10 Movies That Weren't Meant To Be Sequels

Following the events of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven, tyrannical entrepreneur Terry Benedict is desperate to exact revenge on Danny Ocean, with his crew having stolen $100 million from his casino. Rather than laying low, Danny gets the band back together to perform three heists across Europe. Just to make matters worse, Danny has to complete the triple operation before being caught by a detective, who's fast on his tail.

Even though there's a lot going on, Ocean's Twelve was supposed to be much simpler. The basis of the plot came from George Nolfi's screenplay, which went by the name Honour Among Thieves. Interestingly, the story was meant to be implemented for a John Woo feature.

Honour Among Thieves focused on an American criminal who came into conflict with a European thief called Toulour, played by Vincent Cassel in Ocean's Twelve. Soderbergh believed the script emulated the tone of Ocean's Eleven perfectly, so it would serve as the perfect springboard for the sequel.

Although Toulour remained mostly unchanged, the American criminal required heavy rewriting, since he had to be split into 12 characters to accommodate Ocean's crew. 

The process must've been gruelling, but it was worth it, since Ocean's Twelve made a reasonable profit and spawned both another sequel and a spin-off.