10 Movies They Keep Saying Will Be Made (That Never Will)

The story of the production of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is as long and winding as the Pulitzer-prize winning novel that the film would be based on. Originally in-development in 2002 with Scott Rudin at Paramount before the novel was even released, the book’s author Michael Chabon was hired to write the screenplay, which he eventually did after 16 months and six drafts. The script made it on Entertainment Weekly’s yearly “It Script” list, and it was in pre-production with Sydney Pollack ready to direct and Jude Law in talks to play Josef Kavalier.

In 2004 Michael Chabon said that film was dead, but before the year was out Stephen Daldry told The New York Times that he was going to direct the film the following year. Chabon confirmed this in January 2005, saying that Tobey Maguire was going to play Sam Clay, Jamie Bell was Kavalier, and Natalie Portman was Rosa Saks. That never happened, and by 2006 only Portman remained attached to the film, before it was ultimately declared dead once again by Chabon in 2007.

Nothing much more happened until December 2011, when Daldry again said that he wanted to make Kavalier and Clay, but this time as a television miniseries on HBO. In 2012 Benedict Cumberbatch mentioned that he’d be very much interested in playing a part of that mini-series, and that’s the last the project was discussed in the press… For now, at least.