If it’s Saturday, it must be “you’ve Got To Be Kidding.” Sit back, relax and enjoy the humor . . .
Hollywood history is rife with stories of directors and film projects that almost happened, including such famous examples as Elia Kazan passing on “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, George Cukor being fired from “Gone with the Wind”, and Howard Hawks walking out on the Howard Hughes production of “The Outlaw”. What is less well known are the number of famous directors who almost – almost – completed some of Disney’s most famous and infamous movies. The following is based on an exhaustive search of treatments, memos, scripts, footage, and internet rumors that sounded like they might really be true.
Peter Jackson: The Three Little Pigs
Jackson devoted a separate three-and-a-half hour movie to each pig. He then followed this up with a three-part movie telling the story of the wolf’s rise and eventual demise.
Alfred Hitchcock: Swiss Family Robinson
A shipwrecked family struggles against their fear of heights and showers to build a treehouse. Once completed, they are forced to stay inside as they fight off unending flocks of birds and an ambushing crop duster. In the finale, a shocking discovery; the son was dressing up as everyone else in the family after he killed them in a fit of rage after losing an ostrich race.
Michael Bay: Pinocchio
The movie begins with the Blue Fairy arriving in a fiery ball of flames that, for no obvious reason, nearly destroys Gepetto’s toy shop. She tells Pinocchio that he must prove himself worthy of being a real boy by surviving a series of trials. Pinocchio heads out into the world where he meets Honest John and Gideon. For no obvious reason, there is a huge gun battle and, as Gideon lies dying, he tells Pinocchio he must seek out the puppet master, Stromboli. Pinocchio eventually finds Stromboli who wants the living puppet as part of his show. Rather than just asking, Stromboli puts together a complicated plan that, for no obvious reason, includes a gun battle and significant explosions. Pinocchio is captured and forced to perform. For no obvious reason, a coachman appears who, after an ear-splitting gun battle, frees Pinocchio, only to take him to Pleasure Island. Here Pinocchio meets Lampwick and the two embark on many nefarious adventures including smoking, gambling, drinking, vandalizing, and, for no obvious reason, the detonation of huge explosions. For no obvious reason, they begin to transform into robots. After many gun battles and explosions, Pinocchio escapes and returns home to find that, for no obvious reason, Gepetto has gone to sea and been swallowed by the whale Monstro. Pinocchio follows and finds himself also in the belly of the whale where he meets up with Gepetto. Using the skills learned at Pleasure Island, Pinocchio builds a bomb made up of driftwood, sea water, and explosives that appear to be there for no obvious reason. The whale explodes in one of the largest pyrotechnical displays ever seen and, for no obvious reason, Pinocchio and Gepetto survive. And with that, the movie comes to an end for the obvious reason that it should never have been made this way in the first place. The rumor is that Michael Bay finally quit the project because he felt the movie had too much plot.
M. Night Shyamalan: Maleficent
In this retelling of the story of Maleficent, we are led to believe that she was actually a sympathetic, kind character. Then, in the last five minutes of the movie, a twist: She was bad all along. (Which isn’t that big a twist because we always knew that witch was bad.)
Michael Moore: Mary Poppins
Filmed as a documentary, Moore uses interviews with Mr. and Mrs. Banks, the Banks children, Uncle Albert, and Admiral Boom to explore the seedy underbelly of turn-of-the-century English banking practices. In the most shocking scene, Mary Poppins finally proves the existence of insider trading by revealing that Bert was also the bank president.
Francis Ford Coppola: The Jungle Book
The movie starts in the deepest part of the jungle. Mowgli is in his private hut rolling and playing with his wolf family. The panther Bagheera enters and breaks up the party. He has a special project for Mowgli; go out of the jungle to the Man-village to find the renegade bear Baloo, a former leader of the jungle who Bagheera fears may have gone native.
Mowgli heads off and immediately finds there is no clear path out. He meets colonel Hathi and his elephant jungle patrol whom Mowgli asks for help. At first, the colonel is not interested, but Mowgli points out that the path he needs to follow is a great place for marching. Colonel Hathi immediately agrees (“I love the smell of trailblazing in the morning”) and he and the elephant patrol tramp out a way for Mowgli to reach the main tributary path out of the jungle.
As Mowgli proceeds, he comes upon a monkey encampment preparing for a special UJO (United Jungle Organizations) show. He stays to watch as King Louie is brought in by helicopter. The revelry becomes wilder and wilder until King Louie is forced to depart in the helicopter, dropping rounds of banana bombs to break up the crowd.
Further on, Mowgli becomes hungry and leaves the path to find some mangoes. Far from the trail, he is surprised by the tiger Shere Kahn. There is nowhere to turn; Mowgli is trapped. Suddenly, lightning strikes a nearby tree and Shere Kahn takes off running. Mowgli runs back shouting “Never get off the trail.”
Mowgli next approaches an archway above the trail – a bridge if you will – and, on the other side, the jungle has almost disappeared. Here he meets the snake Kaa who explains to him that this is the end of the world as Mowgli knows it. Kaa begins to hypnotize Mowgli, convincing him to stay in the jungle. But Kaa is interrupted by a flock of vultures who constantly ask “What are you gonna do?” Kaa gets so sick of hearing the question he goes after the vultures, setting Mowgli free.
Finally, Mowgli reaches the Man-village where he confronts Baloo who, in his guise as a man, has taken control of the natives. In the end, Mowgli refuses to go through with his assignment, staying with Baloo who only wanted to “be like you.” And, as Baloo notes, “The jungle will still be here tomorrow.”
John Carpenter: The Love Bug
Lovable down-and-out demolition derby driver Jim Douglas inherits a Volkswagen Beetle when his brother dies under mysterious circumstances. The car, Herbie, wins every race. However it also begins destroying all competition, including killing any rival for Douglas’ affection. Perhaps worst of all, Herbie falsifies EPA fuel economy ratings.
James Cameron: Pocahontas
Wait. He did make this movie. He called it Avatar
Orson Wells: The Black Hole
Wells wanted the ultimate follow-up to his previous successes, so he developed this story of a 22nd century family whose fortune in the space trade was being destroyed by the appearance of black holes. He spent months shooting footage and used many innovative techniques including building the entire space ship as one set so filming could occur in continuous takes. The studio finally began reining Wells in when he asked for the construction of a full-size black hole. Well’s problems continued when the initial edit of the film ran four hours and eleven minutes. After making agreed upon cuts, it then ran four and a half hours. He was summarily dismissed and the work taken over by…
Stanley Kubrick: The Black Hole
Kubrick worked to keep much of Wells original vision. However, he spent almost all his budget on cutting edge technologies for special effects. Further, he would spend days working on excruciating details such as finding the right color for a wall, the right cloth for a costume, or the right smell for a meal. The resulting scenes were beautiful and like nothing ever seen before, but the budget was spent well before the footage could be cut into any kind of story. The studio then moved on to…
George Lucas: The Black Hole
Lucas reviewed Wells’ and Kubrick’s previous footage and spent months trying to figure out how to make the robots cuter. After he left in frustration…
Anyone else: The Black Hole
A number of other directors were used including Frank Capra (“It’s a Wonderful Black Hole”), Sergio Leone (“Once Upon a Time in the Black Hole”), and John Hughes (“The Black Hole Club”), all to no avail. However, even if you watch all the bits and pieces from all of these failed attempts back to back, they are still better than the movie that actually got released
Oliver Stone: Bambi
Half of the movie was to be spent covering the time after Bambi’s mother’s death as Bambi returns to investigate the murder, convinced there was another shooter over by the wooded knoll.
Woody Allen: Frozen
Shot in sepia tones, we follow the sisters Elsa and Anna through a winter in New York. Much of the movie is spent showing the sisters sitting in a coffee shop having wry discussions about trolls, playing in the snow, their slightly demented friend Olaf, and Anna’s on-again-off-again relationship with the rugged mountain man Kristoff. Allen wrote himself into the script as a visitor to the coffee shop who constantly butts into their conversations with his trademark one-liners. (“There are worse things than death. Have you ever built a snowman?”) There is no real resolution as the movie ends with Allen commenting on relationships and how we love and hate them. A giant snow creature wearing a crown walks up behind him, shrugs, and walks away.
Robert Zemeckis: Saving Mr. Banks
While working in Los Angeles with the Disney studios to develop Mary Poppins, P. L. Travers’ chauffeur Ralph advises that the only way they can save Mr. Banks is to go back in time saying “If my calculations are correct, when this Lincoln hits 88 miles per hour…your gonna see some serious stuff.” (After all, it was a Disney movie.)
Unfortunately, I’ve gone much longer than I should. So you’ll just have to wait to hear the details about such strange pairing as Clint Eastwood’s “Apple Dumpling Gang”, Tyler Perry’s “Littlest Madea”, and D. W. Griffith’s “Song of the South”.