10 action movies which we'll never get to see – and the reasons why
Caroline Westbrook Published June 16, 2025 12:17pm Link is copied Comments Whether you're a fan or not, there's no denying that action movies are massive. With summer on our doorstep and blockbuster season underway, we're set to welcome a whole load of them into cinemas in the coming weeks. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning and John Wick: Ballerina are already out there, but you can expect the likes of F1, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Nobody 2, Predator: Badlands, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps to come along before the season is out. But for every action epic that smashes onto the screen, the path is littered with the ashes of others that might have seemed like box office gold at the time, but for whatever reason just never made it out of the starting blocks. Imagine what might have been if some of these had been made... (Picture: Warner Bros/Everett/REX/Shutterstock) Superman might be about to fly on to screens yet again this summer but this particular incarnation of the man of steel didn't even get off the ground. The movie, which was due to go before the cameras in the 1990s, was to be directed by Tim Burton, with Nicolas Cage donning the infamous red and blue suit to play Clark Kent/Superman. And with a cast which was also due to include Chris Rock as Jimmy Olsen, Sandra Bullock as Lois Lane, and Christopher Walken as Braniac, what was not to like? Sadly the film suffered production issues and script rewrites, with Warner Bros pulling the plug just weeks before shooting was set to begin - despite having already spent $30m (£23m) on costumes and promotional material. For those still wondering what might have been, a documentary, The Death Of Superman Lives: What Happened?, was released in 2015 and can be seen on YouTube There's no shortage of video game to movie adaptations, although some have proven more successful than others (take a bow, Super Mario Bros and Minecraft for example). But others didn't achieve the same rise to stardom. Among those is the proposed adaptation of Halo, despite an impressive pedigree which would have seen Peter Jackson producing and Neill Blomkamp (District 9) directing a screenplay by Alex Garland (Civil War, The Beach). What happened? Lack of financing is what happened, with Fox and Universal both interested in the project, and work beginning on props for the film, before disagreements over the spiralling budget led to it being shelved. While the game did later get a live-action web series, we'll always be left to wonder what might have been (Picture: Microsoft)
Back in the 90s, Arnold Schwarzenegger ruled the box office with hits including Total Recall, Terminator 2, Kindergarten Cop, True Lies...you name it. So it seemed as if one planned project - a big-budget epic set during the titular Crusades which would reunite the Austrian star with Paul Verhoeven - would be big screen gold. And it might have been if it ever got made. Sets for the film were already being built in Spain for the epic but makers Carolco pulled the plug amid budget concerns, after the cost threatened to spiral. Instead, they went on to make pirate adventure Cutthroat Island - which did so badly at the box office it proved to be the death knell for the studio. Had Crusade made it to cinemas things could have been very different. And speaking of Arnie... (Picture:) One of Arnold Schwarzenegger's most popular 90s movies was True Lies, the 1994 summer smash in which the actor plays a secret agent hiding his true profession from his family. Plans were afoot for Arnie to reunite with director James Cameron on a follow-up, but both found themselves busy with other ventures. At one point it looked as though it might go ahead, with True Lies 2 tentatively slated to go before the cameras in 2002, but like the Forrest Gump sequel, the impact of the 9/11 attacks caused the director to change his mind about making the movie altogether. We can only imagine what might have been (Picture: Zade Rosenthal/Lightstorm/20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock) This one might have seemed seemed like a no-brainer at the time, given it came from the imagination of Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton - but somehow it never materalised. Airframe, a novel about a quality assurance officer investigating a mysterious in-flight accident on a plane, was published in 1996 and was set to follow other Crichton adaptations including Congo, Rising Sun and Disclosure to the screen. Touchstone Pictures - a subsidiary of Disney - had snapped up to the rights to the novel before it was even published, with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Demi Moore tipped to star. So what happened? Well according to the LA Times, Crichton was unable to find a script he liked - leading to the project being taken out of development and the author returning the $10m (£7.3m) advance he had been given by the studio. To this date it remains one of the few Crichton novels not to be made into a movie (Picture:) Here's another 90s movie which could well have raked in the millions. Crisis In The Hot Zone, based on a New Yorker article-turned-novel by Richard Preston about a US Ebola outbreak, was all set to go before the cameras with Ridley Scott directing, and Robert Redford and Jodie Foster starring. Except makers Fox struggled with budget constraints, as well as casting issues, leading to delays in the project. At which point Warner Bros stepped in with their own virus actioner, Outbreak - and despite the tendency in the 90s for two movies with very similar subject matters to compete with each other, it didn't happen this time. Fox pulled the plug on Crisis and it was never made You might wonder what's going on here because hasn't there already been a film of Dune? Well yes. Several in fact. And a sequel, one which even nabbed itself a best picture nomination at the Oscars. But there's one version of the Frank Herbert novel which ended up dead in the - how shall we put this - dunes - that director Alejandro Jodorowsky was all set to direct. And this one was certainly different, with the El Topo director keen to give viewers a psychedelic experience. Ultimately though Jodorowsky's project - and its 1,200 storyboards - failed to make it to the screen due to lack of financing. Producer Dino De Laurentiis ultimately snapped up the rights to the book in 1982, with David Lynch's version hitting screens in 1984. Which Jodorowsky subsequently described as 'terrible'. Ouch (Picture: Funcom) Another video game adaptation which never got out of the starting gate, Castlevania. A gothic horror franchise, involving Count Dracula and the vampire-hunting Belmont clan, was all set to get the live action treatment courtesy of Paul W S Anderson (Resident Evil). Although the project was announced in 2007, it never happened. Although it's not clear why the project stalled, that hasn't stopped fans from clamouring for it. In fact, various fan-made trailers, featuring the likes of Johnny Depp and Robert Pattinson in the lead roles, have surfaced online, while a poster featuring Depp as the Count went viral when it did the rounds earlier this year. For now? Fans can make do with the Netflix animated series, which debuted in 2017 and ran for four seasons (Picture: Netflix/Everett/Shutterstock) The past couple of decades have given us our fair share of Mummy movies, right from the original 1999 version which saw Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz chasing the titular monster. Sequels followed, from 2001's inevitable The Mummy 2 through to spin-off movie The Scorpion King, a video game and an animated TV series. But even a franchise this successful isn't without its problems, and when 2017's reboot The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise and Sofia Boutella, was a box office flop, plans for the follow-up, Rise Of The Aztecs (or The Mummy 4, to put it another way)y, were promptly shelved (Picture: Universal/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock) Film fans have no shortage of Alien movies to get to grips with, from the terrifying 1979 original through to 2024's Alien: Romulus. But one entry into the franchise which we'll never get to see is Alien 5: Awakening - which marks yet another cancelled project for the director Neill Blomkamp. The movie, a direct sequel to Aliens which took place around 30 years after the events of that film, was set to feature Ripley, Hicks and a grown-up Newt. However, following the disappointing box office of 2017's Alien: Covenant, Fox scrapped the project altogether. So this is one screen reunion we'll never get to see (Picture: 20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/ Shutterstock) Next Gallery
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