The Great Unfinished or Never Made Movies list

Napoleon - While we have an exhaustive book detailing the production process Kubrick went through to prepare to make the film we will never see Kubrick's vision on the screen. The next best option is to check out Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo which is actually one of the main reasons Kubrick never got his film off the ground. UPDATE: Steven Spielberg has announced that Kubrick's project will be brought to the screen as a mini-series for HBO. He is producing.

Megalopolis - Coppola says he did his three 90's studio pictures -- Bram Stoker's Dracula, Jack, and The Rainmaker -- to get out of debt and to make Megalopolis happen. He went to New York, did tests, and even started meeting with actors. Things started moving on it, and then September 11th happened. Coppola doesn't totally rule out the possibility of doing Megalopolis in the future, but for now the chances aren't looking great. "I have abandoned that as of now. I'm now going to...I plan to begin a process of making one personal movie after another and if something leads me back to look at that, which I'm sure it might, I'll see what makes sense to me." UPDATE: Coppola has completed shooting on Megalopolis and is in post-production on it. Likely to debut at Cannes in 2024.

The Other Side of the Wind -Because Welles had a large capacity for biting off more than he could chew, unfinished projects were regular occurrences. One that grew to gargantuan proportions was The Other Side of the Wind. Welles conceived of the film in 1963 as a tool to bring him back to prominence as a filmmaker. The audacious storyline centered around a film director named Jake Hannaford who’d been in Europe for years and returns to Hollywood to make a cynical film full of sex and violence. The film would contain a big party scene at a mansion, attended by members of the media. Welles died with the film both unreleased and unfinished. Director Peter Bogdanovich, Showtime, and other entities wrangled with Bouscheri to obtain the existing footage, do the necessary work, and release the movie.

It remains unreleased. Northwestern University journalism professor Peter Karp has written a book, due out in 2013, entitled An Adventure Shared By Many Men (That finally came to nothing) that chronicles the long, twisted affair. UPDATE: Completed and released on Netflix.

The Demolished Man - According to De Palma this has been a dream project of his since he began making films. The film would be based on the science fiction novel by Alfred Bester. According to De Palma this would be a large budget project which is why it has never been made. With De Palma still working there remains a slim chance he will bring his dream project to life at some point.

Nailed - Russell nearly completed shooting this film according to legend but there remains one or two key scenes that needed to be finished. The production was shut down due to lack of funds and now sits abandoned even though completing it remains quite possible. UPDATE: Completed and released without the participation of Russell under the title ACCIDENTAL LOVE.

Dark Blood was abandoned in 1993 when River Phoenix died of drug-induced heart failure in Los Angeles at the age of 23, with a little more than two-thirds shot. It follows a couple on a sightseeing trip across the Arizona desert who break down and seek help from Phoenix’s character, who has become a hermit after the death of his wife.

Blood Meridian - Bringing Cormac McCarthy's incredibly violent and bloody Western to the screen has now been attempted many times. Scott seemed the best hope to get it done but Martin Scorsese, Tommy Lee Jones, Todd Field, Michael Haneke, and James Franco all made an attempt and failed to get the film off the ground. Considered one of the greatest American novels ever written the project remains in limbo. UPDATE: John Hillcoat and Cormac McCarthy have joined forces to bring the novel to the screen. McCarthy himself is writing the screenplay and Executive producing. Hillcoat will co-write and direct. The film is set-up at New Regency.