Hollywood, do the right thing: release five shelved movies like Coyote vs. Acme

Some vanished movies are fully edited and sitting on a shelf; others collapsed midway through filming; one never even reached day one on set. After all the attention on Coyote vs. Acme and what happens when a finished film gets yanked, a handful of long-whispered projects keep coming up in fan conversations — the kind of titles where the making-of stories are already legend and the curiosity factor is sky-high.

Five lost films still worth saving

• Superman Lives (1998 ) — Tim Burton’s take on the Man of Steel would have put Nicolas Cage in the suit, with drafts that pitted Superman against Brainiac ( at times fused with Lex Luthor on the page). The concept leaned into alienation, weird-science body horror and a more vulnerable Kal-El. Development burned money and pages for years, and Warner Bros. shut it down before cameras rolled. Rumors at the time linked Sandra Bullock to Lois Lane and Christopher Walken to Brainiac, adding to the mythos of the greatest superhero movie never made.
• Prankstar (2009) — Written, directed by and starring Tom Green, this mockumentary about an unhinged crew of stunt pranksters was shot guerrilla-style, cut together and, according to Green, finished — then quietly shelved. It chased the chaos of early internet shock humor, clout-chasing and public disruption years before “prank channels” took over social feeds.

  the most insane movie ever

  That’s how Green once described it on social media. More than a decade later, no release, no festival screenings, no VOD — just a ghost that die-hard fans still ask about.

• 10 Things I Hate About Life (2014) — Director Gil Junger returned to the world of his ’90s hit with a darker rom-com twist: Evan Rachel Wood and Thomas McDonell as strangers who meet at the exact moment they each plan to end their lives — and talk each other into living instead. Filming started, then stalled amid company shake-ups, budget trouble and litigation involving the production and its star. What exists hints at a prickly, surprisingly tender romance that never reached the finish line.
• Empires of the Deep (2014) — A billionaire-backed, underwater fantasy epic reportedly topping $100 million, imagined as a splashy answer to Avatar, with Olga Kurylenko ultimately playing the Mermaid Queen (after early chatter around Monica Bellucci). The plot dove into mermaid kingdoms, ancient warriors and leviathans, with themes of environmental ruin and royal betrayal. Production cycled through four directors, dozens of rewrites and money woes; VFX work became a sinkhole. The film never secured a release, surviving as a cautionary tale with tantalizing concept art and stray footage.
• Something’s Got to Give (1962) — A glossy screwball setup from director George Cukor: a long-missing wife (Marilyn Monroe) returns to find her husband (Dean Martin) remarried (to Cyd Charisse). The shoot was turbulent — studio fights, mounting delays, Monroe’s health — and then ended abruptly with Monroe’s death in August 1962. What remains is raw, radiant footage of her final work and the outline of a sparkling comedy that never came together.