Unproduced Screenplays: ones you've read or plan to read

About two years ago, I read the first draft of the script for the Super Mario Bros movie, and, while nothing blowing, it was pretty good. It stays true to the games, and makes for a fun romp. One problem it shares with the final product, however is focusing on Luigi instead of Mario. This isn’t Super Luigi Bros! Mario should’ve been the one who longs for adventure and Luigi the one who just wants to go home and pay their debt towards the mafia (yup, that’s in there), not the other way around.

A script I’ve been meaning to read is Chris Columbus’s Indiana Jones III. The Last Crusade has always been my least favorite, in large part due to its descriptiveness (way too similar to the first film). I’m interested in this unrelated adventure that features the monkey king himself, Son Wukong. While it’s true he didn’t write them, Columbus did direct my two favorite Harry Potter films, not to mention Home Alone.

Screenplays I recall having read:

• The Star Wars (Rough Draft)
• The Star Wars (Revised First Draft)
• Adventures of the Starkiller (Episode One) The Star Wars (Second Draft)
• The Empire Strikes Back (First Draft)

Screenplays I plan on reading:

• A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors (Wes Craven & Bruce Wagner draft)
• The X-Files: “Flight 180” (the unmade episode that eventually became Final Destination)
• Jason vs. Freddy (Brannon Braga & Ronald D. Moore draft)
• Stargate (early draft where Ra wasn’t an alien)

I’ve read Pulp Fiction, Looper, every available Star Wars script, and Drive. I’ve been meaning to write something but starting is daunting. I want to read BR 2049 and The Last Jedi. I don’t know where to look for unproduced ones, but that seems like it would be interesting.

snooker said:

I’ve been meaning to write something but starting is daunting.

Believe me, starting is easy. Coming up with an ending is easy, too. It’s everything between that’s a nightmare.

The 2014 draft of The Dark Tower is still very flawed, but much, much better than the final film even while using the same plot structure, and actually could have been followed by a few sequels that adapt the book series relatively faithfully starting with book 2. It just needed another pass to pare down Roland’s dialogue to the bare minimum and tame some of the fish out of water B.S. in New York.

The film we got was a travesty that did away with it being the first part of a story in favor of trying to give the movie a more upbeat ending without being married to anything from the later books in a theoretical sequel, crippled Roland’s character, and catered to every lowest common denominator checklist the studio could come up with.

Similar complaints for Passengers in comparing the final film to the overall pretty damned good draft I read in 2010ish, but with the obvious exceptions that it isn’t an adaptation and as such doesn’t have any source material to judge against.

But Passengers wasn’t even out in 2010. How the hell did you get the first draft. That’s without mentioning that the film must’ve gone through development hell to have taken over 6 years to make.

Anakin Starkiller said:

But Passengers wasn’t even out in 2010. How the hell did you get the first draft. That’s without mentioning that the film must’ve gone through development hell to have taken over 6 years to make.

It was one of the more talked about unproduced screenplays for years and years. Keanu Reeves spent about 5 years trying to get it made with him as the lead IIRC, but eventually let the rights go when he couldn’t get the money together. When I read it he was still involved.

EDIT: from Wikipedia: “The film was originally written in 2007 by Spaihts but was kept in development hell, with multiple actors attached throughout the years.”

According to this, the Chris Columbus Indy 3 script is really bad. That won’t deter me, though. Not listening to the podcast because of spoilers.

Anakin Starkiller said:

According to this, the Chris Columbus Indy 3 script is really bad. That won’t deter me, though. Not listening to the podcast because of spoilers.

It’s entertaining but meanders with different ideas. Would possibly be better as a video game.