10 Most Intriguing Marvel Movies That Were Never Made

Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was formed, and Marvel started making one or two films a year, many movies based on the company’s characters had failed to come to fruition over the decades. Some are tantalizing alternative versions of films that we did end up getting – like a Doctor Strange movie directed by horror legend Wes Craven back in the 90s. It might have taken a while, but we are finally about to get a film featuring the Sorcerer Supreme, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and directed by Scott Derrickson. Others, however, are ideas that never made it to the screen at all, like a She-Hulk movie starring Brigitte Nielsen. In the time since that film failed to gestate, we have had two separate flicks starring the Hulk – plus two Avengers movies with Mark Ruffalo – but no film starring his similarly green-skinned cousin. These two examples are just the tip of the iceberg, however. If you're interested in hearing about more, then read on for ten of the most intriguing Marvel movies that never happened. 10) Peyton Reed’s Fantastic Four After we were prepared to hate him for replacing Edgar Wright, Peyton Reed acquitted himself pretty well with Ant-Man, which turned out to be a solid, if unremarkable, entry into the MCU. As such, he would have been a safe pair of hands to direct a Fantastic Four movie in 2003. Reed has since explained that Joss Whedon’s The Avengers did a lot of similar things to his vision of Marvel’s First Family. This includes the absence of secret identities – Reed thought of the Four as “daytime superheroes” – and everyone coming together for a big New York-shattering climax. He has even outlined his dream cast; Alexis Denisof as Mr. Fantastic, John C. Reilly as the Thing and the late Paul Walker as the Human Torch. Best of all, he hoped to get Furiosa herself, Charlize Theron, as the Invisible Woman! While Fox eventually went with Tim Story, who helmed the lacklustre 2005 film and its sequel, let’s hope Reed gets another go at the Fantastic Four sometime in the future. 9) The Amazing Spider-Man 3 After The Amazing Spider-Man 2 underperformed at the box-office, at least in Sony’s eyes, (it actually made over $800 million worldwide), a deal was made to return Spider-Man to Marvel’s hands and integrate him into the MCU. Before this, Sony were planning on building a shared universe around Spidey. While some of these films - like the touted Sinister Six and Venom spinoffs - could still be made, we definitely won’t see The Amazing Spider-Man 3. What we know about the film is pretty conflicting. On the one hand, Andrew Garfield has said that the movie would have seen Peter go to some “pretty heavy places” after losing Gwen at the end of the previous film. On the other, Denis Leary (who played Captain Stacy) said that Peter would have gone all Frankenstein and develop a formula to bring his loved ones back from the dead. It’s hard to imagine how this would have been a good thing, but it is an intriguing road for a Spidey movie to go down, nonetheless… 8) Singer/Vaughn’s X-Men 3 Alongside X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the lowpoint of the X-Men franchise is X-Men: The Last Stand. Directed by Brett Ratner, it is an overstuffed mess of a movie. However, it wasn’t always this way and was almost directed by either Bryan Singer or Matthew Vaughn. At first, Singer developed a story treatment for the film with X-Men 2 writers Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty. His version would have concentrated on Jean Grey, who is manipulated by Emma Frost – Singer saw Sigourney Weaver in the role – into becoming the Dark Phoenix. Shortly after, Singer left the project to realize his dream job of directing Superman Returns. With Singer out of the picture, future X-Men: First Class director Vaughn was briefly in charge – he cast Kelsey Grammer as Beast and, unfortunately, Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut – before he disagreed with Fox’s insistence on a fast track production. While either director’s vision would have been better than what we got, we can console ourselves with the fact that both returned to the franchise – and ended up wiping The Last Stand from continuity. 7) Gaiman/Del Toro’s Doctor Strange Though it has taken until 2016 to get a Doctor Strange movie to the big screen, it isn’t due lack of trying. As mentioned previously, there was the Wes Craven version and, before that, Back to the Future’s Bob Gale wrote a never-produced script in the 80s. However, the one we’re going for here is the tantalizing idea of a Doctor Strange movie from the director/writer team of Guillermo del Toro and Neil Gaiman. The pair first became attached to the project once David Goyer of The Dark Knight dropped out in 2002. Not much is known about the duo’s take on the character and his world, but given del Toro’s visual style and Gaiman’s knack for fantasy they surely would have been a perfect match for the source material. We’re sure Marvel know what they’re doing with the upcoming version, but we can’t help but wish we got to see this one as well… 6) Spider-Man 4 Before The Amazing Spider-Man 3, there was another Spidey franchise which was cancelled due to the last instalment falling short of expectations. The difference with Spider-Man 4, though, is that director Sam Raimi put a stop to the project after the unpleasant experience he had battling with studio interference on Spider-Man 3. Raimi did make some headway on the film before it was cancelled, however. The plan was that it would feature the Vulture as the main villain, as played by John Malkovich. Anne Hathaway was also signed on to play Felicia Hardy – some reports say she would have become the Vulturess, while others claim she would have taken on the character’s usual alter ego of Black Cat. Raimi was probably right to call time on the franchise after the muddled Spider-Man 3 – but if Spider-Man 4 had gone ahead, we wouldn’t be getting three different versions of the character in fifteen years. 5) X-Men Origins: Magneto Due to the failure of 2009’s Wolverine solo film, the proposed X-Men Origins series was cancelled. As such, the next planned movie, Magneto, was worked into First Class and the franchise was put back on track. However, the Magneto standalone sounds like it could have had a lot of promise. To be directed by David Goyer, it would have explored Erik Lehnsherr’s childhood during World War Two in more detail. Writer Sheldon Turner even described the movie as “The Pianist meets X-Men.” With a framing device of Ian McKellen's elderly Magneto looking back at his past, it would have seen Erik escape from a Nazi concentration camp with the help of young soldier Charles Xavier, thereby beginning the pair’s fabled friendship. Going by the storyline, this might well have been one of the most powerful and affecting superhero films ever – or it could have been just as bad as Origins: Wolverine. 4) David Fincher’s Spider-Man Fight Club’s David Fincher wouldn’t be the first director you would expect to make a superhero movie, but he nearly took on Spider-Man twice. First, he was considered to make a Spidey movie in 1999 and then, much later, he was approached to direct what became The Amazing Spider-Man. He passed on both occasions, but he still had a strong vision of his take on the character. He later said: “My impression of what Spider-Man could be is very different from what Sam did… I was never interested in the genesis story. I couldn’t get past a guy getting bit by a red and blue spider… It was not something that I felt I could do straight-faced. I wanted to start with Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin, and I wanted to kill Gwen Stacy.” While it would have been nice to skip the origins story, we’re not sure a director who is embarrassed by the character would be a good fit. Still, we’d be curious to see another Fincher-directed superhero movie in future… 3) James Cameron’s X-Men Another director who almost made a Spider-Man movie was James Cameron, whose version – which would have starred Leonardo DiCaprio as Spidey and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Doc Ock – has become near-legendary. It's much less known, however, that he was also involved in an X-Men movie at one point. Cameron would have produced and his then wife Kathryn Bigelow would have directed. Two cast members were also in place; Angela Basset as Storm and, wait for it, Bob Hoskins as Wolverine. At first, this seems like ridiculous casting, but considering the traditional version of Logan from the comics - short, stocky and distinctly un-Hugh Jackman-like – Hoskins would have been a perfect fit. X-Men comics writer Chris Claremont later explained why the movie never materialized: “So we’re chatting, and at one point, Stan looks at Cameron and says “I hear you like Spider-Man.” Cameron’s eyes lit up. And they start talking. And talking. And talking. About 20 minutes later… we all know the X-Men deal has just evaporated.” 2) Silver Surfer: The Musical One of the most unlikely unmade Marvel movies ever is this Silver Surfer film that was touted back in the 80s. The plan was for it to be a rock opera written by none other than Paul McCartney! Also attached was Xanadu’s Lee Kramer while Grease’s Oliva Newton-John was set to star. Kramer said of the project: “We're going to make an epic picture on the scope of 2001: A Space Odyssey with the kind of soundtrack that that film had, only using contemporary rock and roll.” While it all sounds completely ridiculous, there is some sanity to it – McCartney is a huge comic book fan and once wrote a song inspired by Marvel characters for his band Wings called ‘Magneto and Titanium Man.' Whether it would have been any good or not, we’re really jealous of the parallel universe out there where this actually happened. 1) Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man One of the most famous and lamented unmade films in recent times is Edgar Wright’s version of Ant-Man. The Shaun of the Dead director had been attached to the project for a number of years - he even got Marvel to hold off using Ant-Man and Wasp in The Avengers - before a clash with Marvel over “creative differences” caused him to walk out at a late stage. As such, the version of the film we did get from Peyton Reed utilized a lot of the same story beats, not to mention the cast, of Wright’s version. However, we do know that Wright wanted to keep the film as separate as he could from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is presumably what forced him out of the project in the end. How much of the film is Reed’s and how much is Wright’s is an argument that fans will debate for a while yet. Even if there wouldn’t have been much difference between them, though, for many it is still the most longed-for Marvel movie that never happened.