Filmmaking is, to say the least, a difficult, arduous effort. From the pre-production all the way to the post, you are constantly fighting various struggles that range from everyday complications of filmmaking to things that you could never really prepare for. The number of films that unfortunately don’t make it past the planning stage is lengthy, and there are dozens that we wish we could see in some sort of alternate reality. I was going to make a list of the top ten or fifteen we would love to see the most, but it was incredibly hard to narrow it down. Because of this, we will revisit the world of unmade films down the line but, for now, let’s jump in and cover five of them here, in no particular order.

Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon

    Might as well start with the big (and obvious) one. Quite possibly the end-all, be-all of unrealized projects from a man who had a number of intriguing ones, Kubrick’s Napoleon was, after the success of 2001, intended to be an epic, biographical tale about the man. Kubrick’s research was beyond extensive, seeing every film about Napoleon at the time as well as researching through books and creating various catalogs for important locales and individuals. As the project grew more and more, so did the cost. What happened was something out of Kubrick’s hands, as an adaptation of War and Peace by Sergei Bondarchuk was released and, a few years later, Bondarchuck’s own Napoleon oriented Waterloo failed financially, thus making studios nervous to back Kubrick’s vision, thinking it would not make money, especially with such similar properties out so soon.
     As fascinating as the project has always seemed, it was not all a complete loss, as Kubrick would go on to use some of his research in the making of Barry Lyndon. Recently, Steven Spielberg has made his intentions known that he hopes to adapt Kubrick’s work as a miniseries, and HBO has stated that they will be producing it. Will it turn out the same? Of course not, but we will have some solace in knowing that Kubrick’s possibly greatest work will be in some way realized.

Clair Noto’s The Tourist

     “I wanted to combine what I considered a serious dramatic story with the fantastic effects of science fiction – especially in terms of sex, romance and love. I wanted to portray sexual agony and ecstasy in a way I’d never seen before, and science fiction seemed like the arena.” – Clair Noto

     Regarded as possibly the greatest original unproduced sci-fi-horror script, with concept art provided by H.R. Giger himself, it also is a sad look at how things can, unfortunately, go in Hollywood. Noto’s script revolved around Grace Ripley, an executive in Manhattan, who also happens to be an alien. Aliens inhabit the Earth, exiled, and viewing the planet as a cesspool, look for their ways to return home. The city also houses a nightclub known as The Corridor, where aliens from different planets and universes meet, have sex, and lament about their exile.
     Once Noto finished her script and handed it in, it was immediately passed off to other writers to make it more commercially viable (in other words, watered down). Noto, not wanting her original idea and the themes she tackled, didn’t want it compromised and left with her script. The same thing happened at other studios. Noto had an idea that different artists would do their own designs of aliens, so they were very distinct and different from each other, as they should be. The script was called a masterpiece by those that had read it, and it’s a shame that we never got to see it and the impact it would have undoubtedly had on the genre.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Kaleidoscope/Mary Rose

     Hitchcock is no stranger to unmade films, as he has quite a slew of projects he intended to make or wanted to that never came to fruition. Two that stand out in particular are Kaleidoscope and Mary Rose.
     Mary Rose was a play by J.M. Barrie, of Peter Pan fame, about a woman who disappears twice, once as a young girl and once when she is married and a mother. As a child she vanishes into thin air for three weeks, while as an adult, it is for several decades. Both times she reappears without any knowledge of time passing or any physical change. Hitchcock had wanted to adapt the play ever since he saw it when he was younger. After working together on Marnie, he asked screenwriter John Presson Allen to work on adapting it. Unfortunately, the studio thought it would be too difficult with no mass commercial appeal and didn’t approve of it. Hitchcock, who wished to make it most of his life, once said that it was in his contract that he “could make anything I want, as long as it’s not Mary Rose.”
     In the mid-60’s, after Marnie and Torn Curtain were each released to less than stellar acceptance, Hitchcock looked to change things up, and he was going to do this with Kaleidoscope(also known as Frenzy, no relation to the one that would be made). He had intended to have it be incredibly dark; a violent story about a bodybuilder in New York who also happened to be a serial killer. And a necrophiliac. The screenplay was finished, and Hitch even shot some silent test footage to showcase what he had in mind (being influenced by Italian filmmakers), but it didn’t go over so well at the studio. Francois Truffaut had been given the script to read by Hitchcock and it made him uneasy, saying Hitchcock was better at the tension and drama of horror while this was in your face violence and sex. In the end, the project was shelved, but who knows what could have been, or how Hitchcock would have been able to pull off the more in-your-face approach to a horror film of this caliber.

Ken Russell’s Dracula

     Between his adaptation of The Who’s Tommy and Altered States, director Ken Russell aimed to make his own take on Dracula. What first started as a ballet grew into a film, with Russell having a very distinct and unique take on the Count and his story. Unfortunately, the possibility of production hit some troubles and was killed when the 1979 Dracula, starring Frank Langella, was made.The script has been released, and though it does have some fantastic sequences, very much seems like it would have still undergone another draft or two to smooth out some dialogue and bits. Still, it would have been fantastic to see what Russell’s visual flair would have brought to the many-times-told story.

Giraffes on Horseback Salad

     A love story about a man and a woman, whose face we would never see, starring the Marx Brothers and written by Salvador Dali that may or may not have been actually written to be intended to be filmed, and would have included a scene involving giraffes making up an audience for the climax showcase while wearing gas masks. I think that might sum it up okay or maybe not. I’m still not sure.
     How does something like this come about? Well, Dali was friends with Harpo Marx, and the main role was intended for him. Dali also hoped that the score would be provided by Cole Porter. It’s one of those projects where I’m not even sure it’s necessary to expound on why it didn’t work. MGM was said to have felt the script was too surreal, while Groucho Marx, who usually had say in the scripts/films produced for them, said it just wasn’t funny. It has also been suggested that maybe the rejection of the script was its intended purpose all along. That Dali wrote it with the intent, in the long run, to have it be cancelled. Which may be true simply for the fact that it seems like something Dali might do. This is a case where the film would have been interesting to see not for the fact that it may have been good, but just the weird, surreal-ness of it all. Especially since I have no idea how they would have been able to achieve some of the things Dali surely thought up in 1937.