8 Movies That Escaped Development Hell (And Weren't Worth The Wait)

We wanted Indiana Jones, but oh god, not like this. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull released almost 20 years after The Last Crusade, though it began life as a script shortly after the end of the original trilogy of movies. Development Hell for Indiana Jones was largely due to everyone involved not being happy with a story they could tell in a compelling way, resulting in the property switching all sorts of hands before they landed on the extraterrestrial nightmare we got in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

That was after titles like Destroyer of worlds, The Mysterians, Son of Indiana Jones, and Saucer Men from Mars all the did rounds in the pitching phases. How far we have strayed from God's light.

From the difficulty of balancing the 50s science-fiction tone with the archeologist shenanigans that Indy is known for, we got a patchy production that relied on action sequences peppered throughout an ill-conceived plot. Audiences were less than impressed with features like Indiana's son, and his ability to survive nuclear explosions inside refrigerators - and though it's probably not quite as bad as angry fans shouted about at the time, it still really isn't the cinematic joy that the first three films reliably shot out many moons ago.