The following is a list of unproduced Coen brothers projects in roughly chronological order. During their long careers, American filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen have worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under their direction. Some of these productions fell in development hell or were cancelled. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
In 1986, the Coen brothers wrote the script Suburbicon , and had intended on directing the film themselves, but it was put aside and shelved in favor of other projects at the time. Later, in the 2000s, they sought out the script from Warner Bros., who owned the rights, and rewrote it with a contemporary setting and with George Clooney in mind to star. Clooney ultimately directed Suburbicon himself, with a script rewritten by Grant Heslov to take place in 1957. [6]
In July 1997, the Coens agreed to adapt Elmore Leonard's next novel Cuba Libre , for Universal Pictures, however the two made no official commitment to direct at the time. [7]
That same month, it was reported that the Coens had considered adapting James Dickey's To the White Sea at Universal for Brad Pitt. [7] In August 2000, Pitt officially signed on to star in the film. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] They were due to start production in 2002, with Jeremy Thomas producing, but it was cancelled when the Coens felt that the budget offered was not enough to successfully produce the film. [13] The Houston Chronicle reported that "no studio would fund the film." [14] In August 2015, it was announced that Warner Bros. acquired the film rights to the book and that their screenplay was scrapped and that another writer and/or director would replace them. [15] [16] [17]
In March 1998, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Coen brothers had written an adaptation the Elmore Leonard novel LaBrava , also for Universal. [18]
In an April 1998 interview with Alex Simon for Venice magazine, the Coens discussed a project called The Contemplations, which would be an anthology of short films based on stories in a leather bound book from a "dusty old library". [19] This project may have influenced or evolved into The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), which has the same structure. [1] [2] [4]
It was reported in 2004 [20] that the Coen brothers were to make a Cold War-related comedy film project titled 62 Skidoo. [21] Nicolas Cage was attached to the project. [22]
In 2008, it was announced that the Coen brothers were to write and direct a film adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union for Columbia Pictures. [23] [24] [25] Scott Rudin, who collaborated with the brothers in No Country for Old Men (2007), was to have served as producer. [26] [27] When asked about the status of the project in 2015, Chabon confirmed: "Nothing. The Coen brothers wrote a draft of the script and then they seemed to move on. The rights have lapsed back to me." [28]
In 2009, the Coens stated that they were interested in making a sequel to Barton Fink (1991) called Old Fink, which would take place in the 1960s, around the same time period as A Serious Man (2009). The Coens also stated that they had talks with John Turturro in reprising his role as Fink, but they were waiting "until he was actually old enough to play the part". [29] [30] [31]
In 2011, the Coens were working on a television project, called Harve Karbo, about a quirky Los Angeles private eye, for Imagine Television. [32] [33]
In September 2013, the Coens stated in an interview that they were working on a new musical comedy centered around an opera singer, though they said it is "not a musical per se". [34]
In an interview conducted with the Coen brothers in December 2013, the two expressed their involvement in a sprawling sword-and-sandal epic set in ancient Rome. [35]
In August 2015, it was announced that Warner Bros. had optioned the film rights to Ross Macdonald's novel Black Money for the Coen brothers to potentially write and direct. [36] [37] [38] [39]
The Coens have written an as-yet-unproduced screenplay based on the Ross Macdonald mystery novel The Zebra-Striped Hearse , for producer Joel Silver. Silver first spoke of the project in May 2016. [6]
It was reported in October 2016 that the Coens would work on the screenplay for Fox titled Dark Web, based on Joshuah Bearman's two-part Wired article about Ross Ulbricht and his illicit Silk Road online marketplace. The project originated in 2013, with novelist Dennis Lehane on board for the screenplay. Chernin Entertainment would produce. [40] [41]
On February 10, 2017, it was announced that the Scarface remake's script was being written by the Coens. [42] Luca Guadagnino announced plans to direct the film. [43]
Joel Daniel Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen, collectively known as the Coen brothers, are an American filmmaking duo. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody. Their most acclaimed works include Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), No Country for Old Men (2007), A Serious Man (2009), True Grit (2010) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). Many of their films are distinctly American, often examining the culture of the American South and American West in both modern and historical contexts.
Michael Chabon is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, D.C., he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1984. He subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine.
Barry Sonnenfeld is an American filmmaker and television director. He originally worked as a cinematographer for the Coen brothers before directing films such as The Addams Family (1991) and its sequel Addams Family Values (1993), Get Shorty (1995), the Men in Black trilogy (1997–2012), and Wild Wild West (1999).
Barton Fink is a 1991 American period black comedy psychological thriller film written, produced, edited and directed by the Coen brothers. Set in 1941, it stars John Turturro in the title role as a young New York City playwright who is hired to write scripts for a film studio in Hollywood, and John Goodman as Charlie Meadows, the insurance salesman who lives next door at the run-down Hotel Earle.
Denis Villeneuve is a French-Canadian filmmaker. He is a four-time recipient of the Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction, winning for Maelström in 2001, Polytechnique in 2009, Incendies in 2010 and Enemy in 2013. The first three of these films also won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Motion Picture, while the latter was awarded the prize for best Canadian film of the year by the Toronto Film Critics Association.
The Lost Boys is a 1987 American supernatural comedy horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Harvey Bernhard with a screenplay written by Jeffrey Boam, Janice Fischer and James Jeremias, from a story by Fischer and Jeremias. The film's ensemble cast includes Corey Feldman, Jami Gertz, Corey Haim, Edward Herrmann, Barnard Hughes, Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland and Dianne Wiest.
James Gray is an American film director and screenwriter. Since his feature debut Little Odessa in 1994, he has made seven other features including We Own the Night (2007), Two Lovers (2008), The Immigrant (2013), The Lost City of Z (2016), Ad Astra (2019), and Armageddon Time (2022). Five of his films have competed for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Eric Andrew Heisserer is an American filmmaker, comic book writer, television writer, and television producer. His screenplay for the film Arrival earned him a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the 89th Academy Awards in 2016.
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a 2008 comedy-drama film based on Michael Chabon's 1988 novel of the same name. The film was written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber. It was produced by Michael London and executive produced by Omar Amanat. Shooting in Pittsburgh ended in October 2006, with the film set for release in 2008. It made its world premiere in January 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival. Set in 1980s Pittsburgh, the film follows the affairs of two young men with one woman, and later also with each other.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a 2007 novel by American author Michael Chabon. The novel is a detective story set in an alternative history version of the present day, based on the premise that during World War II, a temporary settlement for Jewish refugees was established in Sitka, Alaska, in 1941, and that the fledgling State of Israel was destroyed in 1948. The novel is set in Sitka, which it depicts as a large, Yiddish-speaking metropolis.
DC Comics's Superman franchise, based on the character of the same name created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in June 1938, has seen the release of various films since its inception. He debuted in cinemas in a series of animated shorts beginning in 1941, subsequently starring in two movie serials in 1948 and 1950. An independent studio, Lippert Pictures, released the first Superman feature film, Superman and the Mole Men, starring George Reeves, in 1951. In 1973, the film rights to the Superman character were purchased by Ilya Salkind, Alexander Salkind, and Pierre Spengler. After numerous scripts and years in development, Richard Donner was hired as their director, filming Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980) simultaneously. Donner had already shot eighty percent of Superman II with Christopher Reeve before it was decided to finish shooting the first film. The Salkinds fired Donner after Superman's release and commissioned Richard Lester as the director to finish Superman II. Lester also returned for Superman III (1983), and the Salkinds further produced the related 1984 spin-off Supergirl before selling the rights to Cannon Films, resulting in the poorly reviewed Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987). Ilya Salkind commissioned a fifth Superman script before Warner Bros. acquired the rights entirely in 1993.
Gambit is a 2012 heist comedy film directed by Michael Hoffman from a screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen, starring Colin Firth, Cameron Diaz, Alan Rickman, Tom Courtenay and Stanley Tucci. It is a remake of the 1966 film of the same name starring Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine.
Joel and Ethan Coen, collectively referred to as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody. The brothers write, direct and produce their films jointly, and have edited almost all of them under the collective pseudonym Roderick Jaynes.
Andrés Walter Muschietti is an Argentine film director and screenwriter who achieved wide recognition with the 2013 film Mama. He gained further recognition for directing both films in the It film series, the 2017 film adaptation of the Stephen King novel and its sequel, It Chapter Two. In 2023, he directed the DC Extended Universe film The Flash.
Christina Hodson is an English screenwriter. She is best known for writing the films Bumblebee (2018), Birds of Prey (2020), and The Flash (2023). Her film Shut In (2016) appeared on the 2012 edition of the Black List, an annual list of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays, but its resulting film was critically panned; two more of her screenplays remain on the Black List.
The following is a list of unproduced Guillermo del Toro projects in roughly chronological order. During his decades-long career, Mexican filmmaker and author Guillermo del Toro has worked on a number of projects that never progressed beyond the pre-production stage. Some of these projects fell into development hell and are presumably canceled, while some were taken over and completed by other filmmakers.
The following is a list of unproduced Steven Spielberg projects in roughly chronological order. During his long career, American film director Steven Spielberg has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects fell in "development hell" or were officially canceled, some were turned over to other production teams, and still others never made it past the speculative stage.
The following is a list of unproduced Darren Aronofsky projects in roughly chronological order. During his long career, American film director Darren Aronofsky has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects fell in "development hell" or were cancelled.
The following is a list of unproduced Scott Cooper projects in roughly chronological order. During his career, American film director Scott Cooper has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these productions fell in development hell or were cancelled.
The following is a list of unproduced Guy Ritchie projects in roughly chronological order. During his long career, English film director Guy Ritchie has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these productions fell in development hell or were cancelled.