1. Batman vs Godzilla
In 1965 this bizarre crossover was proposed as a sequel to the 1962 hit King Kong vs Godzilla. Toho Films writer Shinichi Sekizawa, who'd written the other Godzilla films, envisioned a movie that featured Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Commissioner Gordon called in to do battle against the nuclear menace that is Godzilla. The treatment included the Batmobile, the Batcopter and the Batcycle, and would go on to reveal that another villain was behind the whole face-off, controlling Godzilla in an attempt to destroy the Dark Knight.
Unsurprisingly the movie never happened, most likely because the 1966 Batman TV series was already in development.
2. Total Recall 2
Throughout the 1990's there were several attempts to make a sequel to Total Recall, unsurprising when you think just how popular the movie was, but the one that came closest, and dragged on the longest was from original screenwriter, Gary Goldman. He originally optioned another Philip K. Dick story, Minority Report, with a view to making his directorial debut in a low-budget feature. Goldman then approached Paul Verhoeven to come on board, initially just as an executive producer in an attempt to have a known name attached to the project. Verhoeven then suggested Goldman's treatment would work as a sequel to Total Recall, and the wheels were set in motion.
The pair soon discovered that Ron Shusett had a contractual right to write the first draft of any Total Recall sequel, and so Goldman proposed that they write the sequel together. Shusett later revealed that:
"We worked on it together and immediately clicked, and it became a wonderful sequel. Arnold was going to star in it, and Paul Verhoeven was going to direct it. Then, right after we wrote it, Carolco went bankrupt."The proposed sequel then fell into the hands of 20th Century Fox where it spent five years in development hell with directors like Jan de Bont (Speed) and Star Trek's Jonathan Frakes on board at various times. Then Steven Spielberg read the treatment, he didn't like it but did feel the story had potential. As you likely know Spielberg was the man behind the camera for 2002's Minority Report, and both Goldman and Shusett received Executive Producer credits.
3. Alien 3
Obviously we got Alien 3 in 1992, but that wasn't the sequel which was initially envisioned. Back in 1986 after Aliens proved to be a huge hit, Neuromancer author William Gibson was hired to write a script for a third Alien movie. Gibson himself revealed that it featured:
"Space commies hijack alien eggs. Big trouble in Mallworld."Producers felt it was as weird as you're probably imagining it to be right now, so they passed and instead hired screenwriter Eric Red to write a script. By now Sigourney Weaver was in a legal battle over unpaid royalties for Aliens so her character of Ripley was not featured. Also absent were the 'Aliens' themselves! Instead of the Xenomorphs, the main monster was a herd of six-legged "Alien cattle". Amazingly 20th Century Fox were looking to proceed with this and approached Renny Harlin to direct.
The project fell apart, and Weaver settled her dispute, so a new direction for Alien 3 was proposed. This time Vincent Ward was attached to direct, with initially a prison escape style script from David Twohy, then one from John Faisano which took place on a "wooden planetoid" with a medieval culture and androids. Both possibly better than the movie we ended up with!
4. The Crow: 2037
This 1997 proposition for a third Crow movie was the brainchild of Rob Zombie. The film was to begin in 2010 with a young boy and his mother murdered by a priest of the Fallen One, the Crow brings the boy back to life, and finally, 27 years later, he becomes a futuristic bounty hunter and seeks vengeance.
Zombie worked on this project for 18 months, eventually he felt that it wasn't going to happen so bailed. He then re-wrote his script into a treatment called "Black Rider X", which to this day also remains unmade.
5. Star Trek VI: In Flanders Fields
Knowing that the next movie would be a swansong for the original crew, Walter Koenig (Chekov) put forward his own, quite depressing, idea for the sixth Star Trek feature film.
It would've seen the Romulans join the Federation and promptly go to war with the Klingons. All the aging Enterprise crew, except for Spock, had been forced to retire from Starfleet for failing their physical exams. So when Spock and his new crew are captured by a monstrous worm-like race of aliens (which Koenig described would look like "things that the monsters in Aliens evolved from"), Kirk and the old team reassemble one last time to go on a rescue mission.
In the end, Koenig planned for everyone except Spock and McCoy to die! Unsurprisingly Paramount felt it was not the movie they were looking for, and instead eventually proceeded with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
Previously
10 Proposed Sequels That Were Never Made
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