10 Movies You Won't Believe They Tried To Remake

To many film fans, any remake announcement triggers an instant eyeroll, because let's be honest - the history of Hollywood is littered with the corpses of unimaginative, even disrespectful remakes lazily churned out for a quick buck.

At their worst, they can be a testament to the cynical lack of creativity in certain quarters of the industry, and while not all remakes are created equal, it's easy to see why so many approach them with a truckload of skepticism.

All the same, there are clearly some films that just seem off-limits to studios for one reason or another - perhaps the movie in question is so iconic or so reliant on its central performance, or the international content simply wouldn't translate well to English-speaking sensibilities.

And yet, while these films all seemed fairly "safe" from the remake treatment, studios gave it the ol' college try anyway, daring to develop remakes of these acclaimed and/or iconic movies.

But in each case success was nowhere to be found - the projects ended up cancelled for one of many different reasons, or have just spent an eternity languishing in development hell. 

It's certainly tough to lament the demise of these remakes, that's for sure...

John Carpenter movies have such a unique style and tonality to them that remakes are always going to leave his fans up in arms, and boy, they were not happy when a remake of cult classic Escape from New York was first announced.

A remake of the 1981 Kurt Russell-starring sci-fi actioner began development in 2007, with Gerard Butler initially signed to play a rebooted version of the Snake Plissken character, while Len Wiseman (Underworld) was tapped to direct.

Wiseman ended up departing the project and was replaced by Brett Ratner (Rush Hour), who also later left, and as the creative process continued to stall, New Line Cinema cancelled the remake in 2011.

In 2015 however, Fox took a crack at it, with Robert Rodriguez set to direct a script written by Leigh Whannell (Saw) with Carpenter himself lined up to produce. Kurt Russell's son Wyatt was even approached to star as Snake, but turned it down.

Rodriguez ended up exiting and was replaced by Radio Silence (Ready or Not, Scream) in 2022, though by the end of that year the project had been reimagined as a direct sequel to the original rather than a remake.

That's certainly less sacrilegious to fans, but honestly, if Kurt Russell's not involved does anyone actually care?