10 Insane Movies That Were Almost Made
5. Barbarella
The Movie: A remake of the Jane Fonda-starring 1968 sci-fi adventure, this version of Barbarella would've been directed by Machete filmmaker Robert Rodriguez.
The original Barbarella movie is based on the comic-book of the same name, following the titular space traveller as she searches for a devastating weapon. Apparently, Rodriguez wanted to take the concept of a badass female space-warrior and make it full-on adult, with lots of sexual content and violence. Not really surprising when you look at his filmography.
He once described the project as a "really cool, R-rated, sexy - almost like that movie, Heavy Metal - version of a Star Wars movie." Heavy Metal is a 1981 adult animation (you can watch the trailer on YouTube, but be warned, it's NSFW), and if Rodriguez was going to mix that with Star Wars and Barbarella, the result would've been truly wacky, wild, and very mature.
Why It Wasn't Made: Unlike other entries on this list - which were foiled by factors outside the filmmaker's control - it was the director himself who sank this one. Rodriguez could have actually made Barbarella, had he chosen to, but he told MTV that he had some issues with the production location:
"It came to the point where [a company from] Germany offered us a $70 million budget, which would have been by far the biggest budget I ever would have had for a movie... but I had to shoot it in Germany and post it in Germany. Nothing against Germany, but I have five kids and I was like, ‘God, I don’t know if we can do that. I don’t know if I can be away that long.’”
Being away from close family for months at a time is really tough, so it's easy to understand why he chose not to make the film.