10 Unbelievable Comic Book Movies That Almost Happened, From Batman Meets Godzilla To Schwarzenegger’s Watchmen

Some of the most fascinating Comic book movies There are those that have never been made, with many fascinating ideas for superhero stories never seeing the light of day. In a world of popular and brand-safe films like the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, It’s getting rarer and rarer for stories in the superhero space to tap into the quirky ideas of some of Hollywood’s best and brightest.. This is not always the case, however, with many planned comic book movie films never coming to fruition despite their interesting ideas.

There are many reasons why these movies are never able to manifest. Sometimes, their premises are simply too strange to sell studios, but more often then not, they fell through due to creative differences, licensing or scheduling conflicts.. Whatever the case, some of the most famous canceled superhero movies are also some of the most compelling and hard to believe.

10

Godzilla meets Batman

More of a canceled Godzilla film than a canceled Batman film

Batman is no stranger to big-name crossovers in the comics and cartoons, with everyone from the Predator to the Scooby-Doo gang crossing paths with the Caped Crusader at one point or another. But this type of big brand synergy has never made it to live-action movies beforeWith the sole exception of Toho and Greenway Production Batman meets GodzillaFormulated in 1966. The idea would piggyback off the success of Adam West’s Batman TV show and spin-off film, bring back the same cast.

The plot for the film revolved around Batman, Robin and Batgirl taking down a dangerous mad scientist using Godzilla for his own ends. The best part of the scrapped project would have been the finale, which saw Batman scale Godzilla’s back to plant a bomb on him powerful enough to send the King of the Monsters up into outer space.. The planned joint American-Japanese production is easily one of the coolest canceled Godzilla movie ideas, let alone canceled superhero movie ideas.

9

James Cameron’s Spider-Man

Sam Raimi’s film almost wasn’t the first Spider-Man blockbuster

Many bigwigs in Hollywood had their eye on Spider-Man long before plucky horror director Sam Raimi was able to get his hands on the valuable IP, Creating one of the most iconic superhero trilogies ever made. Once upon a time, it was none other than the legendary James Cameron who set his sights on everyone’s favorite wall-crawling, friendly-neighborhood hero, with some interesting ideas about how Spider-Man should work. Spider-Man would be played by Leonardo DiCaprio, already an industry darling at the time of the planned film.

Aside from a healthy dose of James Cameron’s iconic lens flares, this movie would differ from Sam Raimi’s version in several key ways. Sandman, Electro, and Doc Ock would all have made it into the movie as villains, with none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the latter.. The canned film also allegedly contained a scene in which Spider-Man and Mary Jane have the horizontal (or in some Spider-Man cases, vertical) tango on the Brooklyn Bridge – not exactly the spitting image of the modern health perception of Peter Parker.

8

George Miller’s Justice League: Mortal

would have been a strikingly unique vision for the Justice League

Visionary Australian director George Miller is known for incredible variety in his unique filmmaking style. of the heartwarming hilarity of Babe 2: Pig in the Big City to the unbridled adrenaline of Mad Max: Fury Road, Miller’s films may not be for everyoneBut they are wildly popular with the audience they are able to find. This makes it all the more tragic that his take on the Justice League was never able to come to fruition.

Besides the classic “Big Three”, Miller’s league would have included The Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter, with the latter getting some incredible concept art. Justice League: Mortal would have pitted the crew of DC’s most iconic team against Maxwell Lord and Talia Al GhulWho almost destroys the league with an army of cyborgs. The film was to end with the Flash making a great sacrifice to save the day. Unfortunately, in the wake of The Dark Knights success, the project was scrapped in favor of similar solo films.

7

Cannon Films’ Spider-Man horror movie

A wild concept for the first Spider-Man movie

Even further back in history than James Cameron’s Spider-Man concept, the webslinging hero had a movie pitch as early as 1985 that almost came to fruition. Incredibly, the first Spider-Man movie was almost a horror film, with Tobe Hopper, the director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Planned to manage the project. Tom Cruise assisted Peter Parker, making for an incredibly bold and not-at-all comic-accurate film for Spider-Man’s first theatrical outing.

Apparently, the idea for Spider-Man to be more of a horror film was the result of a miscommunication on behalf of the planned film’s producers, Cannon Films, notorious for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. The production company misunderstood Spider-Man as a character similar to Jeff Goldblum’s Brundle the flight, who is terrifyingly transformed into a spider-man hybrid by a mad scientist. The film would have ended with the monstrous Peter Parker fighting against the scientist’s other animal hybrid creations.

6

Batman beyond Clint Eastwood

One of the most intriguing projects to come out of Batman & Robin’s failure

After the abysmal critical failure of batman and robin, Warner Bros. knew they had to go back to square one for Batman, essentially hosting a massive contest for Batman screenplays to find their footing with the character. Eventually, the winner of this effort would be Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight trilogy, which clearly paid off for DC and Warner Bros. However, one tantalizing option was overlooked that could have been just as amazing.

At one point, Warner Bros. was considering a live action version of batman next, The beloved cartoon saw upstart punk Terry McGinnis take Bruce Wayne’s place as Batman in a futuristic version of Gotham City. Show creators Paul Dini and Alan Burnett were hired to write the screenplay, with none other than Western icon Clint Eastwood eyed for the role of an older, retired Bruce Wayne. Unfortunately, the idea was canceled due to creative differences, with Warner Bros. imposing a PG-13 rating on the idea.

5

Tim Burton’s Superman

It could be just like his version of Batman

Yet Tim Burton was able to catapult Batman further into pop culture fear with his 1989 film batman, It’s not a shock to imagine that DC would be eager for him to repeat the trick with their other flagship character. At one time, Burton was slated to work with Kevin Smith to produce a Superman film titled Superman livesProduced by Jon Peters of Licorice pizza Room. The concept is most famous for its casting of Nicolas Cage as Superman, with screen testing of that eventually being made public.

Nicolas Cage eventually got his chance to wear the famous Superman badge, albeit briefly and digitally, in a cameo at the end of the DCEU The bottle. A documentary called The death of “Superman Lives”: What happened? was also made which chronicled the production of the film. Unfortunately, the idea was eventually dissolved due to a lot of creative differences and infighting in production. That’s a shame considering that Tim Burton’s vision of characters like Lex Luthor and Doomsday almost made it into theaters.

4

Terry Gilliam’s Watchmen

Perhaps Alan Moore’s famous book is better than Zack Snyder’s

Zack Snyder Guard Now holds a monopoly on film adaptations of Alan Moore’s critically acclaimed comic book of the same name. However, as far back as the early 90s, concepts for a Guard The movie was floated past none other than Terry Gilliam of Monty Python Room. This version of the film would be produced by Joel Silver, known for his work on the matrix, and written for screen by Sam Hamm, who helped bring Batman to life in 1989.

The most interesting part of Terry Gilliam Guard would have been the planned cast. Arnold Schwarzenegger was positioned to dye his skin blue for the first time before Batman and Robin As Doctor Manhattan, And none other than the legendary David Bowie himself was supposed to play Rorschtach. In terms of changes to the source material, the film would have modified the ending of the story by having Schwarzenegger’s Manhattan use his powers to prevent his own creation, effectively killing himself.

3

Darren Aronofsky’s Batman: Year One

One of the brightest takes on a Batman story yet

Compared to other characters, Batman lends itself to very grounded superhero stories that seem like they could actually happen in the real world. of Batman begins to Joker to the batman, Filmmakers seem obsessed with grounding the Dark Knight and Gotham in reality as much as possible. The most extreme example would be Darren Aronofsky’s vision for a Batman film, loosely based on the widely-loved comic run Batman: Year One.

The Requiem for a dream Director has a very bleak vision for Batman, who, instead of being rich, would be a penniless street orphan in this incarnation. Alfred would be a simple blue-collar mechanic, Catwoman would be a prostitute, and the Batcave was reduced to a simple abandoned subway station. interesting, Joaquin Phoenix was favored to be cast as Aronofsky’s Batman years before his debut as Joker in 2019.

2

Green Arrow: Escape from Super Max

Oliver Queen’s only chance at a theatrical release

While the CW’s Arrow Lasting for 8 seasons and even inspiring the creation of its own TV interconnected universe, Green Arrow was never lucky enough to get its own movie. for whatever reason, Producers have left Oliver Queen as one of the few core Justice League members to not be worthy of his own theatrical release, or any film appearance for that matter. However, frequent DC filmmaker David S. Goyer almost directed his own take on a Green Arrow movie.

Called Green Arrow: Escape from Super Max, The film would have lived up to its name by being an elaborate prison break undertaken by the Emerald Archer. The plot would have seen Green Arrow framed for murder and confined to a maximum security prison alongside some of DC’s most violent criminals, including Icicle, The Riddler, Lex Luthor and The Joker. Although the film was never confirmed to be canceled by Warner Bros., no news of the project has been heard since 2008.

1

Justice League Dark

Could be a superhero-horror masterpiece

The shadowy magical-focused counterpart to the Justice League, Justice League Dark is an affiliated team in the comics consisting of DC’s more demonic or arcane heroes. Once upon a time, a live-action film revolving around this team was in development. Fittingly enough, Guillermo del Toro was slated to direct, a great choice considering his experience with both the horror and superhero genres.

Justice League Dark is planned to center on John Constatine, one of the most powerful magic-users in DC Comics. The plot would center on Constantine forming the titular team, gathering characters like Swamp Thing, Etrigan, Deadman, the Specter and Zatanna. Now that the film has seemingly fallen by the wayside, it remains to be seen if fans will ever be able to get a glimpse of DC’s more supernatural side in a Comic book movie.