What big projects were also the dream of important directors but never came to fruition?
The disappointments of Hollywood greats, whether you’re Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles or Martin Scorsese, if a project can’t be done, it can’t be done. Even the most famous directors at some point had to give up in the face of “no”.
For those who have been waiting for these important films, there is only bitterness in the mouth from what could be and was not.
Important films cannot be made
Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schroeder In the early 1980s, at a time when Scorsese was doing his best, they really wanted to do a project: a biography of composer George Gershwin. As the main character, of course, always present Robert De Niro. However, Schrader tried to direct everything to another goal – a remake of “The Animal and the Beauty” by Vincente Minelli. Scorsese insisted on Gershwin and offered the script to John Guara.
Nothing happened and the New York director gave up, today it is known that the project will become a mini-series directed by John Carney. Martin Scorsese had to accept the role of producer.
There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks about the movie Cleopatra, which is allegedly starring actress Gal Gadot. She herself in several interviews, the last of which is Vogue Hong Kong, said: “Israel borders Egypt and I grew up with so many stories about Cleopatra and she became a household name. You know, if Wonder Woman is a fictional strong female leader, then Cleopatra is actually real.”
A movie that should see the light of day for a while what all David Fincher relied on. Gorgeous Cleopatra with the face of Angelina Jolie taking care to point out that she can never compete with Elizabeth Taylor. Then, despite numerous delays and a number of internal production inconveniences, the project failed to materialize. Now everything is in the hands of Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot.
Also a big rejection. for the thrill-master Alfred Hitchcock, fragments of which are also available in the video below. Hitch, in the late 1960s, after his disappointments with Marnie and Torn Curtain, wanted to devote himself to another New York serial killer project, Kaleidoscope.
The film’s plot was about a bodybuilder who lures his victims and kills them in a water-related context. Inspiration is connected, in particular, with the film “Red Desert” by Michelangelo Antonioni. Hitchcock decided to send the scripts to his friend François Truffaut. who said he had doubts due to the prominent presence of scenes of violence and sex.
Test footage from the unmade Hitchcock film Kaleidoscope pic.twitter.com/0nyYdFXlGe
— A look at the movie (@RealEOC) February 14, 2019
The producers considered the project too non-commercial, and the director settled on Topaz. The project that was obsessed with Stanley Kubrick instead it was Napoleon. The famous director did a lot of research on this topic, invited experts of all stripes and looked at about 500 books. There are only a few shades left from watching the movie “Barry Lyndon”.
This story is discussed in Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made. Now the project is in the hands of Ridley Scott And in the role of Emperor Joaquin Phoenix. Orson Welles, after various vicissitudes and all sorts of problems, instead found himself having to abandon a project he cared about: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. However, instead of this film director gave birth to “Citizen Kane”, or a film considered the greatest in the history of cinema. Quite good.
dream about Luchino Visconti was a type of Proust. The director wanted to make a film based on Marcel Proust’s manuscript In Search of Lost Time. Reviews were made and 363 pages of the script were ready, resulting in over three hours of film. The project did not see the light of day due to very little funding. A film was made that tells the exact story of Giulio Baze’s never-made film À la recherche with Anne Parillaud.
Sergio Leone also suffered a big disappointment. The project that ended up in his hands was something truly colossal. The plot was about a love story during the battle for Leningrad, the director said about it: “I am waiting for a visa from the Soviet Union, and it seems to me that there are opportunities in this direction. If the film is made, it will be a joint production of Italy and the USSR. In a historical context, he will tell the love story of an American correspondent and a Soviet woman.
An incredible project involving actor Robert De Niro and Russian model Pavlina Porzhizhkova. The names of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were mentioned as producers. Numerous attempts to achieve this until 1989, the year of the director’s death. Thus, the project was handed over to Giuseppe Tornatore, who worked on it for many years, including Nicole Kidman. Another shipwreck, and, in the end, the film closest to the project under consideration is Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 2001 film Enemy at the Gates.
Instead, Alejandro Jodorowsky took over the Dune project. Just talking about the cast and the people involved gives me goosebumps. Then the producers defined it as madness. Jodorowsky had Pink Floyd asked for the soundtrack. The cast includes such crazy names as Gloria Swanson, Udo Kier, Alain Delon, Geraldine Chaplin, David Carradine, Orson Welles, Salvator Dali and even Mick Jagger.
Andrei Tarkovsky, on the contrary, would very much like to bring to the screen the great Russian novel: The Idiot by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky. The director worked on the project from 1971 to 1983. However, he did not want to release another film based on the novel after Kurosawa’s similar film and said about this: “I love Dostoevsky, but I will never do The Idiot after Kurosawa.”