9 classics that could not be continued

Nowadays, it is already newsworthy if a sequel, prequel or reboot of a hit film is not ready. However, there are also plenty of cases – both recently and decades ago – when a sequel was written, planned, or even started to prepare for production, but nothing came of the project. And it also happens that the director himself is the one who resists the pressure of the studio. Now such cases follow. (We previously wrote about the aborted sequels of ET, Casablanca or Ponvarevény here.)

Despite being released more than 80 years ago, Mihály Kertész’s direction is still considered by many to be the best Robin Hood film, which is an impressive feat considering the iconic archer has been portrayed on screen more than 70 times. Thanks to the chemistry of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, as well as the character actors Claude Rains and Basil Rathbone, who played the role of the villain perfectly, the film was a huge financial success, and a sequel was also ordered.

In the end, the 2nd part could not be completed because, on the threshold of the Second World War, the American government did not want the free resources to flow into the film industry. By the time the war ended, Rains and de Havilland were no longer employed by Warner Bros. and the project was abandoned.

In John Hughes’ classic, we can follow five students who are serving their sentence in the library of an upscale high school: the good athlete, the punk, the lady, the thief struggling with family problems and the school’s smarts, the prodigy. Over the course of the day, these five, almost strangers, realize that they have much more in common than they ever dreamed. They get to know each other’s problems thoroughly, but most importantly, they learn a lot about themselves.

In the beginning, John Hughes really wanted a sequel to the now cult film, but later the idea didn’t seem so attractive. In a 1999 interview, he said:

I know everyone would love to see it, but I love these characters too much… there’s no good excuse to ever put them in the same room again.”

It would not have been sacrilegious to continue Robert Zemeckis’s classic on paper, after all, Winston Groom, who also wrote the original book, wrote its sequel, which was also published in Hungarian in 1994 under the title Forrest Gump or: “Notes of a single-minded guy”. Forrest gets into even more hair-raising mess than before, and now his son is with him. He builds a dung-powered fishing boat, then when it explodes, he launches a new soft drink made from cloves, iron filings, garlic and salt, later ends up in prison, then escapes through ditches and bushes.

However, Tom Hanks, as he recently told in a podcast, quickly put an end to the matter. When they started talking about a possible sequel with the director, they finished in just 40 minutes, and then all they said to each other was “whatever…”.

After the film was more successful than expected, director Luc Besson wasted no time, writing a sequel in which Mathilda (Natalie Portman), now grown up, would work as a “cleaner”. Knowing that fans of the first film would not accept anyone other than Portman in the role, Besson delayed the project until she was old enough to return.

But over the years, a sequel became increasingly unlikely, as Portman became too big a star in the process, and more importantly, Besson broke with the Gaumont Film Company, which owned the rights. The script was eventually made into the 2011 action-packed revenge film Colombiana, starring Zoe Saldaña.

Mike Judge’s comedy was not a big hit in theaters at the time, but it slowly became a cult film. The director, who is also the father of Beavis and Butthead, did not make the sequel, even though the studio asked him to write another film. According to him, making the original was an unpleasant experience for him, as he was still a beginner, so he had to fight with the production studio, Universal, for every scene, every character and every piece of music in the film, who were thinking of a completely different kind of comedy.

Maybe, apart from a small group of horror fanatics, there is not much demand for another Freddy vs. Jason movie, but given the popularity of sequels, spin-offs and reboots in various slasher franchises, it’s interesting that the showdown between the two big guns of the genre never continued.

After the success of the first film, there were already plans for a sequel starring Ash (Bruce Campbell), a member of the Evil Dead franchise, but it wasn’t long before the project was mired in a pre-production nightmare that even Freddy Krueger wouldn’t fight against. could have done anything. The tug-of-war between the production companies stole so much time that Robert Englund withdrew from the role of Freddy Krueger in the meantime, and thus the project ended for good.

In Peter Berg’s anti-superhero film, Will Smith played Hancock, a controversial and misunderstood character with extraordinary physical strength, who regularly caused millions of dollars in damage to the city he was supposed to protect due to his reckless behavior. The film, made for 150 million dollars, generated a total of 630 million in revenue, which means that the audience received it quite well (it was rated 7.9 by PORT readers), so it would have been logical to continue.

The director already said before the presentation that if the film brings in as much income as predicted, then a second part is likely. In August 2009, Columbia Pictures commissioned screenwriters Adam Fierro and Glen Mazzara to write a sequel, with Charlize Theron confirmed to reprise her role. In January 2012, Berg also assured everyone that the film was being made, but nothing came of the project. In an interview in 2020, Theron indicated that she would still be interested in a sequel, but no other developments have taken place since then.

It’s been 14 years since District 9 hit theaters, and it seems like each year has brought new rumors and hopes for the highly anticipated sequel. Neill Blomkamp’s directorial debut was a critically acclaimed sci-fi action drama with stunning visuals, compelling thematic resonance and an ending that left open the question of what the future holds for Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley). .

Although a promising announcement was made in mid-2021 that a sequel would be written, we haven’t heard much about it since, except for Copley insisting that the project is still on the agenda. With Blomkamp currently busy working on Gran Turismo – and with no further announcements regarding District 10 – it looks like fans will have to wait even longer.

In Hollywood, it is called “development hell”, when a project cannot be realized even after many years or decades, and the planned sequel to World War Z also ended up here. From multiple rewrites to director changes, he always took one step forward and two steps back.

It already seemed that the happy ending was close when David Fincher, who maintains a good relationship with Brad Pitt, signed on to direct. Unfortunately, the schedule had to be changed several times due to the filming of Pitt’s and Fincher’s other projects, until Paramount suspended the sequel indefinitely in 2019 due to Chinese censorship laws prohibiting zombie films.

Via: Collider / The Things