During his career, American film director and musician Rob Zombie 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. [1] [2] [3] [4]
In 1997, it was reported that Zombie was to write and make his feature directorial debut with The Crow: 2037, which was intended to be the third film of The Crow (1994). [5] White Zombie covered the KC and the Sunshine Band hit "I'm Your Boogie Man" for the soundtrack of The Crow: City of Angels , and after seeing Rob Zombie's work on the video he produced for the song, Edward Pressman offered Zombie the opportunity to helm the third Crow film. [6] Had the film been made, Zombie planned to shift focus in tone from the revenge angle of the previous two entries, to a more horror-based approach. The film would've began in 2010, when a young boy and his mother are murdered on Halloween night by a Satanic priest. A year later, the boy is resurrected as the Crow. 27 years later, unaware of his past, he has become a bounty hunter on a collision course with his now all-powerful killer. [6] While producers responded favorably to Zombie's proposal for a third "The Crow" film, producers Pressman and Most ultimately decided it wasn't the best fit for a Crow film and was better served as a standalone work. [7] Zombie later described his frustration with the 18-month experience; the producers' indecisiveness eventually drove him to leave the project. [8]
In 2008, it was reported that Zombie was to direct a film for Dimension Films titled either Tyrannosaurus Rex or T-Rex. [1] [9] [10] [11] It was believed that the project was to have been based on Steve Niles and Zombie's 2004 comic book The Nail, [1] but Zombie denied this. [12] According to The Oklahoman , the film was to have been about "a washed-up boxer who gets into the world of underground fighting after he’s released from prison." [13] Zombie also described it as a crossover between Straight Time (1978) and Raging Bull (1980). [12] Zombie said in a 2011 interview with Entertainment Weekly that Tyrannosaurus Rex was to have been his next feature after Halloween (2007). [14] When asked about the status of the project in a 2010 interview, Zombie said, "It’s nowhere. I mean it’s not in any kind of production whatsoever." [15] According to Bloody Disgusting, the film was never made because The Weinstein Company thought it was too expensive. [1] [9]
In 2009, it was announced that Zombie would write, produce and direct a second remake of the 1958 film The Blob . [16] [17] [18] [19] Variety reported in August 2009 that Zombie had started writing the screenplay. [20] Zombie's version was said to have been budgeted $30 million. [21] [22] [23] Zombie said of the project: "The Blob was going to happen. I was dealing with people on the movie, even though I was on the fence about doing anything that was considered a remake again. I really didn’t like the idea of that, but just as I went down the road further with the producers and the guys that owned the property, I didn’t feel good about the situation and I just walked away from it. My gut told me this was not a good place to be." [24] It was said that Zombie's version was scrapped and that Simon West replaced him for the director's chair in 2015. [25] In 2018, concept art related to what would have been Zombie's version of The Blob was publicly released. [26] [27] [28]
In 2012, it was announced that Zombie was to have written, produced and directed a 1970s-set film about the Philadelphia Flyers titled The Broad Street Bullies. [29] [30] [31] [32] In 2014, it was announced that Zombie shelved the project. [33] Zombie said of the project in a 2015 interview: "The problem is when you don't control the material. When it's an original story that I wrote I can control everything. I don't have to answer to anybody. But something like the Philadelphia Flyers, Broad Street Bullies, something that's a true story pre-existing thing there's so much more protocol you have to go through of getting people to ok things and different steps that just really slow down the process." [34]
In 2014, it was announced that Rob Zombie and American Psycho author, Bret Easton Ellis, teamed up with Alcon Entertainment to make a miniseries centered around The Manson Family. The miniseries would aim to tell converging stories of people and events leading up to and after the murders, from shifting points of view. [35]
In 2015, it was announced that Zombie was to direct and produce a biopic on Groucho Marx. [36] [37] The film was to have been based on Steve Stoliar's 1996 book Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho's House. [38] [39] Zombie reportedly acquired the rights to the book. [40] [41] Oren Moverman wrote the screenplay. [42] [43] In 2022, it was announced that Moverman replaced Zombie for the director's chair. [44]
In 2015, Starz announced a new horror-comedy TV series called Trapped. Mila Kunis and Rob Zombie would serve as executive producers, with Zombie also directing. It would take place over a single night in the home of a wealthy family under attack by a murderous cult. [45]
