10 Movie Sequels Stuck In Production Hell

Going into production on a sequel to a movie or a franchise which is already a bona fide hit should be one of the few sure things in an industry in which getting anything at all off the ground is a monumental effort. That, however, is not always the case.

It might seem like a no brainer to cash in on the audience that already existed for the previous episode and keep churning out new parts until that audience gets sick of it, but there are still a load of stumbling blocks that can trip up even the most wanted sequel on its path to the big screen.

Maybe the studio has had a falling out with the director, or has lost the rights to the property, or just can't settle on a script good enough to live up to its predecessor. All of these can keep a highly anticipated sequel in the cinematic purgatory of being perpetually "in development".

And while there are success stories like Bill & Ted 3, there are still some huge sequels currently still trapped in development hell...

Director George Miller took thirty years, two dancing penguin movies and an anti-semitic drunk driving rant from its original star finally to put together a follow-up to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, so it shouldn't really come as a surprise that a further sequel is as bogged down as a car in quicksand.

Back in 2015 Fury Road served up a searing slice of post-apocalyptic car chase action that went above and beyond all expectations. Long before it was picking up critical plaudits, alongside six Oscars, there was already talk of multiple sequels.

In fact, Fury Road took so long to make that as far back as 2011, with principal photography about to begin, Miller commented that he and co-writer Brendan McCarthy had written enough for two more movies.

Sure enough, after Fury Road won almost universal acclaim, a pair of successor movies were announced: a spin-off for Charlize Theron's Furiosa and a fifth instalment of Max's own saga, tentatively titled The Wasteland.

Despite having a story ready to go and everyone involved seeming to want more from Max's high octane, gas guzzling adventures, The Wasteland has been perpetually delayed by an ongoing dispute between Miller and studio Warner Bros. over millions of dollars in unpaid bonuses.

Miller is still talking about The Wasteland as a probable future project, but the 74-year-old helmer is only just in pre-production on his hugely ambitious generational epic romantic drama Three Thousand Years Of Longing, a project that has already been a decade in the making. So maybe it's time to pray to the Cult of the V8 that he's still got enough in the tank for another go round the sun-scorched desert.