I like making lists.

It seems like that would've ran into some legal issues.

I dunno about that, I watched the 3 hour version a year or two ago and couldn't believe how pompous the whole affair was.  I mean the first 20 minutes is "These people are from here blah blah blah, these people do this blah blah blah..."  It's like I understand some backstory, but couldn't you show it instead of just talking about it in such a boring way?  There's a ton of characters, none of which are even slightly interesting, the effects stink, and I never felt like anything was really in peril.  I love David Lynch, I wanted to love "Dune", but holy shit it's bad and not in a fun way.  There's a reason why David Lynch hates the film and had his name removed from it, it sucks.

Indepence day 2: fantastic voyage better be on here

7. Claire Noto's The Tourist



Claire Noto’s The Tourist (Noto wrote it, in this case she was not the ‘almost-director’) followed Grace Ripley, a beautiful lawyer who also happened to be an alien disguised as a human and trapped on Earth as she found herself dragged into a murky underworld comprised of other extra-terrestrials like her stuck in Manhattan. In short, it was a considerably darker version of Men in Black that came fully loaded with elegant tentacle sex sequences and concept art by H.R Giger. Since the majority of this forum consists of sci-fan fans, I can’t imagine any of us skipping this.

Unfortunately because of a rare clause in Noto’s contract, she ended up rescinding the rights from Universal to take it to Zoetrope where it stalled again before Universal bought the rights back and it has been in purgatory ever since. There were a number of other issues as well, like Noto's screenwriting/producing partner attempting to bastardize the project beyond recognition, etc. Ultimately it was Noto's refusal to see her work compromised that lead to the film's total demise.

Noto’s script can be pretty easily downloaded all over the web, and it’s interesting. I think the concept is aided greatly by Giger’s concept art which is also readily available everywhere. The combination of the two would have been very interesting if nothing more.

6. Steven Spielberg's Night Skies



There is not a ton of information floating around about Spielberg’s proposed Night Skies film, other than that it was intended to be a sequel of sorts to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I use that term, sequel, somewhat loosely though as this would have featured much more malevolent aliens terrorizing a farming family in Kentucky.

Spielberg’s early “alien” movies usually featured aliens and UFO’s in more positive lights (E.T., Close Encounters), and he really didn’t paint this idea in bleaker light until well into his career in War of the Worlds or even the fourth Indiana Jones, arguably both made well after Spielberg’s prime. It would have been exciting to see him make a horror film with the same kind of tension and panic he showed us in Jaws, but unfortunately it never happened. The script saw a half-dozen rewrites and eventually lead to (or turned into, depending on what you read) the basis for E.T. Kind of a far cry from what he was originally proposing. Ironically enough, this concept also formed the basis for two other films that Spielberg produced – Poltergeist and Gremlins.

Arguably this film might have been the least developed of all ten I’m listing here, but I think it’s also one of the more interesting ones had Spielberg been able to piece it together in the midst of what was still a great run of films from him in the 70’s and 80’s.

Yeah, I'm sure there was a lot of influence taken there too.

My point in making this list isn't, "I hope these concepts are made now in 2015," it's more to look at cool ideas that were maybe before their time.

I think I'm quitting on my own list here.

Yeah I said that above.

That's not on the list.

Crazy! Arnold Schwarzenegger was gonna play Doc Ock and say "okie dokie". Leonardo DiCaprio was gonna play Spider-Man and have sex with Mary Jane on the edge of a bridge. 

I can't really think of any examples, so this is quite interesting.