Film Me If You Can: 5 Movies Steven Spielberg Never Made (But Wanted To)
There’re unmade projects about talismans, aliens and toilets.
Steven Spielberg is a great director who needs no introduction. Spielberg already has four Oscars and a dozen other major awards, but most importantly, modern cinema would be very different without him.
Scattered throughout Spielberg's career are projects that he wanted to make, but for one reason or another fell through.
1. The Talisman
Discussions of adapting Stephen King 's novel The Talisman first started in 1985. Even then, Spielberg was planning to adapt the novel as a TV series, but he never got around to putting his plan into action. Since then, Spielberg has periodically recalled his desire to film the story, but things never went beyond plans.
The original novel, published in 1984, tells the story of 12-year-old boy, who travels through real and parallel worlds in search of a talisman that can save the life of his dying mother.
2. The Martian Chronicles
The Martian Chronicles is one of Ray Bradbury's books that proves science fiction can tackle the most complex issues.
Spielberg tried to adapt the story in the 90s, but the project never came to fruition. The director himself has repeatedly admitted that he is a big fan of Bradbury and considers his contribution to science fiction priceless.
3. Flushed With Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper
Even before the success of Jaws, the director was seriously considering adapting Wallace Reyburn's Flushed With Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper, a satirical book about... the invention of the toilet.
Fortunately, Spielberg's agent talked him out. Considering the director was just getting famous, such a risky and controversial project could have killed his career.
4. E.T. 2: Nocturnal Fears
After the success of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , Spielberg seriously considered making a sequel. He even hired the same screenwriter who worked on the first movie. But then gave up on the idea.
According to the director himself, sequels are dangerous because the audience only remembers the latest installment, and if it's not as good as the original, it casts a shadow over the first movie and only spoils its legacy.
5. Night Skies
After the success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg wanted to continue the alien theme in his work, and in the early 1980s it looked like Night Skies, another project about extraterrestrials, was about to go into production. The project had the director, script and studio backing.
However, over time, Spielberg simply lost interest in the project, while the sketches of the alien's appearance and the touching relationship between the boy and the alien were eventually transferred to E.T.