by Brian Cooper and George Romero While Romero was waiting for a greenlight on his 4th Dead movie, he started working on a totally different zombie movie involving an undead rock band. The project was put on hold when Land of the Dead went into production. Screenplay excerpts were once available at DiamondDead.com, but the site is no longer active.
Read a review of the script from UGO Screenwriter’s Voice.
Update 9/8/09: Diamond Dead is now a rock music show. See deadrockproductions.com for performance info.
by Andy Kaufman and Bob Zmuda The story of Andy Kaufman and his alter ego. The film would have contained numerous comedy skits, as well as a key moment when Andy would break the “fourth wall” to announce the death of Tony. Download the script and read the backstory at Subterranean Cinema.
Treatment by James Cameron and ??? After Alien Resurrection, Ridley Scott and James Cameron discussed doing another sequel. Cameron and another writer (name?) worked up some ideas, but the project was scrapped when Alien Vs. Predator moved forward. Cameron mentions his involvement briefly in an Ain’t it Cool interview here.
Treatment by Garry A. Piazza I’m not crazy about this one. Leave The Thing alone. It had a great ambiguous ending that would be undercut by a sequel.
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by Andrew Kevin Walker and Akiva Goldsman After several failed attempts to get a new Superman off the ground, this crossover was proposed by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was designed to relaunch both the Superman and Batman franchises. I think it’s a great idea. Sure, they’re both good guys, but as anyone who reads the comics knows, the two heroes have conflicting personalities and ideologies. This screenplay was scrapped when other (separate) Superman and Batman projects came into favor and attached director Wolfgang Peterson left to do Troy.
Read reviews at UGO Screenwriter’s Voice and SupermanHomepage.com
Download the screenplay
by Alex Ford After Kevin Smith’s Superman Lives was dropped, Alex Ford wrote this script for Warner Brothers. He pitched it as the first of seven movies, which was intriguing, but Ford eventually split with Warners due to creative differences.
This “Man of Steel” is independent from Bryan Singer’s Man of Steel, the proposed sequel to Superman Returns.
Read a review of the script at SupermanHomepage.com
by Kevin Smith Smith has been pretty vocal about the horrors of development. For all the hype, I’m not too keen on this script. It has some interesting elements: the death and rebirth of Superman, the presence of both Lex Luthor and Braniac. I liked the way the story just starts without explaining who Superman is — like a comic, or an episode of the animated show. But there is some humor that doesn’t work, and three separate robot characters. That’s at least one too many robots for me.
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by Nat Mauldin As Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a parody of film noir, this movie would have taken on the war genre, with Roger involved in WWII. I have a hard copy of this script, but haven’t had the chance to get it transcribed. Read a review at Film Buff Online. See “Who Screwed Roger Rabbit” at the Animation World Network.
by William Gibson Did you ever see Johnny Mnemonic? Ignore the overall quality of the movie for a moment… Did you at least like the idea of jacking your brain into the internet? Gibson’s novel Neuromancer conveyed that in a fun and exciting way. The book was optioned, and Chuck Russell turned in a draft. Read a review of the Russell draft at UGO Screenwriter’s Voice.That didn’t get made, so Gibson took a crack at it himself.
by Walter Hill The Killer was a break-out film for director John Woo and actor Chow Yun-fat. After the Hong Kong movie made the film festival rounds, Tri-Star became interested in doing an English language remake, with Richard Gere as the hitman and Denzel Washington as the cop. But because the relationship between the two male characters might be hard for western audiences to accept,the producers later considered casting Michelle Yeoh in the cop role. The project never came together and was eventually set aside.
