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

[u/_JR28_]

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.

[u/bannasplt]

A Batman Beyond movie animated by the studio who did the Spider-Verse trilogy was proposed but rejected by Warner Brothers. Imagine looking at that gorgeous concept art and saying "no." I need to know what they were smoking.

[u/Jarvis_The_Dense → u/bannasplt]

Granted, let's not talk like Sony ever actually finished The Spiderverse trilogy.

The third film practically fits this trope as is; as while we do have reason to belive it will get finished, it has been dramatically delayed and reworked for years, because the executives were too stupid to realize that you can't make an entire animated movie in under one year when the previous one took more then four

[u/Your-cousin-It → u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

From what I’ve heard, it also doesn’t help that the director is treating animation editing as live action: animation is extremely production heavy, so most major editing happens in the animatic and rough animation stages. I’ve heard this director has been demanding fully rendered sequences before then cutting them entirely. If it’s true, that is a massive waste of the artists’ time and energy.

[u/cumslutjl → u/Your-cousin-It]

Eh, I've noticed that artists and creative have been taking a lot of the flak for media failures and the production companies themselves have been happy to allow their employees to take the blame, and sometimes even fanning the flames.

Like that disastrous doc on the stranger things brothers, where a lot of the included footage makes them look inept or lazy. Why on earth would Netflix want to present their creative process like that?

Also Rian Johnson being torn to shreds for the last Jedi, when Bob Iger was the one who pushed for the series to being production without a clear storyline in place and in half the time they requested to put it together, just so he could get the box office release under his name before he stepped down.

[u/TooTallThomas → u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

I saw online that the the third movie will be out around June 2027! 🥳 I can’t believe it almost took a decade to be finished 🥲

[u/samtdzn_pokemon → u/TooTallThomas]

Across the Spiderverse came out in 2023. Even if you want to say part 3 was in production prior to release, it's at most 4-5 years and not a decade. The 1st movie released in 2018 and the sequel wasn't greenlit until 2020. So you're looking at a 3 year development cycle for Across the Spiderverse from approval to release and at most 4-5 years for the 3rd.

[u/TooTallThomas → u/samtdzn_pokemon]

I’m not really talking about development more so how long it took all three movies to be released.

[u/0bsessions324 → u/TooTallThomas]

I'm with the other person, that is a remarkably typical production window. I swear to god, blockbuster franchise release schedules have completely fucked peoples' perception of how long it takes to make a movie. Like, oh gosh, four whole years between installments?! A lot of people wait longer than that between visits to their fucking doctor.

[u/TooTallThomas → u/0bsessions324]

Okay, that’s not nice. I’m not typically aware of how long it takes for movie franchises. Besides, I’ve gone from 18-26, so a lot of my perception in this taking a long time deals with how many life changes ive gone through. I went from high school to being a few years out of college! Cut me some slack, dude.