9 Movies That Were Scrapped After Being Filmed (And Why)
7. My Best Friends Birthday (Quentin Tarantino)
The Film: If you thought that Reservoir Dogs was Quentin Tarantinos directorial debut, think again. My Best Friends Birthday was a comedy that he adapted from a short script written by his friend Craig Hamann that follows a guy named Clarence (Tarantino) as his attempts to surprise his best friend Mickey (Hamann) on his birthday backfire horribly. Shot in black-and-white on 16mm film, My Best Friends Birthday was a low-key effort that lacked the style that Tarantino films would become known for, but it would have been interesting to see if this early effort would have found the same cult status his later work. Why It Was Scrapped: Tarantino didnt have much choice in the end, after a freak fire in the development lab destroyed a good chunk of the film he and Hamann had slaved over for a period of four years while they both worked at the now closed Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California. With a budget of around $5000 at their disposal, the pair had set out to make a film that was supposed to last 70 minutes, but the recovered footage only adds up to half that time, meaning the film has never been released in its entirety. Tarantinos fame in later life meant that the full script was dug up and ended up on the internet along with a rough cut of the remaining footage that he put together for friends. Though quite clearly incomplete, it is still an enjoyable watch for Tarantino fans, with a number of nods to his future work there for all to see. The Tarantino-savvy among you will have already noticed that his characters name (Clarence) was the name he used for the main character when he wrote True Romance, and even Aldo Raine of Inglourious Basterds fame is mentioned here.
