Film & TV
Unreleased productions, lost moving images and screen projects that disappeared from view.
106 verified storiesBatgirl
The unreleased 2022 filmPrincipal photography was finished. Post-production had begun. The audience never arrived.
The Sweatbox
It screened at festivals, then never entered ordinary circulation.
Superman Lives
Nicolas Cage wore the Superman suit, but principal photography never began.
London After Midnight
It reached cinemas worldwide. The last known print later vanished in a vault fire.
Cleopatra
The 1917 lost filmIt was once an expensive screen spectacle. Today, only fragments and photographs remain.
Jodorowsky's Dune
The film never rolled, but its enormous storyboard book let an unmade Dune travel through cinema anyway.
Napoleon
Stanley Kubrick's unmade filmKubrick catalogued a life day by day and planned battles by the thousand, but the epic remained an archive instead of a film.
The Mountain Eagle
Alfred Hitchcock's second feature was released, reviewed and then disappeared without a known surviving print.
Convention City
A hit pre-Code comedy became too indecent to reissue, then its studio negative was marked for destruction.
The Patriot
The lost 1928 filmIt earned five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, yet most of the film no longer exists.
The Way of All Flesh
The lost 1927 filmThe first Best Actor Oscar honored a performance that can now be seen only in fragments.
The Divine Woman
Greta Garbo's released film survives as a single tantalising reel while the rest of its performance is gone.
The Great Gatsby (1926)
The first Great Gatsby film reached cinemas one year after the novel, but today only its trailer still moves.
The Rogue Song
An Oscar-nominated early colour musical survives in scattered fragments but not as the feature audiences saw.
The Cat Creeps
Universal's first major sound-horror mystery vanished while its Spanish-language companion survived.
4 Devils
Murnau's follow-up to Sunrise was released in two versions; neither is now known to survive complete.
The Werewolf (1913)
Cinema's earliest documented werewolf transformation was released, then reportedly burned with other Universal negatives.
Saved from the Titanic
A Titanic survivor reenacted her own escape for the camera, but the resulting film disappeared in a studio fire.
The Life of General Villa
Pancho Villa signed with a film company to help stage his own screen legend; most of the released feature is gone.
The Battle Cry of Peace
One of silent cinema's most aggressive calls for military preparedness survives only in incomplete form.
The Great Love
Griffith filmed wartime Britain with real public figures, but the released feature no longer survives complete.
The Miracle Man
The film that helped turn Lon Chaney into a star became a box-office success, then shrank to fragments.
A Blind Bargain
Lon Chaney played both scientist and ape-like experiment in a horror feature whose known print was later destroyed.
Humor Risk
The Marx Brothers made one silent film before their classics; no one can now screen it to see what they tried.
Hollywood (1923)
A silent tour through 1920s Hollywood gathered an extraordinary cast of cameos, then vanished almost completely.
The City Gone Wild
Louise Brooks appeared in this released underworld drama, but no complete copy remains to restore the performance.
Aryan Papers
Kubrick researched a Holocaust film down to costumes and location tests, then decided the subject and production had become unbearable.
Spider-Man 4
Sam Raimi's cancelled sequelSony dated a fourth Raimi Spider-Man film and developed villains and scripts, but rebooted the series before cameras rolled.
Guillermo del Toro's The Hobbit
Del Toro spent two years designing Middle-earth, then left when financial delays made the start of filming impossible to predict.
Halo film
The Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp projectMicrosoft brought Halo to Hollywood with Jackson and Blomkamp, built test material, and watched the studio partnership collapse before filming.
Star Wars: Duel of the Fates
A complete Episode IX screenplay sent the saga toward Coruscant and a different ending before Lucasfilm replaced its director and story.
Kingdom of the Sun
Disney built an epic musical, recorded songs and animated major sequences—then dismantled it into The Emperor's New Groove.
Yellow Submarine remake
Disney and Robert Zemeckis prepared a motion-capture Beatles remake, then closed the studio technology built to make it.
Genndy Tartakovsky's Popeye
Sony released a dazzling animation test for Tartakovsky's Popeye, then let the director and feature drift apart.
Blue Sky's Nimona
Blue Sky animated much of Nimona before Disney closed the studio; another team later rebuilt and released a different production.
Larrikins
DreamWorks cancelled an Australian musical after years of story, songs and animation work, leaving its creators to share only fragments.
Star Wars: Underworld
Lucasfilm wrote dozens of scripts and built a technology test for a darker live-action Star Wars series that television budgets could not support.
Destino original production
Disney and Salvador Dalí built a surreal short, then stopped after months of design and animation; it was completed by another generation decades later.
The Other Side of the Wind original production
Orson Welles shot his labyrinthine Hollywood film for years but died before finishing it; an archive team completed a successor cut in 2018.
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2000 production)
Terry Gilliam started shooting Don Quixote, then storms, illness and insurance ended the production in less than a week.
Heart of Darkness
Orson Welles's unrealised first RKO featureWelles planned to film Conrad through the protagonist's eyes, built elaborate camera tests, and lost the project when its budget would not fit RKO.
Justice League: Mortal
George Miller assembled a complete superhero cast and prepared Australian production, but strikes and financing policy stopped filming before it began.
Star Trek: Phase II
Paramount wrote episodes, cast new characters and began constructing an Enterprise for a television network that never launched.
Bloodmoon
The Long NightHBO spent millions on a Game of Thrones prequel pilot starring Naomi Watts, watched the finished episode, and declined the series.
The Fantastic Four
1994 unreleased filmA complete low-budget Fantastic Four feature held a premiere campaign, then disappeared before audiences could officially see it.
Toy Story 3 by Circle 7
Disney built a new animation studio to make Pixar sequels without Pixar, then discarded its alternate Toy Story 3 after buying the company it had tried to replace.
Gigantic (Disney film)
GiganticDisney publicly scheduled a musical Jack and the Beanstalk adventure, then closed the storybook before animation could reach the screen.
Heat Vision and Jack
Ben Stiller directed Jack Black as an astronaut and Owen Wilson as a talking motorcycle, but Fox left the completed pilot stranded online.
Global Frequency
Warner Bros. completed a pilot about a global emergency network, rejected it, then watched the leaked episode find the audience television had denied it.
Wonder Woman
2011 NBC pilotNBC completed a modern Wonder Woman pilot, tested a redesigned costume in public, and declined to show the episode or order the series.
The Shadow King
Disney spent tens of millions on Henry Selick's handmade shadow world, then stopped the puppets mid-production and returned the rights to him.
The Day the Clown Cried
Jerry Lewis finished most of a Holocaust drama, refused to release it, and placed the surviving material under a long archival restriction.
Wild Life
Disney put a visually experimental animated comedy into production, then judged its adult humour incompatible with the studio name and shut it down.
Ronnie Rocket
David Lynch carried a script about electricity, language and a three-foot rock star through decades of financing attempts, but never found a budget that could make its industrial dream world real.
The Beatles' Lord of the Rings
The Beatles asked Stanley Kubrick to direct them as Tolkien's heroes, but the author resisted and the director judged the fantasy impossible to film at the time.
A Topiary
Shane Carruth wrote an enormous science-fiction film, attracted David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh, and made effects tests—yet could not turn its ambition into finance.
Locke & Key
2011 Fox seriesFox commissioned a lavish pilot, filmed Keyhouse in Pennsylvania and screened the completed episode at Comic-Con, but never opened the door to a series.
Aquaman
Mercy ReefThe creators of Smallville filmed Justin Hartley as a young Aquaman for a new network, but the CW rejected the series and sold its lone episode instead.
Marvel's Most Wanted
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wrote two popular spies out to launch their own show, ABC filmed the pilot, and then decided the episode was not strong enough for a series.
The Deep
Dead ReckoningOrson Welles filmed a commercial thriller at sea with Jeanne Moreau and Laurence Harvey, but money, weather and a lead actor's death left the negative without a finished film.
Superman: Flyby
J. J. Abrams rewrote Superman as a science-fiction dynasty, multiple directors and actors tested costumes, and Warner Bros. abandoned the expensive reboot before filming.
At the Mountains of Madness
Guillermo del Toro filmGuillermo del Toro secured James Cameron, designed Antarctic creatures and prepared a $150-million Lovecraft epic, but an R rating and bleak ending froze it before filming.
BioShock
Gore Verbinski filmUniversal hired Gore Verbinski to take Rapture to the screen with a vast budget and an R rating, then chose neither when the financial crisis made the underwater city too risky.
Batman: Year One
Darren Aronofsky filmDarren Aronofsky and Frank Miller stripped Batman down to a homeless mechanic, improvised armour and street violence—far enough from the brand that Warner Bros. chose another reboot.
Justice League Dark
Guillermo del Toro versionGuillermo del Toro wrote Constantine, Swamp Thing, Zatanna and Deadman into one supernatural romance, then left when the studio's timetable collided with his next film.
Mockingbird Lane
NBC spent millions rebuilding The Munsters as a lush Bryan Fuller drama, aired the completed pilot for Halloween, and left the family inside that single house.
The Farm
The Office spin-offDwight Schrute inherited a beet farm, a new family and a possible series, but NBC rejected the spin-off and folded its pilot back into The Office.
Lookwell
Adam West played a forgotten television detective who believed old acting lessons qualified him to solve real crimes; NBC aired the pilot once and declined the series.
Korgoth of Barbaria
Adult Swim aired an ultraviolent barbarian pilot, announced a series, and then blamed the price of animation when no second adventure arrived.
Newt
Pixar announced a romance between the last two blue-footed newts on Earth, built its visual world, and then removed the film from the calendar without producing it.
Me and My Shadow
DreamWorks paired hand-drawn shadows with CG humans, cast Bill Hader and Kate Hudson, and completed striking animation tests before the hybrid film fell out of production.
Neill Blomkamp's Alien
Neill Blomkamp designed an alternate return for Ripley, Hicks and the derelict ship, won studio backing, and watched Ridley Scott's prequel plans close the airlock.
My Peoples
A Few Good GhostsDisney's Florida studio built Appalachian folk-art dolls, music and early animation around a cross-family romance, then cancelled the film and closed the studio producing it.
Star Wars Detours
Lucasfilm completed dozens of animated Star Wars comedy episodes with Seth Green, announced the series publicly, and then locked the entire production away after Disney changed course.
Scoob! Holiday Haunt
Warner Bros. cancelled its Scooby-Doo Christmas film while it was nearly finished; the crew completed the work anyway, but the studio never released it.
Fraidy Cat
Disney spent years developing a Hitchcock-style mystery about a nervous cat framed for kidnapping, but executives refused to greenlight the Florida studio's thriller.
King of the Elves
Disney announced a Philip K. Dick adaptation about a Mississippi shopkeeper crowned by elves, changed directors, revived it once, and quietly let the kingdom vanish.
Salomé (1918) — Complete Film
Theda Bara's lavish biblical spectacle once ran for more than an hour; a rediscovered two-minute fragment is all that can now move on screen.
A Daughter of the Gods
Hollywood's first million-dollar spectacle filled Jamaican locations with mermaids, armies and Annette Kellerman, yet no known moving print survives.
The Gulf Between
The first feature photographed in Technicolor proved a colour process could carry a full story, but only a handful of frames remain from the experiment.
Hats Off
Laurel and Hardy carried a washing machine up a vast staircase in the film that inspired The Music Box, but their earlier climb has vanished completely.
The Queen of Sheba (1921) — Complete Film
Fox built an immense biblical romance around Betty Blythe's spectacular costumes; today seventeen seconds stand in for more than nine reels.
The Terror
Warner Bros.' first all-talking horror feature sent voices through Vitaphone discs; the soundtrack survives, but the images it was meant to haunt are gone.
The Story of the Kelly Gang — Complete Cut
Australia created the world's first feature-length narrative film; roughly an hour was once screened, but only fragments can be assembled today.
Hot News
Bebe Daniels chased newsreel scoops across Paramount's silent comedy, but the feature now survives only through records, reviews and publicity images.
David Fincher's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Disney secured an Australian production incentive and David Fincher prepared an enormous undersea adventure, but casting disputes stopped it before cameras rolled.
Kaleidoscope
Alfred Hitchcock shot explicit handheld test footage for a serial-killer thriller decades ahead of his usual style, but Universal refused to let the experiment become a film.
Crusade
Paul Verhoeven and Arnold Schwarzenegger prepared a brutal medieval epic with castles, battles and religious doubt until Carolco chose pirate ships instead and collapsed soon after.
Terry Gilliam's Good Omens
Terry Gilliam had a script and major stars in mind, but could not persuade studios to finance an apocalyptic comedy before the rights moved on.
William Gibson's Alien III
William Gibson wrote two Cold War-inflected Alien sequels around Hicks and Bishop, but producers rejected the direction and the eventual film kept almost none of it.
Batman Unchained
Joel Schumacher's fifth Batman would have forced Bruce Wayne through Scarecrow hallucinations of his past villains, but Batman & Robin ended the continuity instead.
Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy III
Del Toro and Ron Perlman wanted Hellboy to face the apocalypse promised by two films, but no studio would finance the expensive conclusion.
Tim Burton's Catwoman
Michelle Pfeiffer's Selina Kyle was sent to a strange resort town in a completed spin-off script, but Tim Burton drifted away and Warner Bros. transformed the title into another film.
James Cameron's Spider-Man
James Cameron wrote a dark Spider-Man treatment with organic webbing and a rooftop romance, but bankrupt companies and tangled rights kept it off screen.
B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations
DreamWorks had cast, books and a heavily animated ghost comedy, then removed it from the calendar and abandoned more than $100 million of production.
1906
Brad Bird tried to turn the San Francisco earthquake into Pixar's first live-action epic, but three studios could not reduce the scale or agree on the story.
Disney's Chanticleer
Disney artists spent two decades trying to make a proud rooster into an animated musical, but executives never found enough sympathy or story for the hero.
Channing Tatum's Gambit
Fox dated Channing Tatum's mutant heist movie again and again, cycled through three directors and prepared New Orleans production before Disney erased it from the slate.
The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin
One of 1918's great American propaganda hits once turned Kaiser Wilhelm II into a screen villain; today not one complete reel is known to survive.
The Tower of Lies
Victor Sjöström directed Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer in a Swedish tragedy that audiences could once see, but no known print can now replay it.
The Great Moment
Gloria Swanson's first Paramount starring vehicle survives only in a fragment, leaving most of its globe-crossing melodrama outside the screen.
The Eternal City
An American crew filmed Rome, the Vatican and thousands of soldiers on an unprecedented scale, but the first screen version of The Eternal City has disappeared.
Flaming Youth — the complete film
The film that fixed Colleen Moore's flapper image became a cultural shorthand for the 1920s; nearly all nine reels are now gone.
The Ancient Mariner
Fox combined Coleridge's supernatural voyage with a modern Clara Bow melodrama, then all six reels slipped out of known film collections.
The American Venus
Paramount staged beauty contests and early Technicolor spectacle around Miss America; only seconds of Louise Brooks now move on film.
The News Parade
Fox sent a fictional newsreel cameraman from New York to Palm Beach and Havana, released the globe-trotting comedy and then lost every known print.