There is a book called The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made by David Hughes which was about a lot of interesting projects that never happened. Among them are the John Sayles script for Steven Spielberg's Night Skies which later became the basis for both E.T. and Poltergeist, the long in development adaptation of Childhood's End and the acclaimed screenplay of The Tourist, another project which had HR Giger involved which fell through. http://www.hrgiger.com/tourist.htm
ah - contrary to my previous post, I think it's The Tourist I was thinking of
John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King, supposedly first planned back in the 40s with Bogart and Gable
So glad that this didnt happen.
One of my favorite films and I cant imagine anyone else playing Peachy & Danny but Caine & Connery (the 'hats on' speech cracks me up).
This was perfect casting, supposedly suggested by either Paul Newman or Robert Redford who were the directors later choices for the parts, but they couldnt do it (very glad again).
Von Sternberg's I CLAUDIUS
Garbo's DUCHESS OF LANGEAIS (screen test on K Brownlow's new Garbo docu)
Paramount 1927 silent WAR OF THE WORLDS (considered by DeMille IIRC)
A full version of von Stroheim's QUEEN KELLY
Linear Mode
