17 Awesome Movie Concepts That Were Totally Botched
Squandered potential at its most infuriating.
There's not much sadder in Hollywood than failed potential, when a movie sells itself to audiences with one hell of a hook, only for the end product to fall far short of all that promise.
It's a common discussion among film fans online - as per this recent Reddit thread - because, let's face it, how many big-budget Hollywood films can really survive the process of the studio sausage-factory with their original integrity in tact?
Either due to over-cautious, scissor-happy studio heads who think they know best, an undercooked script that needed a few more drafts or a cast and crew who bit off more than they could chew, these 17 awesome movie pitches left nothing but anguished disappointment at the end of the day.
Each had the potential to be a cult classic blockbuster at the very least, and some absolutely could've been genre masterpieces in their own rights. Sadly, they're always destined to serve as monuments to false promise, and just how damn hard it is to make a good movie out of even the most appealing idea...
17. Terminator Salvation
The Pitch: Remember the future war sequences from the first two Terminator movies? What about a character-driven movie centered around that?
What Happened?: On paper, Terminator Salvation had everything it needed to succeed, namely a great cast and a premise distinguished from the three prior movies, but as ever, it ultimately came down to the script.
Salvation boasted suitably grimy, washed-out visuals and touted some intriguing new Terminator designs, but with a dour, humourless tone completely at odds with the rest of the series, it ended up a shockingly boring movie.
It didn't help that the marketing gave away the big twist - that Sam Worthington's Marcus Wright was a human-Terminator hybrid - Christian Bale's performance as John Connor was a total disappointment, Arnold Schwarzenegger was replaced with a terrible CGI render, and the ending was laughably absurd, even for this franchise.
Oh, and it was rated PG-13, which for a series focused on machines brutally slaughtering humanity just doesn't fly.