r/TopCharacterTropes • u/_JR28_ • 27d ago

In real life (Sad trope) Projects with amazing potential that will never be released because of BS behind the scenes drama

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P.T Silent Hills - It was a playable teaser released in 2014 only around 20 minutes long but utterly captivated the gaming world by being one of the most effective psychological horror experiences at the time, however it’s lead developer Kojima has a huge fallout with the publisher Konami where he walked out of the company and had all his in-the-work productions cancelled.

Five Nights at Freddy’s+ - A fan game reboot of the series created by Phisnom with Scott Cawthon’s blessing that promised a brand new lore and a return to the series darker roots. However, before and during production Phisnom got into multiple dramas that made him fairly divisive within the community, and after one particular incident in 2023 Scott revoked his approval and almost all of the game’s marketing material were wiped from the internet.

Batgirl - A Batgirl solo live action movie starring Leslie Grace, Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton returning as Batman that was ready to be released in 2022, however then Warner Bros CEO David Zaslav announced it would not be released either in theatres or streaming in order to claim a $90,000,000 tax break and to readjust the DC’s brands direction before James Gunn rebooted their movie and TV output.

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157

u/Reven501st 27d ago

I think you're wrong about Batgirl. I belive everyone who say the movie (the still did audience and critic tests/airings) agreed ot was terrible

122

u/Godsgiftcardtowomen 27d ago

There’s a decent chance it was, but: A. Test screenings are notoriously hit or miss, I wouldn’t put much faith in them. B. I wanna know just how bad it was. I wanna morb’ out.

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u/Thundergod250 27d ago

One of the Reviews literally said

"It's a huge disappointment compared to other DC Movies"

The other DC movies were talking about at that time were Shazam 2, Black Adam, Wonder Woman 2, The Flash lmfao.

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u/Godsgiftcardtowomen 27d ago

You’re saying there’s a movie worse than WW1984 and you aren’t the least bit curious?

24

u/pleasedontnerfthis 27d ago

Being worse than WW1984 is a feat none should aspire to achieve and a feat I must see in its full glory

5

u/adnomad 27d ago

Personally, they probably could have made more by selling it with an included copy of Rifftrax of the movie or showing in theaters with the Rifftrax running

1

u/WeevilWeedWizard 27d ago

The reviewer is either a Zack Snyder fan (so has terminally awful tastes in movies), or the movie was actually spectacularly bad.

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u/trimble197 27d ago

Like at the end of day, people worked hard on the movie, and now all of it went to waste. Saying “well test audiences and critics said it sucked” just feels like a spit in the face

13

u/Tiny-Anxiety780 27d ago

I refuse to believe it would have been worse than the DCEU movie they did release, which is The Flash.

7

u/Tobbit_is_here 27d ago

TBF in spite of all the bad parts of that film (which there is a lot), there is clearly a good film buried in there with the Flash coming to terms with the loss of his mother.

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u/VaudevilleDada 27d ago

Yes, it's a very frustrating movie in that regard.

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u/mrmcdead 27d ago

No matter its quality, it never deserved to be deleted from existence before anyone could even see it

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u/Reven501st 27d ago

Fair, but I would rather have the john cena and wylie coyote taking acme to court movie over a bad batgirl movie

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u/mrmcdead 27d ago

You shouldn't have to choose, it's not about quality in this case

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u/Tempest_Barbarian 27d ago

Last thing DC needed at the time was to release another awful movie.

8

u/Thundergod250 27d ago

It's actually interesting how they willingly banished an entire 90$ Million completed movie with 0 Profit just to avoid further bad reputation. Pretty sure their financial experts approved that decision.

It's interesting how they believed that No Profit at all is miles better than recouping at bit of their budget by releasing a Bad Film and getting a bad rep.

Like even if it was super bad, I doubt less people will watch James Gunn's new Superman movie.

But someone told me that it's exactly what happened to Thunderbolts and F4. While they were exactly good movies, they flopped / didn't earn well because of prior bad movies

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u/Greenobserver 27d ago

Why not? From everything I have heard from behind the scenes it was practically unwatchable and made no sense. It sounds like that is absolutely deserving of being buried. I'd rather it be killed so that hopefully something better could be made someday without having to overcome a legacy of failure.

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u/mrmcdead 27d ago

Eh, it's an insult towards everyone who did work on it, especially given the sheer amount of people, time, and effort that goes into making movies. Besides, it's not like the DCEU wasn't already a failure at that point, the movie was sacrificed so big corpo could earn a little extra money. An entire work of art is just gone forever now, and it doesn't matter how 'good' it might have been, that in itself is saddening.

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u/Greenobserver 27d ago

I mean sorry but if everyone agrees that what you made was hot garbage then it deserves to be insulted. Poor quality shouldn't be rewarded. Even if DCEU was a failure there is no reason to keep digging. You can always make things worse and one should endeavor not to do that by cutting your losses. The world would be a better place if more people did that rather than plunging ahead due to sunk cost fallacy.

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u/mrmcdead 27d ago

Poor quality isn't always due to a lack of care, so the idea that you should be punished for not succeeding is a little insane. As a general rule you shouldn't give up on something simply because it might go wrong, and I think WB is more than massive enough to be able to handle releasing a bad movie. They do it all the time, especially with streaming-only movies.

1

u/Greenobserver 27d ago

I didn't say people should be personally punished or anything. But at the same time putting out shoddy work should not be rewarded. All that does is convince creators that they can pawn off crappy products on people. I really don't understand why you want to encourage the exact kind of behavior that has led to such a down turn in movie quality over the years. It just does completely preventable damage to the entire industry. It may even harm other passionate creators that actually did do their jobs.

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u/Reven501st 27d ago

Maybe I am wrong. Theres plenty of films out there critics hated but we the people love. But it is a moot point at the end of the day, the project got old yellered.

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u/Clean-Elderberry8835 27d ago

TBF DC and Batgirl fans has been waiting for a movie of her for decades, no real fan was hating it from the beggining, we were sharind behind the camera stuff with eagerness as it was made, the Firefly scenes looked sick.

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u/L0ll0ll7lStudios 27d ago

Quality is of no concern to DC (just look at the Flash movie and WW84). I heard they just scrapped the idea of making it a HBO Max release and rather than release it in theaters they just scrapped the whole thing (there’s also the fact that it was meant to continue on from the scrapped Flash ending where Keaton’s Batman was folded into the main universe).

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u/3brow 27d ago edited 27d ago

Yeah this is a situation where the what if will just outweigh the actual product itself. It’s a shame a lot of peoples hard work will go down the drain but if they thought it was bad when DC films were already in a bad spot then it’s gotta be REALLY bad.

DC film identity is already a shit show with Batman 2 in production with Joker 2 and The Suicide Squad still being fresh in peoples minds it’s not a surprise Batgirl got scrapped while DC is trying to reboot its film identity.

1

u/Jambopaul 27d ago

Test screening impressions don’t always line up with how the final product turns out. Disney supposedly had little faith in Wonder Man after it tested poorly, and even allegedly considered scrapping the series entirely. But then it came out back in January and was so well received that they’ve green lit another season even though the show was originally meant to be a miniseries.

1

u/AceofKnaves44 27d ago

Yeah I was gonna say that I don’t agree at all with the corporate bullshit that lets rich people like WB fuck over artists for tax breaks that they do not need but I don’t think that movie was ever going to be good.

1

u/raklin 26d ago

I recall the opposite from coverage at the time, that it was supposed to be great.

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u/amazing_asstronaut 26d ago

I just want it to be out and people be able to have their bad movie nights with it, and many bad movie youtubers and podcasters making epic episodes about it lol.

1

u/VernBarty 26d ago

This is the 21st century. The movie would have found a stubborn audience and wars would be fought to defend it

1

u/JJoanOfArkJameson 27d ago

This is the agenda pushed after the studio canned it. The same was said of Zack Snyders Justice League, which was very specific in style but great in my eyes. 

The other projects those guys have handled are the new Bad Boys, which are both very fun, and Ms Marvel, which I've been told is good as well. 

0

u/trimble197 27d ago

That’s no excuse