9 Rejected Ideas That Were Recycled In Other Movies

Hollywood loves to recycle. If there aren't multiple reboots and revived movie franchises on the yearly release slate, you'd have to think that something was amiss. After all, it's far, far easier to cater to an established audience with brands that they're already familiar with (even if they're slightly mishandled) than it is to do something from scratch. And in this game of numbers, that's the kind of win studios will take often.

But what Hollywood's film-makers miss more often is the availability of millions of perfectly reasonable ideas sitting on the rubbish dump that didn't make it past the concept art or pitching stage. Not all of them deserve to be considered bad ideas as a blanket - there are inevitably going to be some great characters, stories and possible film moments festering there that deserve a shot of redemption.

And it's not like it hasn't happened before. In the past, film-makers have plundered their own rejections (and those of studios) to resurrect perfectly good ideas...

9. Toy Story 2 Rescued Wheezy And Barbie From The Bin

Originally In... Toy Story

In the original scripts for Toy Story, even before Woody was involved when the main character was going to be Tinny from earlier Pixar short Tin Toy, Wheezy the asthmatic squeaky penguin was supposed to be part of the film. The film would have been a feature-length A Tin Toy Christmas Special, which is why he's a penguin, but as the story changed, Wheezy dropped out.

He was eventually recycled as an idea for Toy Story 2 when John Lasseter needed a broken toy to hinge the narrative on.

Meanwhile, Barbie was supposed to play the part of Woody's girlfriend in the first film, but Mattel didn't want the doll to have her own personality so she was pulled and replaced by Bo Peep. But then when the film was a success, the toy maker relented and allowed her to appear both in Toy Story 2 and then in Toy Story 3 as Ken's girlfriend.