The history of cinema includes plenty of stories about movies that never came to be or even completed films that audiences have no access to at all. While most canceled movies were scrapped as a result of stuffy boardroom corporate decisions, others have far more interesting reasons behind their abandonment.

While audiences might think directors like Tim Burton or Stanley Kubrick would have been able to get any projects they wanted made at the height of their fame, this wasn’t always the case, as even these famed filmmakers had movies pulled. All these canceled movies open up big questions about what could have been.

Who Killed Bambi?

Who Killed Bambi? was set to be the first movie starring the punk rock group the Sєx Pistols, with a script co-written by their manager, Malcolm McLaren, and the renowned film critic Roger Ebert. Set for release in 1978, it’s said the film was canceled partly due to interference from acting legend Grace Kelly.

According to filmmaker Russ Meyer (via Ebert), Kelly despised the director and used her power as a stockholder at Fox to stop the film from happening. Who Killed Bambi? was supposed to showcase the Pistols as more of a social event than a band, and the group eventually starred in Julien Temple’s The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle in 1980.

Tim Burton’s Batman 3

Tim Burton helped usher in a new era for superhero movies with Batman in 1989, and the film was so successful that it received a McDonald’s Happy Meal tie-in for the sequel, Batman Returns. However, things didn’t go exactly according to plan, as the grittier style of the sequel meant that parents complained it was not appropriate for kids.

This meant that, although Burton had considered making a third Batman, the studio didn’t want him back, and Joel Schumacher was instead tasked with making more lighthearted, family-friendly Batman movies. This led to the campier Batman Forever, starring Val Kilmer, and the often ridiculed George Clooney-led Batman & Robin.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

Director Terry Gilliam has been behind some of the most ambitious and creative movies Hollywood has ever seen, but his long-standing pᴀssion project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, had the most haphazard production history. As a planned adaptation of the foundational Spanish novel Don Quixote, the original shoot in 2000 was canceled as the set was destroyed by flooding.

With Johnny Depp as the original star, Gilliam spent decades trying to get the film back into production, and by the time filming actually commenced in 2017, he had been replaced by Adam Driver. The results were mixed, as the highly anticipated movie couldn’t live up to expectations, and it stands as a grand failure from Gilliam.

Superman Lives

After revitalizing the Batman franchise with Michael Keaton, Tim Burton then set his sights on Superman, planning to cast Nicolas Cage in the ill-fated Superman Lives. This fascinating reboot of Superman was canceled just three weeks before filming was due to begin, and its behind-the-scenes controversies were explored in the documentary The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened?

Superman Lives would have been unlike any other Superman story before it, as producer Jon Peters did not want him to wear his iconic suit and insisted Superman fight a giant spider in the finale. With a haphazard pre-production and overlapping creative differences, Superman Lives was canceled, and a giant mechanical spider instead appeared in Peters’ Wild Wild West.

The Double

Back in 1996, the production of Roman Polanski’s The Double collapsed in high-profile fashion as John Travolta pulled out just days before filming was set to begin (via Film Stories.) This adaptation of the novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky was being made in the midst of Travolta’s career resurgence following the success of Pulp Fiction.

As one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood at the time, Travolta took issue with script rewrites, and he and Polanski ʙuттed heads, with the actor dropping out. Reports at the time suggested Travolta was reacting to the addition of ɴuᴅᴇ scenes. While Polanski attempted to bring Steve Martin to replace Travolta, it was ultimately scrapped.

Dune

Most sci-fi movie lovers will be aware of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune, a canceled adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic novel. As a director of unique vision, Jodorowsky would have been the perfect filmmaker to bring the desert planet of Arrakis to life, with this bolstered by the addition of names like Tangerine Dream on the soundtrack and Dan O’Bannon on effects.

The circumstances surrounding the film’s cancellation were fully explored in the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, as ballooning budgets and a 14-hour script meant the film was spiraling out of control. Ultimately, director David Lynch released his version of Dune in 1984, although studio interference meant he later disowned the project.

Napoleon

Following the success of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the filmmaker and visionary Stanley Kubrick set his sights on the incredibly ambitious Napoleon, which was planned as a large-scale biopic about Napoleon Bonaparte. Kubrick worked on the film for decades and, at one point, had Jack Nicholson and Audrey Hepburn cast as Napoleon and his wife, Joséphine.

In the book The Kubrick Archives, Kubrick stated that he expected Napoleon to be “the best movie ever made,” yet the cost of location filming was too much, and Kubrick repurposed his historical research into the film Barry Lyndon. Napoleon remains a great Hollywood what-if, and Steven Spielberg has been trying to develop Kubrick’s script as a miniseries for HBO.

Batgirl

Unlike most canceled films scrapped in early production, Batgirl was fully completed before Warner Bros. shelved it. The decision wasn’t about quality but strategy, as by keeping the $90 million project unreleased, the studio secured a major tax write-off, making it one of the most unusual cancellations in recent Hollywood history.

The cancellation of Batgirl led to mᴀss outrage from superhero fans, as this exciting project featured a fantastic cast, including Leslie Grace, J.K. Simmons, Brendan Fraser, and the return of Michael Keaton as Batman. While DC lovers still hold out hope that Batgirl will one day be released, there are currently no plans to make the film available.

Ronnie Rocket

The late filmmaker David Lynch has plenty of unrealized projects that viewers sadly never got to enjoy, but few have the long-standing history of Ronnie Rocket. Lynch initially planned to make this strange story of a detective entering another dimension after his debut movie, Eraserhead, but could never quite get the film off the ground.

Lynch returned to Ronnie Rocket after almost every movie he made, and it was intended as the follow-up to Dune, Blue Velvet, and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Instead, Ronnie Rocket was canceled time and time again, with Lynch saying he never abandoned it and often referred to it in interviews as a “hibernating” (via AV Club) film.

The Day The Clown Cried

Best known for comedies like The Nutty Professor, Jerry Lewis made one film audiences never saw: The Day the Clown Cried. This outrageous comedy centered on a circus clown in a Nazi concentration camp, and its grim mix of humor and Holocaust proved so controversial that Lewis deemed it misguided and canceled its release.

The Day the Clown Cried has built up quite a reputation over the decades, as movie enthusiasts want to see for themselves just how ill-advised the movie actually was. While Lewis said he never wanted the film released, the Library of Congress does have an incomplete copy of the film.