Read 15 Unproduced Legendary Screenplays

The success or failure of anything often depends on millions of variables.

For film, it can be anything from the screenplay, to the director to the actors involved.

For your own amusement or curiosity, take a look at the following screenplays for a different take of some of the most beloved properties around.






Batman Year One
Written by Frank Miller

A complete re-invention of the character (having nothing to do with Miller's graphic novel by the same name), the project never received the greenlight by Warner Brothers because they found it to be too violent. The film, which was to be directed by Darren Aronofky, was a period piece set in the seventies, the film's synopsis was described on a Batman wiki:



After the death of his parents young Bruce Wayne remains lost on the street and is eventually taken in by Big Al, owner of an auto repair shop with his son Little Al. Driven by a desire for vengeance towards a manifest destiny of which his is only dimly aware, young Bruce toils day and night in the shop, watching the comings and goings of hookers, pimps, and corrupt police officers across the street to a cat house. We are then introduced to detective James Gordon as he struggles with the corruption he finds endemic among Gotham City police officers of all ranks.







Bruce's first act as a vigilante is to confront a dirty cop named Campbell as he accosts "mistress Selina" in the cathouse, but Campbell ends up dead and Bruce narrowly escapes being blamed. Realizing that he needs to operate with more methodology, he initially dons a cape and hockey mask.

However, Bruce soon evolves a more stylized "costume" with both form and function, acquires a variety of makeshift gadgets and weapons, and re-configures a black Lincoln Continental into a makeshift "bat-mobile."

In his new disguise as "The Bat-Man," Bruce Wayne wages war on criminals from street level to the highest echelons, working his way up to Police Commissioner Loeb and Mayor Noone, even as the executors of the Wayne estate search for their missing heir. In the end, Bruce accepts his dual destiny as heir to the Wayne fortune and the city's savior, and Gordon comes to accept that, while he may not agree with "the Bat-Man"'s methods, he can't argue with the results.

Also:
Batman by Tom Mankiewicz
Batman 2 by Sam Hamm

Superman: Flyby
Written by J.J. Abrams
The unmade disaster written by Abrams and to have been directed by Brett Ratner, this Superman was a significant departure from the mythology. Brendan Fraser was rumored to be playing the Last Son of Krypton in this trilogy.

This was an origin story that included Krypton besieged by civil war between Jor-El and his corrupt brother, Kata-Zor. Jor-El launches infant Kal-El to Earth, thinking he would fulfill a certain prophecy and Jor-El is sentenced to prison. Kal-El is adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent, and later forms a romance with Lois Lane in college, and at the Daily Planet. However, Lois is more concerned with exposing Lex Luthor, written as a government agent obsessed with UFO phenomena. Clark reveals himself to the world as Superman, bringing Kata-Zor’s son, Ty-Zor, and three other Kryptonians to Earth. Superman is defeated and killed, and visits Jor-El (who committed suicide on Krypton while in prison) in Kryptonian heaven. He's resurrected and defeats the four Kryptonians, while the script ends with Superman off to Krypton, leaving a cliffhanger for a sequel.


Also:
Superman Lives by Kevin Smith
Superman Lives by Dan Gilroy
Superman: The Man of Steel by Alex Ford & J Ellison


Indiana Jones and the City of The Gods
Written by Frank Darabont

Prior to writing and directing The Shawshank Redemption, Darabont had worked with Lucas on the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Reuniting with Lucas, however was not a positive experience since he was removed from the project, despite Spielberg and Harrison Ford's approval and that Spielberg had called it, "the best script he'd read since Raiders of the Lost Ark.




The wiki entry for the unmade film described the project in further detail.

The first version of the story (never officially released, so this might be not entirely accurate) was rejected mainly because of two reasons: the introduction of a thirteen year-old daughter of Indy and Marion as one of the main characters and the use of Nazis escaped to South America as main villains seeking revenge on Jones for his role in the deaths of Rene Belloq, Toht, and others he came into conflict against before and during World War II. However, the daughter idea was particularly disliked by Steven Spielberg, who he felt to be too much like the character of Kelly Malcolm in the sequel to Jurassic Park, The Lost World. For this reason, Spielberg petitioned Darabont to write out the character.

In the case of the villains, both Lucas and Spielberg agreed that the film setting of the 1950s could not omit the Cold War so they decided that the villains should be Soviet agents this time. Darabont lamented the decission, but ultimately accepted it and began to work on a final version of his story. Spielberg felt that he could not satirize the Nazis again as the antagonists after making what he felt were important personal projects; the World War Two dramas Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. Harrison Ford agreed that they "plain wore the Nazis out."

Indiana Jones And The City Of The Gods Frank Darabont script

View more presentations from Zeitgeist.

Also:
Indiana Jones and the Monkey King by Chris Columbus
Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men From Mars by Jeb Stuart



Batman Vs. Superman
Written by Kevin Andrew Walker

Wolfgang Peterson had attached himself to direct this script, which was intended to reboot both franchises in 2003. "The concept focused on the premise of Bruce Wayne trying to shake all of the demons in his life after his five year retirement of crime fighting. Meanwhile, Clark Kent is down on his luck and in despair. Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth and Commissioner Gordon are all dead and Clark has just recently divorced Lois Lane. Clark serves as Bruce's best man at his wedding to the beautiful and lovely Elizabeth Miller. After Elizabeth is killed by the Joker at the honeymoon, Bruce is forced to don the Batsuit once more, tangling a plot which involves Lex Luthor, while Clark sways with a romance with Lana Lang in Smallville."


Alien 3
William Gibson
A very early script treatment was written by science fiction author William Gibson (writer of the cult classic Neuromancer). At the time of his involvement, Sigourney Weaver "seemed doggedly unwilling to participate", so the main narrative focus became Hicks and Bishop. The version available on the Internet is, according to Gibson, "about thirty pages shorter than the version I turned in. It became the first of some thirty drafts, by a great many screenwriters, and none of mine was used (except for the idea, perhaps, of a bar-code tattoo)."
In copies of Gibson's treatment, "chestbursters" erupt out of human hosts as in previous installments, and turn into "bigger, meaner, faster" Alien Warriors.

However due to initial genetic modification experiments undertaken by the Biological Warfare division on the space station (Anchorpoint), the Aliens additionally exhibit a close proximity airborne virulent contagion. When exposed at close range, the victim, after a variable amount of time goes through "the Change" as Gibson calls it, and becomes a form of alien warrior. The suspense here being that the team does not know if anyone is infected until they find out when it is least expected. The process imagined by Gibson can be summarized as an involuntary change in the human's skeletal and muscular makeup below the skin, concluding with the newly formed Alien graphically tearing the flesh husk off of its body. The storyline for the film picked up after Aliens, as the Sulaco drifts into an area of space claimed by the "Union of Progressive People", due to a navigational error.

The ship is boarded by people from the U.P.P, who are attacked by a facehugger, hiding in the entrails of Bishop's mangled body. The soldiers blast the facehugger into space and take Bishop with them for further study.

The Sulaco then arrives at Anchorpoint, which is a Company run space station/mall. A fire on the ship caused by remaining Aliens puts Ripley into a coma and Hicks is left to investigate if the rumors are true that Weyland-Yutani are developing alien warriors (which they are). The U.P.P. is also doing their own research, due to custody of Bishop. After they have finished with Bishop, they repair him (albeit with cheap parts) and return him to Anchorpoint in a show of good will. Eventually Anchorpoint and the U.P.P stations are overrun with the parasite and Hicks must team up with the survivors to destroy the aliens. The film ends with a teaser for Alien 4 in which Bishop suggest to Hicks that humans are united against a common enemy and they must track the aliens to their source and destroy them. The screenplay was very action oriented, containing 8 marine vs alien battle scenes whereas its predecessor James Cameron's contained only 2 such scenes. It also featured an extended cast with new characters and has a considerable following on the Internet. The producers, while liking certain parts, were unhappy with the screenplay. Gibson was asked to make rewrites with their newly hired director, Renny Harlin, but declined citing various other commitments and "foot dragging on the producers part."

Eric Red
The next draft was done by Eric Red, writer of the cult horror films The Hitcher and Near Dark, and opened with a team of Special Forces marines boarding the Sulaco unarmed and finding that all the survivors of the LV-426 mission had fallen victim to the aliens. The only reference to the first two movies being a torn spacesuit nametag that is found containing the name "Ripley". The screenplay in a sense was even bolder than the Gibson script, in that it took place in an entire small-town USA city in a type of bio-dome in space. Red's screenplay resurrected the idea of aliens transforming humans into cocoons that was deleted from the original film. The screenplay's brash storyline culminates in an all out battle with the townsfolk facing hordes of (fifteen foot) alien warriors, yet it also contains an arguably higher level of horror (Lovecraftian and Body) than the previous movies and screenplays. In addition to this, it is the first screenplay in the Aliens genre to feature a genetically mixed Alien-Human creature in antibiosis (foreshadowing the "newborn" in Alien: Resurrection). The screenplay also re-uses the "alien virus" idea from Gibson's draft, which this time gives rise to Alien mosquitoes, cattle, dogs and chickens and has even gained the ability to infect matter and technology as well, resulting in the space station itself being transformed into a giant alien-like creature. After being shown Red's screenplay, then-director Renny Harlin walked out on the project to direct Die Hard 2, and Red was fired shortly afterwards. It was at this point that Giler and Hill abandoned their plans for the two Alien sequels.

David Twohy
Writer (and future director) David Twohy was next to work on the project, and his version featured a prison planet, which was being used for illegal experiments on the aliens for a Biological Warfare division. The screenplay details how inmates on death row were mock executed in a gas chamber, while actually being kept alive and being used as bait in experiments with the Alien. Examples included breach testing, where the Alien would be videotaped using scientific high speed cameras as it searched for - and found - the weakest part of a structure with a human bait inside, broke through and attacked the victim. This screenplay was also the first to propose a failed clones scenario, describing large jars of Alien test clones, some fused together as Siamese twins, possibly as a forerunner to the "clones of Ripley" scene in Alien: Resurrection.

It was also the first script to feature a high number of different Alien types (Rogue Alien, Spike Alien, Alien chameleon, etc), and was the first screenplay to flesh out the idea of the "newborn" (used later in Alien Resurrection), called the "newbreed" here.

Finally, the script also had numerous scenes where victims are piecemeal sucked into space through a small rupture in the hull (or through bars) causing very gruesome deaths, possibly functioning as a precursor to the death of the "newborn" in Alien: Resurrection.

When new director Vincent Ward told the studio he was not interested in filming Twohy's script and wanted to pursue his own idea of the film, Twohy's draft was scrapped.


Watchmen
Written by Sam Hamm
After writing the 1989 film, Batman, Hamm adapted Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel for Terry Gilliam to direct.

The screenplay took a number of liberties from the source material including:

• Instead of being called The Crimebusters, the team is known as "The Watchmen."
• Hollis Mason is not shown or mentioned as being the first Nite Owl.
• The narrative method of Rorschach's journal is not used in the script.
• Aside from her story of Rorschach being a political extremist, the Dolores Shairp subplot of being involved in prostitution and lying to the press about Kovacs is omitted entirely.
• The Tales of the Black Freighter comic storyline intersped throughout the Watchmen series is absent. However, the kid Bernie and the newsvendor still make brief appearances.
• Apart from Captain Metropolis, none of the other Minutemen are shown in flashbacks or any other capacity.
• In addition, Sally Jupiter is not in the script, nor is the attempted rape by the Comedian.
• Due to Sally and Blake's past not being included, Laurie's subplot of the feud with her mother and the issue of her paternity is omitted.
• Dan's lack of confidence is attributed to his missing the vigilante days; the comics character's erectile dysfunction is not mentioned.
• Walter Kovacs' troubled childhood is not shown in any capacity. The only Rorschach flashback that remains is his reaction to the Blair Roche murder.
• Malcolm Long's subplot of his failing marriage is also not included.
• There is a side plot of Laurie contracting lung cancer in the futre due to smoking, and Doctor Manhattan removes all traces of cancer from her body during their conversation on Mars.
• The book ends with Veidt launching a seemingly alien-like creature to explode on New York City, which causes America and Russia to end the war and unite. Everybody agrees to keep the plot a secret, but Rorschach is killed by Doctor Manhattan when he refuses to compromise. Also, Manhattan departs for another galaxy to create new life, Dan and Laurie go into hiding, and the series concludes with Rorschach's journal being considered to be published by the New Frontiersman.