Caffeinated Clint
Whether they’re shut down due to financial concerns, or maybe a key player in the production has choked to death on a coke-doused golf ball, or perhaps the attached star and writer had creative differences, there’s sequel proposals crushed every day in Hollywood for all sorts of reasons. As we speak, someone is being slapped across the face and spat at by an exec for merely suggesting a “Jingle All the Way” spin-off fixing on James Belushi’s store Santa character, and on the other side of town, someone from the studio’s logged into IMBD where they’re removing Brett Ratner’s name from the listing of the never-gonna-happen “Beverly Hills Cop 4” project. It’s the nature of the game. Here’s 50 ‘More’ sequels, originally in the cards, we will probably never ever see.
1. The Perfect Storm 2 : Approaching Storm
A few years after the Wolfgang Peterson directed wet n’wild commercial, a direct-to-video sequel was commissioned. Needless to say, Mark Wahlberg’s third nipple wasn’t going to be a character in (comedian) Noah Ruderman’s screenplay, and not just because those bankrolling the thing could n’t have afforded such treats (spoiler : Marky Mark and the Drowned Bunch all died in the first film).
The new film was set in a crab-fishing town, Cordova, Alaska, where Ruderman’s story pitted a group of affordable B-listers against some bitching waves.
Guessing the film didn’t happen because of the lack of monster wave stock footage available at the time? Or the search for an actor with a third nipple proved fruitless? Either way, the project came – excuse the pun – crashing down.
Interestingly enough there’s been a number of Mark Wahlberg movies that have been the subject of piss and wind sequel talk over the years. There’s, of course, the abandoned “Planet of the Apes” sequel that Fox and Tim Burton had planned to do, and that never- gonna-happen “Italian Job” follow-up (“The Brazilian Job”) that’s mentioned every two or three years, but did you know that Paramount wanted a “Shooter” sequel at one stage? (yes, that croc of shit!), and that a screenplay called “Boogie Nights 2 : Down with the Indie” was being flung around the sticky aisles of the drypuss cinemaplex last year? Again, that third nipple is expensive, don’t hold your breath.
2. Animal House 2
After the success of John Landis’s “Animal House” and before the failure of “American Graffiti 2” (whose lacklustre returns would ultimately seal this film’s fate – because, you see, they’ve both got teenagers in it and both promote teen drinking and intercourse) Universal wanted audiences to spend another ten bucks at the Delta House.
The sequel script, set in 1967 (the Summer-of-Love), had the gang reuniting at Pinto’s wedding in San Francisco. Though Universal had already lost faith in the project by then, John Belushi’s death permanently closed the book on the project (as good as It would’ve been seeing Stephen Furst’s Flounder as a hippie named Pisces, “Animal House” isn’t “Animal House” without a Bluto).
A TV spin-off did happen though, featuring a cast of newcomers including future leather stumper Michelle Pfeiffer. And there’s been rumblings of a bloody remake.
3. Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars
As if the title didn’t give it away, George Lucas always intended on having aliens be the MacGuffin – that’s not MacGyver’s brother – in the fourth “Indiana Jones” movie. You’ll find that near every unproduced screenplay for a fourth “Indy” feature – including Frank Darabont’s “Indiana Jones and the Lost City of Gods” – ended with the ageing archaeologist (retired in Darabont’s script) discovering Martians. Seems Spielberg, against the idea of having space spooks in the film, had lost the battle from the get-go. Guess someone had the bigger beard.
Jeb Stuart’s “Saucer Men” might have been a more exciting film than “Crystal Skull” – just. It opened with Indy marrying a new broad, with all of his ex-girlfriends (including Marion and Wille Scott) in attendance; brought both Sallah and Henry Jones back; and featured the slightly more plausible storyline of Indy caught up in a race to decode an alien cylinder in New Mexico. The script was thought too similar to the big hit film at the time, “Independence Day”, so was cancelled.
For my money, Darabont’s “City of Gods” script was the fittest of the “Indy 4” scripts – though even it read too Lucasy to be fully enjoyed.
4. Charlie & The Great Glass Elevator
After the success of “Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory”, the Wolfgang Puck-eating studio brass went to Roald Dahl with plans to buy the film rights to the literary sequel. Dahl, disgusted at the job they did on the Gene Wilder starring “Chocolate Factory” movie, told the big guys they can shove their golden ticket where the sun don’t shine. To this day, “Glass Elevator” remains only in book form.
5. Zombieland 3D
Immediately after the success of his clever taking-on-the-undead comedy, Ruben Fleischer suggested he’d like to follow-it up with a sequel to be shot in (In 2010, the device was trendy) 3D. At the time, the original cast (Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Jesse Eisenberg) were ready and raring to go, but as they’ve all since gotten busier, and Fleischer himself has moved onto bigger things (“Gangster Squad”!), it’s seemingly been decided to let the idea decompose.
6. David Cronenberg’s Untitled Fly sequel
Fox had been trying to get another remake of “The Fly” off the ground for years. At one stage Todd Lincoln was involved in coming up with the goods. For one reason or another the studio gave up on their quest to stick wings on an A-lister, which spurred David Cronenberg – director of 1986’s “The Fly” – on to develop a sequel to his film. Without Eric Stoltz, Daphne Zuniga and a Fly Dog, Fox rejected the idea. Fox’s loss, if you ask me.
7. Untitled Superman Returns Sequel
With the mixed reception 2006’s Superman reboot came the cancelation of director Bryan Singer’s proposed sequel. Seems no amount of promising fans more “action” and less chit-chat, whispers that Bizzaro and Brainiac were in the treatment, and describing the sequel idea to be “Wrath of Khan”-esque, could sway Warner to let Singer make his movie. Gotta feel for poor Brandon Routh, who was plucked from obscurity to play Superman in the 2006 film. Henry Cavill would replace Routh for the 2013 reboot, “Man of Steel”.
Speaking to Moviehole, “Returns” scribe Michael Dougherty essentially confirmed the villain rumours while suggesting the film would’ve indeed been a much bigger and badder ‘Superman’ picture.
“There was never any official deal for the second one”, Doughety told me. “There was always talk and whispers and stuff but nothing ever got off the ground.”
Had he gotten the call, the writer (now director; he helmed “Trick R’Treat”) says he would’ve introduced “Other Kryptonians – I’ll be purposely vague about that” into Supes’ world.
These Kryptonians “wouldn’t necessarily be evil right off the bat”, says Dougherty, “That’s too easy and cliché. I don’t think people just show up and they’re evil. In my mind, if the Kryptonians really were a space-faring race – which they obviously were – then it would only make sense that there would’ve been colonies and off-planet missions. So yeah, the possibility of other Kryptonians making their way to Earth seemed like a pretty big one in my mind.
“I think it’d be interesting to see how these other Kryptonians show up, land and have all these powers and [have to learn] how to adapt to them – when Clark got to grow up with [the powers]. Ya know… if you woke up with super powers tomorrow I think you’d have a pretty tough time adjusting to them”.
Dougherty might have also written “certain other classic villains” into his sequel.
“Brainiac was always interesting”, he admits.
8. Night Stalkers
Before it tanked, and before those reviews started trickling out like water from a broken drain pipe, a “Blade Trinity” spin-off was discussed, fixing on the weapon wielding characters played by Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel. The studio was gung-ho, as were the actors, and seemingly comic book fans… for about ten minutes.
9. Mrs Doubtfire 2
A few years back Robin Williams, who usually says “naNOnanoo” to sequels, gave friend and “Jumanji” co-star Bonnie Hunt his blessing to write a sequel to his ’90s hit. The script, they say, wasn’t to Williams liking and he and Hunt couldn’t make it work. He went back to moody little-seen dramas, she went back to bed.
10. My Bloody Valentine 2
After the success of their (3D) remake of the classic Canadian slasher flick, Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer put their hard hats back on and lit up final draft to doodle down part two. The story would’ve picked up right after the first movie ended, Lussier told STYD. “It was going to start the moment the first film ended. We were going to wheel into the hospital with Axel [Kerr Smith] and his wife [Sarah, Jaime King] was there. He goes into surgery. She goes to make a phone call in one of the waiting rooms to check in on her son. She gets to the phone and she sees these muddy footprints and looks around the corner to the bathroom and there’s Tom [Jensen Ackles] trying to sew himself up. The massacre you didn’t see at the beginning of our Bloody Valentine perhaps you see in the beginning of the sequel.” The sequel that isn’t happening that is.
11. Ghostbusters : Hell Bent
Note : We probably could’ve just shoved the announced but immobile “Ghostbusters 3” in this spot, since it hasn’t inched any further since the script was first commissioned in 1862, but in the hope it will happen eventually, we won’t.
This is third “Ghostbusters” film we would’ve had, had Dan Aykroyd had gotten his way, not to mention had more sway, in the late 90s (No, “I was in My Girl 2, goddamit!” didn’t cut it).
Aykroyd was still shopping this script in 2007, at one point even proposing it be done as a CGI feature.
“I wrote a script called Hell Bent, Ghostbusters go to hell basically. The premise is that it’s Manhellton. There’s Manhattan and ManHELLton. And if you can build an inter-dimensional phase system so that you can go from one dimension to another. We’ve succeeded doing that and we go to the hell side”, Doctor Detroit said, “Downtown, Folley Square – where the cops are, they’re all blue minotaurs. Central Park is this huge deep mine, green demons there, surrounded by black onyx thousand foot high apartment buildings with classic red devils. Very wealthy. And we go visit a Donald Trump like character – Mr. Siffler. Lou Siffler, Lucifer. So I will say we meet the devil in it.” Even then Aykroyd admitted he’d never get Bill Murray to appear in another live-action “Ghostbusters” movie (hence the suggestion to do it CGI).
The new “Ghostbusters 3” script apparently includes only a few of the same elements from Aykroyd’s seemingly amazing “Hell Bent” script – erm, Venkman, Egon and Stantz.
12. Jinx
Seeing how much drool Halle Berry’s spy character generated when she emerged from the beach in “Die Another Day”, MGM decided it was as good a time as any to do a spin-off flick – fixing on boobs. Thankfully, a movie designed to merely show off the bust of cinema’s hottest diabetic, was cancelled after the studio and the Broccoli’s clashed over creative differences.
13. School of Rock 2 : America Rocks
Seems everyone went cold on the idea of sequelizing the hit comedy pretty quickly. Despite commissioning original writer Mike White to pen a sequel (which picks up with Finn leading a group of summer school students on a cross-country field trip that delves into the history of rock ‘n’ roll and explores the roots of blues, rap, country and other genres), and Jack Black’s initial enthusiasm to reprise the character, director Richard Linklater and later, Black himself, would go off the idea (in Linklater’s case, he said Paramount jumped the gun by announcing the sequel in the first place). There’s got to be more to this story…
14. Annie Hall 2
Woody Allen doesn’t play by Hollywood’s rules, which is why you’ll never see his magnum opus sequelized, but that’s not to say the little guy hasn’t thought about what an “Annie Hall” sequel would be.
“I did think once—I’m not going to do it—but I did think once that it would be interesting to see Annie Hall and the guy I played years later”, Allen said in a 1992 interview. “Diane Keaton and I could meet now that we’re about twenty years older, and it could be interesting, because we parted, to meet one day and see what our lives have become.
But it smacks to me of exploitation…. Sequelism has become an annoying thing. I don’t think Francis Coppola should have done Godfather III because Godfather II was quite great. When they make a sequel, it’s just a thirst for more money, so I don’t like that idea so much.”
Clearly Woody never saw “Short Circuit II”.Classic Art.
15. Inside Man 2
The film that almost was. With a great script, an amazing cast attached (Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster were reprising their roles), and Spike Lee back at the helm, you’d think this would’ve been butter.
“Inside Man” scribe Rusell Gerwitz had taken a stab at writing the follow-up, and I think that’s the draft I read, but Lee quickly dismissed Gerwitz and decided to hire Terry George to steer the ship in a different direction. And the script apparently turned out tops.
But, seems we live in a world where not even the names “Jodie Foster” and “Denzel Washington” will get your movie financed. Seems Spike needed to introduce an alien sub-plot, have a deal with Nickelback to do the soundtrack, and blow up more landmarks in the script.
16. Eight
Yes, a sequel to “Se7en”. And it’s still happening.. But not as a sequel to “Se7en”. And with one old guy in the place of another. And no Paltrow head. That make a lick of sense?
David Fincher, director of the Brad Pitt/Freeman/Head-in-a-box classic, refused to get involved in a sequel to the best serial killer flick of the 90s but New Line carried on without him – – for a while.
In 2002 they snapped up “Solace”, a spec script by “Ocean’s 11″ scribe Ted Griffin, which tells of a former doctor with psychic abilities who works for the FBI and is drawn into a unique serial killer case that pits him against a ”formidable foe”. The film was rewritten as a “Se7en 2″ with the doctor becoming Morgan Freeman’s Somerset character from the earlier film. And now, it’s back to “Solace” again – with Anthony Hopkins playing new character John Clancy.
In other news, the sequel to another Brad Pitt classic, “Cool World”, has returned to its rightful resting spot on the bottom of my muddy sneaker.
17. Airplane (aka Flying High) III
Despite the mixed reviews of the first sequel, Paramount were happy enough with the returns they’d made on the franchise so far and had no plans on grounding it.
So who killed the second sequel? Star Robert Hays.
In London at the time to do a movie called “Scandalous”, if only to change Hollywood’s mind and show folks that he could do things other than “Airplane” movies, Hays was offered the chance to come back for a third (which would also have been directed by David Zucker). The then up-and-coming actor turned it down because he feared typecasting. Even when the offer was bumped up, Hays said no.
In 2011, I think you’d find Hays more open to the idea of doing the film.
18. Close Encounters of the Third Kind 2
Fearing Columbia might make a sequel anyway (as Universal had done with “Jaws”), Steven Spielberg decided to put pen to paper on a “Close Encounters 2” himself. At least that way, it had half a shot of being good.
The film “Night Skies” would fix on a new set of characters, a family from Kansas, who encounters evil aliens (as opposed to the kinder variety Dick Dreyfuss ran into in the original). Spielberg ultimately left the project behind, but cribbed elements from its script for his next flick, “E.T”.
19. Golden Compass 2
The first was pop without fizz so New Line immediately canned plans for what they hoped would be their new “Lord of the Rings” as soon as those rushes came back. Not that they’d admit it. The reason most will give for the franchise’s untimely demise is because of pressure from the Catholic Church, who accused it of promoting atheism.
20. Wild Hogs 2
Horrible film, but like so many of today’s stinkers, it made money. Disney, being in the business of making hidden Mickey’s, not money, of course, wanted a sequel to 2007’s biggest grossing comedy as soon as poss and swiftly struck up deals with all the key players (including the bird that flies into Martin Lawrence’s face while he’s riding the bike in the original). But with a change of guard at the studio, it wasn’t so much the employees that were being let go as it were some of the projects – one of which was, mercifully, “Wild Hogs 2”. Once again, Disney is thought of as the happiest place on Earth. Bless you Magic Kingdom.
21. License to Fly
Corey Feldman and Corey Haim did quite well out of that 1988 charmer “License to Drive”, as did Twentieth Century Fox, so the license was set for renewal.
Haim, being the headline act of the first film (Feldman was the sidekick), was especially eager to turn “License” into a lucrative franchise. In each sequel, Les (Haim) would have to man a different mode of transport – in the original, it was a car, so in the next it’d be a plane, and then in the sequel to follow that, a boat, and so it goes on. Is it sad to say I would’ve loved to have seen a sequel to “License to Drive”? If even just one? More Richard Masur is never a bad thing, after all.
22. The A-Team 2
‘Not gonna happen’, they’re the words you’ll hear Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper mutter if you ask them whether we’ll see them back as The A-Team in a sequel to the 2010 film. Suggesting punters don’t know a good film if it smacked them in the face, all plans for more A-Team adventures were cancelled when the terrific reboot of the classic TV series flopped at the box office. The plan just didn’t come together. Strangely enough, those big-budget “Man from U.N.C.L.E” and “Fall Guy” movies are still going ahead.
23. Platoon 2
After the critical and commercial success of the Charlie Sheen- starring war move, director Oliver Stone would sit down with Twentieth Century Fox to talk about a sequel. The follow-up, he told Fox, wouldn’t be a war film but the story of what happens to soldier Chris (Sheen) when he comes back home, and how it was as much a battlefield as Vietnam in many ways.
Stone would later take elements from his “Platoon 2” treatment and put it to good use in another anti-war epic “Born on the Fourth of July”, which, ironically Charlie Sheen was set to headline before Tom Cruise nudged the winning warlock out of the way. Luckily for Sheen, “Men at Work” came up.
24. Pretty in Pink 2
So many of John Hughes’s ’80s classics were considered sequel worthy, and for a while there the director even entertained the prospect of doing follow-ups to some of them (namely “The Breakfast Club” and “Sixteen Candles”), but it wasn’t until the ’90s that the late, great voice of a generation made his first sequel (“Home Alone 2”) and by then, he was all about the kiddie flicks – or mostly, anyway. For a quick moment in 2005, Hughes warmed up to the idea of returning to one of his teen classics – “Pretty in Pink”. Hughes had even spoken to Andrew McCarthy, Jon Cryer and Molly Ringwald about reprising their roles in the ’20 years later’ scenario follow-up. Not quite sure why the film didn’t eventuate beyond those talks, but it doesn’t matter, Hughes is gone and so is the sequel idea.
25. Escape from Earth
Kurt Russell and John Carpenter would’ve hooked up again on a second sequel to the 1981 classic “Escape from New York”… had the money men been interested in making another chapter in a series that hadn’t exactly proved itself to be lucrative (that turkey “Escape from L.A”, released in 1997, single-handedly killed the Snake Plissken character and Carpenter’s viability as a bankable filmmaker).
Truth is, no studio has really been interested in working with Carpenter in years – he was the one who actually suggested the idea of doing a follow-up to “The Thing”, by the way; Universal ultimately made the movie, but without the filmmaker’s involvement.
You’ll find the treatment for the film on Carpenter’s office desk, along with an eye-patch prop.
Stay Tuned for Part 2!
