10 Movies That Spent Decades In Development Hell
5. John Carter
Edgar Rice Burroughs' first John Carter story was published in 1912, but by the time the character finally made it to the big screen a century later everything about it seemed entirely derivative, which is ironic given that A Princess of Mars is one of the most influential sci-fi stories ever written and inspired everything from Star Wars to Avatar.
People had been trying to give John Carter the cinematic treatment as far back as 1931 when Looney Tunes director Bob Clampett pitched an animated feature to MGM, but despite test footage being produced, the project never got past the showreel stage.
The legendary Ray Harryhausen briefly flirted with the idea during the 1950's, but then everything went quiet on the John Carter front for decades. Disney picked up the rights in the 80's, but by 2004 Paramount had acquired the property and at various points Robert Rodriguez, Kerry Conran and Jon Favreau were all attached to direct before the studio's option expired in 2006, which ultimately led to Andrew Stanton convincing Disney to reacquire the rights and give him the chance to direct.
Looking back, they probably wish they hadn't.
With a monstrous budget of $263.4m, John Carter was a huge gamble for the Mouse House, and one that backfired spectacularly. Over 80 years after the idea of a big-budget Barsoom blockbuster was first floated, Stanton's live-action debut resulted in one of the biggest box office bombs in history, with Disney estimated to have lost up to $200m on the project.