Few real-life stories are as fascinating to me as the torturous development phases of big-budget movies, and few of those experience as much growing pains as the science-fiction film. David Hughes recounts an unlucky 21 such true tales in THE GREATEST SCI-FI MOVIES NEVER MADE, now updated with two new chapters from its original 2001 edition.
Many of the flicks covered actually did come to fruition, albeit in a wildly different form than first intended. Each chapter is devoted to a different film, and more often than not, it comes down to a protracted birthing battle over content between the behind-the-camera creatives and the numbers-crunching studio suits. Guess who wins?
ALIEN 3 is one of those titles bandied about whenever someone talks about troubled shoots, and Hughes details why. David Fincher’s finished product — not the turd most call it, in my opinion — was shot with an incomplete script. So rushed was this one that Fox issued a teaser trailer suggesting the aliens would come to our planet. They didn’t. It’s more bizarre to read of the bad ideas that were turned into scripts, but luckily went no further.
Hughes also goes into the nuts and bolts of the goings-on behind ALIEN: RESURRECTION. Most notable is that casting decisions literally made writer Joss Whedon cry. That tidbit just makes me laugh.
Another biggie is THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, in which writer/director Richard Stanley was fired on the fourth day of filming, Val Kilmer showed up whenever he felt like it, Fairuza Balk tried to escape the set and Marlon Brando had the out-of-nowhere idea to give his character a midget lookalike sidekick, inadvertently spurring the AUSTIN POWERS character of Mini-Me.
One of the early chapters covers the history of the entire STAR TREK film franchise, with the idea of an academy-set prequel (which J.J. Abrams’ upcoming reboot is) having been floated as early as STAR TREK IV. We know instead that installment ended up taking place on modern-day Earth, but did you know it almost co-starred Eddie Murphy as a nutty professor? Yep.
I would’ve loved to have seen James Cameron’s SPIDER-MAN, to which he was long attached before legal squabbles made him bail. However, comparing what Sam Raimi did to Cameron’s statements of where his story was going, I think it’s for the best that he went off to make TRUE LIES instead.
Unsurprisingly, superheroes comprise a good chunk of the book, from THE FANTASTIC FOUR’s first screen try — an ill-fated abortion from notoriously low-rent producer Roger Corman — to THE SILVER SURFER, which sounds far too vanilla to merit an entire feature.
On the TV treatment front, I’d stand in line to see THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN on the silver screen, but not if it were written by Kevin Smith (as one phase was) and not if it starred Jim Carrey (as another phase did). Ditto for THE OUTER LIMITS, which was planned as a TALES FROM THE CRYPT-style trilogy on unrelated installments, but the stories that were fleshed out appeared to have done little to qualify for the brand. I didn’t even know there was an OUTER LIMITS project on the table for years (which is surprising, given the Internet’s microscopic coverage of movies in the making), so this chapter was the freshest of all.
On the opposite side, however, lies the one on SUPERMAN RETURNS. It’s no fault of Hughes’, but Jake Rossen’s current SUPERMAN VS. HOLLYWOOD book covered all that needed to be said on the subject. In fairness, it should be noted that the original printing of this book predated Rossen’s book by several years, but Rossen still delves into more that is here, even with Hughes’ updates.
With that update, however, you’d think that some simple, obvious factual errors could have been corrected (or perhaps they’re all-new?). For example:
• TRUE LIES was not James Cameron’s fourth film as director, but his sixth.
• Screenwriter John Logan did not win an Academy Award for GLADIATOR (or anything, for that matter).
• THE CELL was released in 2000, not 1996.
• Will Smith did not receive an Oscar nomination for SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION.
Other than that, the worst thing I say about the book is that it contains an afterword by Harry Knowles.
Among the other chapters are problem-plagued productions that never came to be (David Lynch’s ONE SALIVA BUBBLE), should never have come to be (SUPERNOVA), eventually turned out just fine (I AM LEGEND) and on which the jury is still out (WATCHMEN). Although I skipped around from chapter to chapter, depending upon my interest in individual titles, the read as a whole is tremendously entertaining and rewarding, so much so that I found myself picking it up while watching movies that should have been holding my attention. But sometimes, as Hughes proves over and over, the story that never was is far more interesting than the story that is. —Rod Lott
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- The X List: The National Society of Film Critics’ Guide to the Movies That Turn Us On
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
“Most notable is that casting decisions literally made writer Joss Whedon cry.”
To be fair, Joss Whedon cries a lot anyway. Because he has a vagina.
Man, I remember reading about ONE SALIVA BUBBLE years and years ago. I think Steve Martin was in talks to star. That would have been pretty great.
And I, too, think Alien 3 is underrated.
Does this or an earlier edition mention the Harlan Ellison screenplay adaptation of Asimov’s I, ROBOT that was never made? Not to be confused with the Will Smith movie of a year or so ago by the same name. (Nothing should be confused with that.)
Must’ve been a different edition (or book), as Ellison is only covered in the STAR TREK and THE TOURIST chapters.
I wanted to like this book. I wanted it to be a remedy to Chris Gore’s 50 Greatest Films Never Made. But, yeah, it was too factually incorrect and poorly researched for me to take seriously. That the author tread ground that I had already covered meant that I was overly familiar with some of the details of films (such as Alien3, Dune, Payback, etc.) and each little mistake was an icy pick to my brain.
I had hope that this book was revised before re-release but it doesn’t seem that that’s the case.