's extensive opening scene that had him going up against river pirates, would have provided the chase for the flick (it turns out she's caught up in an alien conspiracy), but what's mostly noticeable about this screenplay is that it's very light on action or memorable set-pieces and it doesn't really make sense. This is also the script that originated the godawful "nuked fridge" idea, believe it or not. Apparently the whole Saucer Men from Mars idea was abandoned when Independence Day became a hit - only to be revived 15 years later.