14 of the Most Expensive Movies Never Made
We missed out on a whole Dostoyevsky adaptation because Roman Polanski tried to trick John Travolta into doing a nude scene.
‘The Double’ (1996)
Roman Polanski had to scrap this Dostoyevsky adaptation entirely because John Travolta, who was supposed to make $17 million, stormed out of rehearsals. He alleged that Polanski had written unnecessary nude scenes into rewrites.
‘Brasil 1500’ (2000)
This was supposed to tell the story of the 1500 AD discovery of Brazil by explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, set to premiere on its 200th anniversary. It was budgeted at $35 million, and a replica of Cabral’s flagship had already been built before it was canceled.
‘Golden’ (2025)
This musical comedy/drama should be coming out in May of this year, but Universal Pictures had irreconcilable beef with producer Pharrell Williams, and canceled it during post-production, after already shelling out $20 million.
‘The Lawbreakers’ and ‘The Long Arm’ (1980)
Screenwriters David Lean and Robert Bolt were working on a two-part movie adaptation of a Richard Hough novel. The first film alone was going to cost $40 million, but Bolt suffered a heart attack and a stroke before scripting was done. Producers had already sunk $4 million on the construction of a replica ship, so they shopped the idea around for years. The two films were combined and finally became 1984’s The Bounty.
‘Nostromo’ (1991)
David Lean couldn’t catch a break. He had been in pre-production on this $46 million project for years, but disagreements with Warner Bros., Steven Spielberg and various writers kept it from crossing the finish line. He finally decided to write the script himself, and when they were about a month away from filming, he died of a heart attack.
‘Leningrad: The 900 Days’ (1980s)
Director Sergio Leone spent the last years of his life raising $100 million for a Robert De Niro-led war film about the Siege of Leningrad. He was even in talks with the Soviet government about filming locations, but died of a heart attack before the ball got rolling.
‘Scoob! Holiday Haunt’ (2022)
Warner Bros. Discovery flushed this “practically finished” Scooby gang prequel after spending at least $40 million on it, instead of just dumping it on HBO Max as originally intended.
‘Gore’ (2017)
This Gore Vidal biopic was shelved, after Netflix spent $39 million, because the world found out that star Kevin Spacey was a sex pest.
‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’ (2000)
In the first week of filming this $32 million comedy, Don Quixote actor Jean Rochefort got a herniated disc, then flooding eviscerated the set. In a rare twist, director Terry Gilliam was able to finish the film — 18 years later.
‘Genghis Khan’ (1992)
This film ran into nightmare after nightmare for a couple of years, and the final nail in the coffin came when the Soviet Union dissolved and their funds dried up. The producer’s son says he’s still looking for funding, and the way things are going, maybe the Soviet banks will rev back to life.
‘Superman Lives’ (1998)
Nicolas Cage was finally going to play Superman in this Tim Burton film, but filming was pushed back two years, and Warner Bros. finally pulled the plug after wasting $30 million.
‘Time Between Trains’ (2004)
This was conceived as a biopic about John Wilkes Booth’s brother. Director Todd Field insisted that it needed to be filmed on location in five different cities, with a story spanning five decades. That would have cost around $80 million, so DreamWorks pulled the plug the second they could.
‘The Mothership’ (2024)
Halle Berry was executive producing and starring in this sci-fi film, but Netflix abruptly dropped it despite having already invested $40 million. It sounds like production was taking so long, the child actors were aging out of their parts and reshoots became impossible. Netflix would never greenlight a show where the child stars are way too old for their characters.
‘Batgirl’ (2022)
This is the most expensive mulligan in cinema history: Warner Bros. Discover dumped $90 million down the toilet. It had already been shot and was being test-screened when David Zaslav decided it didn’t fit the vision he had for DC of “big theatrical event films.”