11 MORE Movies That Led To Other Movies Being Cancelled (And Why)
8. Martin Scorsese Wins The Battle Of The Howard Hughes Biopics
In typical Hollywood fashion, the industry had been trying to make a Howard Hughes biopic for years, only for several to come along at right around the same time but in the end there could only be one winner, and it ended up being freshly-minted BFFs Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Warren Beatty had been trying to get his version made since the 1970s to no avail, while in the late 90s Brian De Palma and Nicolas Cage were attached to a Disney-backed Hughes movie, and Universal also threw their hat into the ring with Johnny Depp playing the lead role and the Hughes brothers behind the camera.
Both competing projects eventually stalled, but at the turn of the millennium Milos Forman was in talks to direct Edward Norton as Howard Hughes, before Christopher Nolan became interested in tackling the later years of Hughes' life with Jim Carrey reportedly linked to the part.
When Nolan was planning on mounting his movie, Scorsese became interested in The Aviator, which already had the benefit of DiCaprio's presence and was itself the resurrection of the same script that Michael Mann was originally set to direct, leading the Batman Begins filmmaker with little option but to abandon ship.
After all that hassle, Scorsese's The Aviator luckily turned out to be worth it after receiving widespread critical acclaim and five Academy Award wins from eleven nominations, while it would be fair to say that Nolan has also done pretty well for himself in the interim.