Development hell

"*This little maneuver is gonna cost us 51 years!*"
— Cooper, Interstellar

Development hell (also known as development purgatory or Development limbo) is a term used to describe any type of media that remains in development and hasn't progressed to production or media that was stuck in development for at least six years and ended up being of low quality. There are several reasons for this which we will describe below.

Media stuck in development hell are often referred to as "Vaporware" due to how long it's taken for them to come out, to the point that people doubt they ever will. There is also a category of games, movies, and shows that suffered through this for more than 5 years.

Rus hi ng is the opposite problem, where the development is rushed to coincide with a certain event, which causes the film, shows, or games to be unfinished, untested, and possibly become one of the worst games/movies/shows of all time in most cases (Sonic '06 is an example of such case).

Reasons and causes for development hell

Games

Changing game engines, likely due to the engine getting old and causing limitations, such as poor graphics, or a newer version of the game engine being released. This can cause assets to be invalidated by the switch in engines as the assets are not compatible with the newly chosen engine, thus requiring additional time to remake the assets. Daikatana was a notable example of this.
Switching platforms during development, especially the time when there's a new gaming console released, such as switching from the Nintendo 64 to the GameCube. This could also invalidate the assets or force a different engine to be used if the previous engine was not compatible with the new console.
Mismanaging money during development, wastes a lot of money. Some games can even get canceled because of this, with a notable example being StarCraft: Ghost.
Swapping video game genres, such as going from Platformer to Hack 'n' Slash, Strategy, etc.
Trailers are being made constantly to overhype the game, wasting time and money. Cyberpunk 2077 was a notable example of this.
Hardware limitations.
Executive meddling: this can cause games to be poorly designed or filled with glitches, despite the long development time.
Switching developers or switching teams. Both Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines were victims of this, as both games went through three developer studios before Gearbox Software acquired both games.
Solo development: Some indie game companies mostly consist of a one-man team trying to build the whole game, while also sometimes making their assets rather than relying on premade ones. It can go through development hell, especially if the game is large-scale akin to open-world games like Grand Theft Auto.

Movies and Shows

No director is attached to the project: every film and show needs to have a director attached to the project. Otherwise, the project will not go anywhere if it lacks a director. (But the Nickelodeon movie, Wonder Park, managed to finish production without a director.)
Script disagreements: every film requires some sort of screenplay and disagreements between screenwriters over what the film/show should be are quite often known to postpone projects.
Difficulty finding actors for the cast: every film/show needs to have actors willing to star in it. Otherwise, the project will go nowhere as no one will play the role necessary for any specific character.
Refusal to reprise the role from prior works: a minor one, but especially true for sequels. When the original actor or actress refuses to reprise their role from prior works, the filmmakers would either scrap the project altogether or re-cast the character.
Executive meddling: executives in Hollywood, or around the world in that manner, are sometimes known for meddling in nearly every project over what they like or dislike. They may also have the power to delay projects or even force said projects to be different from what the director originally intended.
Re-shoots: aside from executives meddling in the development of projects, they can also force directors off of projects nearly every time they are dissatisfied with their work, forcing the executives to complete the projects themselves or hire a new director altogether.
Waiting for approval to be adapted: approval for literature, video games, and television series to be adapted into films often takes a while to be approved, so it is understandable for film studios to wait to start projects based on any specific property until they get approval.
Lack of studio interest in the project: this is often the killing factor of any film/show stuck in development hell, simply because the studio is more interested in other film projects at the moment instead.
Either troubled production, lack of funding, or both: reports of trouble on the sets of upcoming films are universally considered to be the killing factor of any audience excitement that the announced film had at the start before the onset of the incident occurred. Also, lack of funding occurs when the film's production budget that the studio gave ran out of money and is more than often the reason that studios either must decide to cancel the film or just let it be forgotten. As a result of this, some studios decided to hide details or refuse to update the news of what is happening on the set of their films to avoid negative publicity; even though they are not safe from development hell.
Lack of updates on the film/show: Sometimes as a result of hiding behind the scenes of an announced film in production, people don't even know that they are still in production and assume that they have been canceled or scrapped later on.
Difficulty finding a distributor: Every film needs a distributor to release its film in theaters worldwide. Otherwise, they may get stuck in limbo for a while and even be released a few years later after the year the film was shot in (a famous example of this is Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space was originally filmed in 1956, but didn't get a nationwide release until 1959).
If a film is in development, but never receives the necessary production funds, another studio may execute a turnaround deal and successfully produce the film. An example of this is when Columbia Pictures stopped production of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Universal Pictures then picked up the film and made it a success. If a studio completely abandons a film project, the costs are written off as part of the studio's overhead.
The film's studio collapsed/or went out of business: It's often the death knell for any film stuck on the collapsing studio's door when the studio finally decides to go out of business and takes any film in development with them. However, there are some cases where the production jumped to other studios to continue making their films there, others haven't been so lucky (for example, Franchise Pictures' fraudulent accounting in some of their films (including Battlefield Earth, where they reported the budget to be $75 million when it was $44 million) lead to them being sued out of business in 2004 by their investors when they caught on to the fraud, pretty much ending any chance of there being a sequel to L. Ron Hubbard's novel, not that the sequel would have been exciting anyway, as the film's infamous reputation of being one of the worst films of all time to the point of even winning the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture and Worst Picture of the 2000s and its box office failure, pretty much already killed the idea of continuing it).

Notable examples

Games

Starting with the most obvious example, Duke Nukem Forever: The sequel to the 1996 game Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem Forever was in development for 15 years, from 1996 (first announced in 1997) to its release date in 2011; the long development time was caused by numerous factors, including a switch from the Quake II engine to the Unreal Engine, having a relatively small development staff by modern standards (3D Realms' co-owners George Broussard and Scott Miller infamously maintained that the game would be released "when it's done"), conflicts between 3D Realms, multiple development restarts and its publisher, Take-Two Interactive, over how it had been handling the constant delays, and the eventual bankruptcy of 3D Realms. In 2009, the rights to the Duke Nukem franchise were sold to Gearbox Software, who eventually completed the game and released it in 2011. The game was ultimately a critical disappointment; most of the criticism was directed towards the game's clunky controls, long loading times, offensive humor, and overall aged and dated design. In 2022, an unfinished build of the 2001 version was leaked on 4Chan, giving a glimpse of what could have been.
Clockwork Aquario holds the Guinness world record for the longest time between a game's start of development and release date, starting in 1992 and taking 28 years and 81 days to finish, finally releasing in 2021, beating Duke Nukem Forever by over a decade. It was canceled because of the rising popularity of 3D games and fighting games in arcades at the time, as well as receiving negative feedback from test groups; when its developer Westone closed in 2014, Strictly Limited Games acquired the rights from Sega in 2017, with much of the elements of the source code needed to be completed by former developers after being lost through time.^[1]
Metroid Dread: One of the most famous development hells in the history of Nintendo, lasting for over 16 years. It was originally announced on a 2005 internal Nintendo software list of "key DS games set to be announced in the future" and was once listed in a 2006 Official Nintendo Magazine issue set to be released in November of that year, which never happened; next, a playable prototype was shown to NoA staff during E3 2009; in a 2010 interview, Yoshio Sakamoto confirmed that it was still in the works, but it would be restarted from scratch if Nintendo ever returned to that project; 11 years later, the game was finally re-announced at the E3 2021 Nintendo Direct, now on the Nintendo Switch, and finally released on October 8, 2021, with Nintendo working with MercurySteam once again after they were impressed with their work on Samus Returns. This marked the first time that a mainline Metroid game was released since the release of Metroid Fusion back in 2001, a staggering 20 years, being in second place behind Clockwork Aquario; the main reason why it took so long was due to the Nintendo DS's limitations.
Perfect Dark Zero: First hinted at Nintendo Space World in August 2000, the game was under development for 5 years overall to complete and spanned three platforms: it began on the GameCube with a very small team of roughly ten people; it transferred to the Xbox when Rare was purchased by Microsoft in 2002, accompanied with the game's multiplayer mode being redesigned for Xbox Live online play; since the initial version of the game pushed the original Xbox hardware "pretty hard", the project was later transferred to the Xbox's successor, the Xbox 360 and finally released in 2005.
Half-Life 2: Episode 3, Half-Life 3, or Half-Life: Alyx: Due to Valve's notoriously bohemian development practices, 13 years after the last release in their "episodic" series, we are still no closer to a conclusion. Development has started and stopped several times, but most likely the biggest problem is the series plot was developed without a clear outline and got so caught up in faffing around with the Citadel that nobody can figure out how to write their way out of this corner. This was a mystery until Half-Life: Alyx was announced in October 2019 and was later released in March 2020 when the fate of HL2: E2 or the original HL3 was finally revealed. According to Valve, HL3 started development in 2013 and was canceled in 2014, along with Left 4 Dead 3, due to scope creep, developmental issues with the Source 2 engine, lack of satisfying ideas, etc.
Warframe: Announced in February 2000 when it was called Dark Sector and intended as an MMO sequel to Unreal Tournament. After years of attempting to work out the online infrastructure for such a game, the plan was shelved as unworkable, and the assets used to create a third-person shooter, Dark Sector, which was released in 2008 (hence the Technocyte armor in this game resembling the Warframe suits and the protagonist being named Tenno); the original concept was dusted off by Digital Extremes in 2011 and two years later, just over 13 years after it was first announced, the original vision for Dark Sector was released as Warframe. Warframe was met with mixed reviews at launch, but DE listened very well to feedback and now the game is critically acclaimed, with over 50 million players at the time of writing.
Aliens: Colonial Marines: First announced in 2001, Aliens: Colonial Marines spent over 12 years in development hell. The original game, which was announced in 2001 to be in development by Check Six Games, was canceled. The video game rights for the Alien franchise were sold in December 2006 to Sega. Gearbox Software subsequently announced that it would take over the development of Colonial Marines, intending it to be a direct follow-up to Aliens. The game would spend another 7 years in development, during which Gearbox's resources were also being consumed by other projects, such as Duke Nukem Forever, as well as its franchise Borderlands, resulting in much of the game's development being outsourced to other studios. The game was released in 2013, and it was criticized for having various bugs and gameplay issues, low-quality graphics, as well as a lack of consistent continuity with the Alien film franchise. Further controversy emerged due to Gearbox and Sega having presented demos of the game at conventions that were of noticeably higher quality than the final product, which led to a class-action lawsuit against both companies.
Mother 3/EarthBound 64: Mother 3 was originally developed for the Super Famicom beginning in 1994 and later jumped to the Nintendo 64, with a trailer that was dropped in late 1998/early 1999, showing a well-finished product. Unfortunately, the game was canceled in the summer of 2000 due to numerous delays, the failure of the 64DD, and possibly hardware limitations. However, Mother 3 was eventually re-announced for the Game Boy Advance in 2003. After 12 years, Mother 3 was released on April 20, 2006 (only in Japan). Sadly, there seem to be no working prototypes of EarthBound 64, there are only several screenshots and trailers. More information about EarthBound 64 can be found on Unseen64.
Prey: Trapped in development hell for 11 years from 1995 to 2006, this game was, at one point, on vaporware lists right alongside its slightly younger sibling Duke Nukem Forever; being another 3D Realms title, it suffered similar problems with unachievable goals, staff departures (including Tom Hall leaving to form Ion Storm with John Romero a year into production), engine changes, and multiple complete restarts. If that wasn't bad enough...
Prey 2: 2006's Prey was originally going to have a sequel, but due to numerous delays and Human Head Studios (the sequel's developer) stopping production suddenly, the sequel was ultimately canceled after 8 years in 2014 under dubious circumstances; Bethesda's Pete Hines claimed that the game "just wasn't up to our quality standard" (which is an astonishing claim coming from Bethesda of all people), while former Prey 2 Narrative Designer Jason Blair stated that the game was finished and the cancellation was "political and petty." Development was handed off to Arkane Studios, who developed a game called Prey with no relation to either the first game or the canceled sequel.
Diablo III: Trundled through a tortured development period starting at Blizzard North back when it still existed in 2001, first demonstrated in 2008, and eventually released in 2012, after 11 years in development.
171: Developed in 2010 by the Brazilian Betagames Group and QUByte Interactive, it was originally inspired by GTA IV and was to be made in Blender; it was not until 2015 that they changed their inspiration to the new GTA V and engine to Unreal Engine 4. Nothing was known about the game until 2021 when they announced that it would be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and PC. They even released a pre-alpha on Steam (available only in Portuguese). No exact release date has been announced for now and what is known is some pages are doing crowdfunding to collect taxes for the development of the game.
Beyond Good & Evil 2: The time for this one is currently 11 years after work on a sequel was first announced. The original Beyond Good & Evil game, released in 2003, was critically acclaimed and gained a cult following, but was a commercial failure. Ancel explained that as he wrote out the game's universe, he found it was bigger than what he could practically include within a single game and thus anticipated the game to be the first of a trilogy of works; however, the game's poor sales left its publisher Ubisoft reluctant to invest in a sequel. Rumors about a sequel began to circulate in 2007, starting with a Nintendo Power interview with Ancel, who stated that he was working on a new project that was very personal to him; he also mentioned that he hoped to reuse Jade, the player-character from Beyond Good & Evil, in a future project without changing her personality. Ancel said in a May 2008 interview with the French magazine Jeuxvideo.fr that the Beyond Good & Evil sequel had been in pre-production for a year but was yet to be approved by Ubisoft. Later that month, as part of their "Ubidays" event, Ubisoft released a trailer for the next, yet-named project from Ancel and their Ubisoft Montpellier studio, which had worked on Beyond Good & Evil. The trailer used Beyond Good & Evil music assets and showed characters that appeared to be Jade and Pey'j from the original game; Ubisoft reported that the trailer had all been recorded in-engine, showcasing high-resolution graphics representative of seventh-generation console capabilities. A second leaked trailer appeared for the game on the Internet around May 2009, showing a character that resembled Jade running through a crowded street, avoiding gunfire. The trailer was confirmed to be authentic by Ancel, while Ubisoft denied that they had purposely released the footage. In late 2016, Ancel used social media to post images from the game, showing a younger Pey'j, hinting that Beyond Good and Evil 2 may be a prequel. Ubisoft shortly followed by officially announcing the game; they eventually showed the first official trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2 during their E3 2017 conference, announcing it as a prequel to the first game. During E3 2017, Ancel confirmed that the 2008 and 2009 trailers were from initial work as a narrative sequel to Beyond Good & Evil, but during development, they opted to change direction and make it a prequel instead.
Final Fantasy XV: Development started in 2006 before its announcement. It was originally titled Final Fantasy Versus XIII, a PS3-exclusive spin-off directed by Tetsuya Nomura (of Kingdom Hearts fame), who wanted to make a darker Final Fantasy game; development slowed down until it was eventually re-branded to be a main franchise entry. In 2012, Versus XIII was renamed to XV and even that didn't prevent the game from getting more production issues; eventually, after 10 years, Final Fantasy XV was finally released in November 2016 to positive reviews.
Brigand Oaxaca: An indie FPS/RPG 10 years in development, mostly because it's a massive game with a development team consisting entirely of creator Brian Lancaster.
Star Citizen: So far 13 years in development, Star Citizen started work in 2011 with an anticipated release date of 2014, with a Kickstarter campaign succeeding in pulling in US$6.2 million in 2012, with further crowdfunding totaling $200 million as of November 2018. The game was supposed to be a spiritual successor to the Wing Commander series, but a drastic increase in the scope of the game led to extensive delays; mismanagement was also a major factor, particularly in the FPS component Star Marine, which ended up being scrapped and started over, and Cloud Imperium's habit of threatening critics with legal action has led to many turning against them. A larger current problem is an ongoing legal battle between Cloud Imperium and Crytek over Cloud Imperium allegedly breaking a contract with Crytek to use CryEngine for Star Citizen. The game won Wired's Vaporware award in 2016.
Too Human: After their work on Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain was completed, Silicon Knights (more specifically its founder, Denis Dyack) wanted to make a game that would be considered their masterpiece and was planned to be a trilogy at one point. Originally, the game was going to have a very big scope, aiming for a release date of 1999 on the original PlayStation (and the Sega Saturn according to a report that included other unproduced Silicon Knights games) and spread over four PS1 discs; it later jumped on the GameCube during their partnership with Nintendo during the early 2000s until it was finally released on the Xbox 360 in 2008 after 9 years of development, being criticized for having a dreadful camera, awful sound effects, poor combat mechanics, an unskippable death sequence that drags out for too long, and bugs and glitches.
The Last Guardian: The Last Guardian was initially announced in 2007 as Project Trico and was set for a 2009 release; however, bugs and technology limitations caused the game to be delayed and radio silence followed for years. The game switched devs from Team ICO to Japan Studio, as well as a system switch from the PS3 to the PS4. The game was finally released in the holiday season of 2016, 9 whole years after it was first announced.
Team Fortress 2: Another 9 years dev cycle, TF2 started development in 1998 and went through a change of engine and several complete redesigns before finally being released in 2007. (Gabe Newell famously said: ''After 9 years in development, hopefully, we hope it was worth the wait.'')
Doom (2016): John Carmack (co-founder of id Software) announced Doom 4 in May 2008, which would be similar to Doom 2, (as opposed to Doom 3's more horror-oriented design), but it ran into various issues, thus making the development team restart the project in 2011, which was announced to have some Call of Duty similarities. This inevitably led to criticism. Even ID's employees disliked it. Eventually, Carmack left id Software to work on the Oculus Rift in 2013 and sometime later, the team decided to just make a reboot of Doom, which was released on May 13, 2016, 8 years after work began, to critical acclaim.
Spore: Will Wright's ridiculously over-ambitious attempt at an everything-simulator had a dev cycle that ran from 2000-2008, a total of 8 years. However, it was drastically cut down to a far more arcade-y game than was originally pitched and it had issues with EA's insistence on using the SecuROM DRM on launch.
Tekken X Street Fighter: First announced at Gamescom in 2010, 8 years later, there is still no sign of a release date with the game "on hold" since 2016, apparently due to concerns over "splitting the communities."
Cuphead: Another 7 years dev cycle from 2010 to 2017, this time because the game started as a small project with a 3-man dev team, worked on in their spare time. Most of the funding for development came from the brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer re-mortgaging their houses as they began to focus on the project in 2013. The game was delayed several times to add more content, in particular the run-and-gun levels, which were not part of the original design, but later on, Microsoft funded the game for them, and the game was finally released.
Deltarune: According to Undertale creator Toby Fox, Deltarune, released in Halloween October 2018, has been in development since April 2012, for a total of 6 years. Fox has stated the game is not yet complete as he intends to recruit a team to work on it.
Anthem: In a March 2019 article, Jason Schreier revealed that the game has been in development for 6 years due to Bioware's massive behind-the-scenes troubles that they have gone through. To make it worse, the actual production started in late 2017 and was released in early 2019 to mixed reviews.
Fez 2: Fez received good reviews from critics and gamers, so of course a sequel was inevitable. Said sequel was announced in 2013 and fans were excited until they realized that developer Phil Fish had no intention of ever making it and would declare it canceled every time he got trolled on Twitter, a process that has currently gone on for 10 years.
Body Harvest: Began development in 1994 and was first shown off at Shoshinkai 1995 and intended as an N64 launch title. However, the game was subject to constant meddling from Nintendo of Japan (who wanted it turned into an RPG) and had the entire team from a completely different game, Zenith, reassigned to work on it. Body Harvest was eventually dropped by Nintendo, who did not like the action-oriented direction it was taking, and was picked up by Midway and Gremlin Interactive, who bought out the struggling DMA Design, and the game was finally released after 4 years of development in 1998, sadly falling right between the releases of Banjo-Kazooie and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Of course, there was a silver lining to all this: the team at DMA Design now had a decent idea on how to make a free-roaming game where the player could shoot in third-person or drive around in vehicles and made a slightly popular little game by the name of Grand Theft Auto III.
Daikatana: At E3 1997, Daikatana was announced and soon followed by a litany of bad decisions and missed deadlines. The game was eventually released in 2000, still clearly unfinished. While this dev cycle of 3 years would normally be below the limit for this page, Daikatana was made at a time when the average game dev cycle was much shorter (Quake only took six months to develop, for example) and so it still represents a huge delay proportionally.
Devil's Third: After Tomonobu Itagaki was fired from Tecmo and went on to create a new company called Valhalla Game Studios, the studio began work to create Devil's Third, which began development in 2008. They first approached Microsoft to make it an Xbox 360 exclusive. However Microsoft rejected the offer, since it wasn't going to utilize the Kinect sensor. They were then approached by THQ then Doobic, who accepted the deal to release it. Unfortunately, both companies officially went bankrupt, leaving Valhalla Game Studios to put the game back into development hell. They finally approached Nintendo to release the game for the Wii U due to the console's lack of third-party support and lackluster mature games, to which Nintendo accepted the deal and green-lit it. The game was finally released on August 4, 2015, after 7 years to mixed and negative reviews and a limited release, causing the game to sell poorly. The irony is that Nintendo of America had zero faith in this game, which is why it has become very rare and expensive in the United States nowadays.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord: It was announced in 2012 and it was released on Early Access in 2020. 8 years after the game was announced.
Yandere Simulator: The game has been in development since 2014 and is not yet finished due to how much YandereDev wants the game to have and because of how much he needs his volunteers for the graphics, as he is making a game without directly making its graphics. Also, YandereDev gave Yandere Simulator a deadline of January 1, 2019, but later said that it would come out "when it's ready" and it took him 6 years to add a single rival (out of 10 rivals) to the game. Many people have started to think the game is never going to be finished because of this, while others thought that YandereDev is intentionally stalling development to milk money from his dwindling Patreon.
- What doesn't help is that on September 25, 2023, he committed pedophilia, which only made employees and groups refuse to work on the game's progress, the result is that the game will be unfinished forever.
Zniw Adventure: This game had a long history. It took 6 years to make and with the comic series being roughly 25+ years, this game's development cycle nearly beats out Duke Nukem Forever by a long shot between the comic series development and the game's development. The game is currently available on Steam since November 6, 2020.
Cyberpunk 2077: CD Projekt Red announced the game in 2012. However, due to the shift of the workforce to The Witcher 3, development was halted until the aforementioned game was released in 2015. After 4 years of hiatus, CD Projekt Red finally started their work on the game in 2016 and released the first teaser and information about CP2077 the same year and also planned to release the game as early as April 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, CD Projekt Red delayed the game's release to September 2020, then to November 2020, before finally releasing it on December 10, 2020, 8 years after the game was first announced. The game itself, however, became notorious for several technical issues at launch.
Fortnite: The game was announced in 2011 by Epic Games, but it moved engines over and went into a long delay to a 2017 release date, lasting 6 Years for it to be released as "Early Access". After the massive success of the Battle Royale version of the game and a consequential shift of workforce, the original Fortnite (now known as Fortnite: Save the World) has been stuck in a development limbo since.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond: The next installment in the Metroid Prime series was announced in June 2017 at E3 for the Nintendo Switch and was confirmed to being developed by an unknown division of Bandai Namco rather than Retro Studios. The game went a hiatus for a year without any new trailers or images and it skipped every single gaming convention and even Nintendo Directs until January 2019, when Nintendo confirmed that the development for the game was going so badly that they had to scrap the entire development from scratch and changed it back to Retro Studios, meaning that fans will have to wait several more years for the game to come out. It's been 4 years since its announcement, however, Retro Studios changed their Twitter banner later in February 2022, seemingly teasing the game. At last, in the June 2024 at Nintendo Direct June 2024, the game will be finally released on Nintendo Switch in 2025 with its title revealed as Metroid Prime 4: Beyond.
Alan Wake: A trailer for this game was released in 2005, it showed an earlier model of Alan Wake (As he has a red shirt, different colored skin, and a different hairstyle) from the looks of it, this was originally gonna be on PC, PlayStation 2, and the original Xbox. But over time, the game got delayed to a 2010 release. Lasting 5 years of development.
Bayonetta 3: The third entry in the Bayonetta series which, like its predecessor, was a Nintendo-exclusive, specifically on the Nintendo Switch, and was announced at The Game Awards 2017 with a trailer of a bloody Bayonetta trying to fight back a mysterious force, but ends up losing in the end, shown at the convention. The game has long since been on a hiatus without any more trailers or images for 4 years other than vague statements by Hideki Kamiya saying that the development for the game is "going smoothly", despite the lack of updates on the gameplay or story. This may be an indication that the development for the game is actually going really poorly and PlatinumGames has been saying otherwise to cover the game's rocky development and dodge any more questions by fans asking how long until it will be out, not helping the fact that the voice of Bayonetta, Hellena Taylor, expressed her doubts that she will be replaced with a new one. On September 24, 2021, however, Bayonetta 3 was properly announced at a Nintendo Direct with a trailer, revealing not only Bayonetta's new redesign, but the mysterious force is an evil alien race that is possibly planning to conquer the world as opposed to fighting against angels and demons in the previous entries.
Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient: The fourth entry of the Corpse Party franchise, Corpse Party 2 has been in development for almost 10 years now. It was originally released in 2013 with only one chapter, but was put on hiatus to make room for a proper sequel to Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, Corpse Party: Blood Drive. It was then revamped with a new engine called Corpse Party 2: DEAD PATIENT NEUES and released on October 5, 2017, in Japan and on October 23, 2017, in the U.S., along with a new extra chapter. There were no updates since; that was until August 11, 2020, when MAGES' YouTube channel released a "10th Anniversary of Corpse Party Blood Covered Repeated Fear release" video, showing the timeline of the Heavenly Host Saga. The end of the timeline is marked with "202X", followed by the faint words "Darkness Distortion" and "More Corpse...", teasing yet another game in development. Then, it all changed in 2024 when Corpse Party II: Darkness Distortion got an official trailer and Dead Patient was declared to be no longer canon.
Omori: On July 31, 2013, Omocat announced the cancellation of Omori manga and started development of the Omori game. A trailer for this RPG horror game was announced in 2014. However, it got delayed until the trailer was released once in 2017, due to Kickstarter backers of the game asking why Omori was delayed. Omocat said that she was focused on her merchandise. The demo was released on April 10, 2018, before finally releasing on December 25, 2020. Lasting 6 to 7 years right after the game was first announced. If Omocat's old drawings of Omori (then known as Omoriboy in late 2011) were counted, the game finally lasted 9 years of development, a positive reception.
Ken Levine's unnamed game: Ken Levine is best known for being the creator of the Bioshock trilogy in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Announced in 2014 (a year after Bioshock: Infinite came out), not much is known about Ghost Story Games's first game (then known as Irrational Games), except that it will be a first-person sci-fi game with the idea of "narrative Legos" and a system inspired by one from Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Fast forward to 8 years later in 2022, an article by Bloomberg was published, which revealed that the game floundered in development hell due to directional changes and several reboots made by Levine, who was also responsible for the employee burnout and walkout due to poor management. Levine is notorious for his sky-high ambitions that are way too much, as evident with Bioshock: Infinite, which had to be scaled down in the final release.
Super Meat Boy Forever: Initially, the game was announced in 2014 and was supposed to be released as a mobile-only sequel, but the plans for the programming process of the game were changed as a multi-platform full-fledged sequel to Super Meat Boy in 2017, as well as Edmund McMillen leaving Team Meat in 2015. The new version of the game was revealed at PAX Prime 2017 and was showcased by Nintendo during their Nindies Summer 2017 Showcase, and the PAX demo of the game was well received by the media. The game was originally scheduled to be released in April 2019 but has been postponed to December 23, 2020, as a temporary exclusive for the Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows via the Epic Games Store, with console and Steam releases following in 2021. This game took 6 years to come out, and will be 7 years for the later releases.
Dead Island 2: This one is currently trapped in development for 12 years. Techland was originally set to develop Dead Island 2, but instead they decided to focus on developing Dying Light with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Yager Development then pitched the game to Deep Silver in 2012 and got the deal. At Gamescom 2014, Deep Silver demonstrated gameplay footage from an early version of the game stating the game is going to be set in California, including landmarks such as the Santa Monica Pier and Hollywood, as well as many locations in San Francisco. Similarly, only a fraction of the weapon modifications and the new zombies were shown at the stage where Deep Silver stated that the game will feature four playable characters and it will also feature eight-player cooperative multiplayer. The game was originally scheduled for a 2015 release, but in July 2015, Deep Silver announced that Yager had been dropped from developing the game and development would be moved to another unnamed developer. According to Yager, this was due to them and Deep Silver's respective visions of the project falling out of alignment. The game switched between multiple studios over the years with Sumo Digital in March 2016 and then Dambuster Studios in August 2019. Deep Silver had confirmed that the game is still in development, and on August 18, 2022, the game was finally revealed to have a release date and screenshots: February 3, 2023. A 2015 playable version of the still-under-development game while at Yager was leaked in June 2020.
Freedom Planet 2: The sequel to the original game was announced in late-2015 with a teaser trailer. The sequel will offer new mechanics, changes based on feedback, and Neera Li being a fourth playable character. In a loosely similar situation to Bayonetta 3, it lacked any updates about it and may indicate that the development is going poorly. Aside from the gameplay showcase, it's been 6 years since it was announced, until 19th September 2021, were they announced that they would be released in Spring 2022, but was then pushed to September 13th, 2022 before being released on that date on PC and April 4th, 2024 on Console. While not officially confirmed by the devs, many fans speculate that it was due to many heavy setbacks throughout its development, hence the delays.
Geometry Dash 2.2 Update: RobTop announced a new update Geometry Dash in 2017, which is said to include a challenge mode and Multiplayer mode. However, it has been 6 years since the announcement, and there are still no updates about the release date. In 2021, a trailer was released for the update, meaning that the long-awaited update might be near. On December 19, 2023, the update was finally released.
Stinkoman 20X6 Level 10: The game was periodically updated since its debut in 2005 until the release of level 9. Level 10 was planned to be released for said year, however, due to The Brothers Chaps' lead programmer, Jonathan Howe, moving to another state, the game wasn't updated in said year. No news about the level was made until 2017 when a screenshot trailer was shown on the official StrongBadActual Twitter account. While scheduled for a 2018 release, it was delayed for 2019 before finally being delayed again to 2020. Level 10 ended up being released in December 2020, just days before the discontinuation of Flash Player. As a result, said update has been under development for 15 years, and said level has been often joked around throughout the Homestar Runner website itself.
Agent: An action-adventure game teased by Rockstar Games with only a logo. No trailer or gameplay was shown. It was teased back in 2007 at E3 for the PlayStation 3, but in November 2018, the trademark was abandoned. Rockstar Games hasn't yet confirmed if it was canceled or not. And it all concluded in October 2021 when Rockstar completely wiped Agent out. So essentially, it was stuck in development for 15 years.
Granblue Fantasy Relink: An action RPG that ties into the gacha game known as Granblue Fantasy, was announced in 2016 by Cygames & PlatinumGames, and was originally going to be released in 2018 but pushed back into 2022. After PlatinumGames was announced to be dropped in 2019, rumors were flying around that Cygames, the main developer was rebuilding it from scratch. This later on proved to be true, as in the 2020 trailer & the Twitter statements, where aside from the change of engines after getting rid of the Platinum Engine, they stated they announced the game too early. The 2020 Granblue Fantasy Fes gameplay trailer however looked like it was running half the resolution due to the choppier graphics. Then, on June 9, 2022, after a trailer that showcased Gran's new armor and improved graphics, Twitter announced another short trailer and then announced the game was delayed to 2023, and then finally released on February 1, 2024, just a month before fiscal year. If taking into account that the game started development back in mid to late 2015, it took eight and a half years for the game to be released.
Monster Tale Ultimate: The remake of the original Monster Tale game on the Nintendo DS was announced in 2015 by its developers Dreamrift, best known for their game Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion. It was going to be released on the Nintendo 3DS as an eShop exclusive and that it would improve most of the aspects of the original, such as rebalanced gameplay, higher-resolution graphics, stereoscopic 3D support, Circle Pad support, and an orchestral soundtrack to replace the old one. 5 years later, however, nothing was said about it since, until January 11, 2021, when its publisher Majesco announced that it would be coming back on modern platforms. So it safe to say that the fate of the game will be finally revealed, much like Half-Life 2: Episode 2.
Pyro's Illusion: Originally called Five Nights at Roxy's, this FNaF fan game has been in development for 6 years, dating back to 2017, which is pretty high for a Five Nights at Freddy's fan game development. Originally, it was meant to be released in May 2019, but because ddemkoo has a lot of work, it was delayed.
SCP: The Endurance: This fan game, which is a mix of both Five Nights at Freddy's and The SCP Foundation, was in development for 7 years, starting back since 2015, since FNaF's early life. Thankfully, it was released in November 2022 to critical acclaim from the fans of FNaF and SCP.
Babylon's Fall: The second game Platinum Games made for Square Enix. It was first announced in E3 2018 with not much going into it, then 3 years later, it was re-reannounced in E3 2021, now with the Live Service model implemented by Square Enix and was released on March 3rd the following year to generally negative reviews from critics and fans of Platinum for a lack of variety and identity to set it apart from other games at the time, lackluster action combat even by Platinum standards, mediocre graphics, and most infamously, the live service model, which is already getting tiring real fast. You can already guess that Square Enix has learned nothing from the Marvel's Avengers debacle and has since performed even worse commercially. It doesn't help that it was practically overshadowed by FromSoftware's Elden Ring, arguably, one of the highest-reviewed games in recent years. While it has yet to be told what happened behind the scenes at Platinum Games, it was speculated to be related to their dropout of Granblue Fantasy Relink's development in 2019, as well as Covid-19 in general, which is why it took 4 years for Babylon's Fall to be released.
Perfect Dark Reboot: The game suffers almost the exact same problems as Babylon's Fall. It was announced in the Game Awards 2020 that a reboot of Rare's FPS series was in the works since 2018, developed by a brand new Microsoft division studio called The Initiative, and later co-developed by Crystal Dynamics. Problems already arose in February 2021, when Brian Murray left the company to go back to Insomniac Games, as well as Daniel Neuburger, who left a year later. It was then followed by a massive exodus of employees in the past 12 months, citing creative differences and slow progress, but also COVID-19 indirectly, causing its fans to fear the game's fate and falling into the same hole as Marvel's Avengers (another game Crystal Dynamics worked on), which is currently going for 4 years.
The Adventure Of Little Ralph: The game began development in 1991 for the Sharp X68000 home computer, but then switched to the PS1 and releasing in 1999 after 8 years in development. However, it was only released in Japan due to consumers being more interested in 3D than 2D and was left to extreme levels of obscurity to the point that the company that made it (New Corporation) went bankrupt.
Kartrider Drift: The successor to the game Crazyracing Kartrider was announced in 2019 for Xbox One, but only got released in January 2023 for PC and mobile, and March 2023 for Xbox One and PS4, probably because of the release and maintenance of Kartrider Rush+ in 2020.

Movies

Jurassic World: The film took 12 years to be made. It started life as Jurassic Park IV, before later being renamed as Jurassic World.
The Thief and the Cobbler: It was to be made by the late legendary animator Richard Williams, about a few years away from completion, some movie agents rejected the director and then the test audiences got confused from the scenes so it was cut with the help of Miramax to cash in on the release of Disney's Aladdin but it was a critical failure, years later, multiple fans created what is known as the Recobbled Cut, a reconstruction of the original workprint, with the help of Williams.
Me and My Shadow: a film about a man's friendship with his Living Shadow that would have featured a unique blend of 3D and traditional animation, was scheduled to be released in early 2014 but seems to have fallen through the cracks after Dreamworks's split with Paramount.
B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations: a film centering on an agency of ghosts, was set to be released in the summer of 2015. It has now been put on the back burner due to DreamWorks' restructuring plans.
Friday the 13th re-reboot: The re-reboot of Friday the 13th appears to be dead. The film already had a turbulent time trying to get off the ground, which is detailed at length in this article, but the biggest blow came in February 2017 when Paramount not only stripped its October 13th release date but halted production indefinitely as well. Legal and rights issues surrounding the franchise are not helping matters. The film died for good when the franchise rights reverted to New Line Cinema in 2018.
Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank: The film was formally announced in November 2014, with GFM Films handling international sales and Rob Minkoff also set to produce. The film was scripted by Ed Stone and Nate Hopper. In February 2015, Open Road Films acquired the U.S. distribution rights with Chris Bailey and Mark Koetsier attached to direct. Susan Purcell also joined the production as a producer. The title was confirmed for Blazing Samurai. However, the film's production immediately hit a snag when the original producer Arc Productions went bankrupt in 2016. While a new producer was eventually found, little else was heard about the status of the film. In November 2019, the film was re-announced after Aniventure joined the production. The budget was $45 million ($16 million was categorized as "original equity" while the rest of the $29 million came from Aniventure and Canadian tax credits). In August 2020, Align announced it would help finance the film and that it would have a tentative summer 2021 release date. While the film would be delivered by that date, it was then decided that the film wouldn't be released until the next year. When Paramount Pictures saved from development hell, it was confirmed that it would be finally released on July 22, 2022, under the Paramount Animation banner (actually Nickelodeon Movies banner instead and later changed to July 15, 2022), which arguably served as a slot replacement for their film Under The Boardwalk, which was set to release around that time but was abruptly removed from Paramount's release schedule in a concurrent move. It also changed to Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank. When it came out in July, it received mixed to mostly positive reviews.
Rendezous with Rama: Morgan Freeman has since the early 2000s shown interest in making a Rendezvous with Rama adaptation, and David Fincher has even been attached to direct. Problems have emerged with both funding and finding a good enough script. In December 2021, the project is finally back when Denis Villeneuve planning to direct and Alcon Entertainment set to produce the film. It might be the next Villeneuve movie, after Dune: Part Two in 2023.
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020): Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer tried to get Sonic the Hedgehog made into a movie back in the mid-1990s. Considering that none of the concepts presented to production staff had anything to do with the video game source material, it's a sigh of relief that this movie never even made it to script form. Additional attempts to have it inspired by Sonic SatAM or the Archie Comics series were even successful. Not helping that the disgraced Archie Sonic writer Ken Penders purposely sabotaged Ben Hurst's idea by claiming to SEGA that Hurst was trying to co-opt the franchise so he could show the giant video game company his idea, but was shot down in 2007 due to corporate upheaval. An OVA movie adaptation was released in 1999, and originally, Sony Pictures acquired the rights to create a Live-Action Adaptation (blended with CGI) in December 2013, but then Paramount acquired the rights to give it a shot in 2017, due to financing issues which don't help, and eventually, it was released in 2020 to critical and commercial success, leading to the creation of a sequel. As the films are expected to be based entirely on video games, it's safe to say the concept from MGM is dead.
FoodFight!: In 2004, the CGI film was announced and described as "Toy Story in a supermarket", the film promised to bring together over 80 famous advertising characters with voice talent including Charlie Sheen, Christopher Lloyd, Eva Longoria, Hilary, and Haylie Duff, and Wayne Brady. Director Lawrence Kasanoff expected it to be a commercial hit and merchandise for the movie appeared on store shelves before the film had a release date. Although, the film ran into many problems. In late 2002/early 2003, Kasanoff reported that hard drives containing unfinished assets from the film had been stolen in what he called an act of "industrial espionage". After several years, a trailer was finally shown at AHM in 2011, a company bought the DVD distribution rights for the film in Europe, and a quiet video-on-demand American release came in 2012, to extremely negative reviews and was a financial failure.
Alice in Wonderland (1951): In 1939, the first Walt Disney animated film ever created was going to be known as "Alice in Wonderland" with the famous British artist David Hall. After the storyboard and script were completed, it didn't go very well for Walt Disney himself since the story was monstrous, very hard to animate, and even the inhabitants of Wonderland were outright bloodthirsty towards poor Alice like Mad Hatter and March Hare about to dice Alice into pieces with scissors and a knife, Alice being attacked by hordes of birds, and even being placed on a guillotine at the end. The movie has been scrapped, but it was later changed from being monstrous to kid-friendly in the 1951 film version.
Catwoman (2004): In the summer of 1993, a spin-off of the Batman anti-hero Catwoman was announced with Michelle Pfeifer expected to return to her role and Tim Burton returning to direct. It originally was going to continue Catwoman's side story in 1992's Batman Returns facing her own set of villains, hence why she wasn't in 1995's Batman Forever. Unfortunately, Pfeifer was busy being a mother and being involved in other productions, and Tim Burton decided to move on to other productions. By then, the proposed spin-off was forgotten and the film was still on Warner Bros.'s resume. It didn't return to the news until 2002 when Halle Berry decided to play the titular character with Pitof deciding to direct and the film was finally made. The final result, Catwoman in 2004, more than 11 years after it was first announced, was panned by both critics and the audience alike for having almost nothing to do with the character it was based on (the film has Patience Philips being Catwoman instead of Selina Kyle) and even managing to win the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture that year. The film is often cited as to why some films should have remained on the shelf.
Ghostbusters III: Hellbent: In 1999, the long awaited sequel to Ghostbusters II was announced by Columbia Pictures. However, the third film was not made following the death of Harold Ramis due to Rick Moranis refusing to return. It was also not made since Bill Murray didn't want to return unless his character died. In 2016, Columbia Pictures released a reboot starring four women. The film was met with intense criticism from fans of the original films and was a box office disaster. In 2019 though, it was announced that Jason Reitman (son of the original Ghostbusters director, the late Ivan Reitman) is working on the third film, now under the title Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which released on November 19, 2021 to positive reviews by audiences and fans alike and was the box office success.
The Smurfs (2011): In 1997, Jordan Kerner sent a "series of letters" to Lafig Belgium expressing interest in making a theatrical movie of The Smurfs. The offer wasn't accepted until 2002, the movie was planned to be a 3D CGI feature film released by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies that discussed the backstory of Gargamel and it was going to be a trilogy. However, it was announced in June 2008 that Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation obtained the film rights and they made quite a lot of changes from the original ideas that Paramount planned. The film was finally released on June 16, 2011, in Júzcar and on July 29, 2011, in the USA, as well as the sequel on July 31, 2013. A third movie was planned as it was initially supposed to be a trilogy, but it was canceled due to the negative reception of both movies and a CGI reboot named Smurfs: The Lost Village was released on March 26, 2017, in Innaloo and April 7, 2017, in the USA, which despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, was received more favorably by audiences than the previous two movies were. Fortunately, in February 2022, Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies were given the film rights, with the first project being the musical film, which is set to be released on December 20, 2024.
Untitled Mr. Men Little Miss movie: In February of 2011, some websites were reporting that there would be a Mr. Men Little Miss film being made by 20th Century Fox, it was also going to be produced by Shawn Levy, the person who would later be well-known for producing the Netflix show, Stranger Things. When it was announced, there was no director or writer during the production of the film. In December of the same year 2011, Sanrio - the Japanese company behind Hello Kitty - bought Mr. Men Little Miss franchise from the now bankrupt and later defunct Chorion. In early 2015, 20th Century Fox secured the rights to the movie and it was still in development it was still the same from when it was announced back in the year 2011, Shawn Levy was still the producer, and there was still no director or writer. In the year 2018, 20th Century Fox was bought by Disney and it's unknown when the film is going to be released, it's likely that the production of the film may have been canceled, but it still hasn't been confirmed yet.
Untitled Hello Kitty movie: In 2015, it was announced that a Hello Kitty movie was going to be released in 2019. No details on the movie were revealed until 2019 when it was revealed that New Line Cinema, Sanrio and FlynnPictureCo. would be teaming up to develop an English-language film centering on the titular character. In 2021, New Line Cinema got Jennifer Coyle and Leo Matsuda to direct the movie which will be an animated/live-action hybrid effort. As of now, the movie is still in development and there is no set date for when it will be released.
The Eddsworld Fan Movie: A fan movie based on the popular web series Eddsworld, was announced in 2013, with a release date planned in 2014, but the movie was then delayed to 2015, since then, no other release date was given, and the movie is still in development.
The SuperMarioLogan Movie: Created and based on the YouTube channel SuperMarioLogan, it was announced in 2017 with an unknown release date. The movie was still in development, although they won't be working on it anytime soon (or quite likely, ever). However, his fans have made a fake IMDB page for it. Plans were permanently dashed away in 2021 when Nintendo sent a Cease & Desist letter to the team for the crude portrayal of their characters, especially Mario and Luigi. However, on August 21, 2022, some of the ideas of the film were later used to make the half-hour video called "SML Movie: Jeffy's 18th Birthday!" lasting 6 years of development.
Mad Max: Fury Road: An infamous case of development hell. First planned in 1998, production was set to begin in 2001 until 9/11 and the Iraq War canceled it due to shipping and budget concerns. Director George Miller revisited the idea after Happy Feet, considering making it an animated film until deciding to settle on live-action. Production was supposed to begin in November 2010 but several incidents, including rainfall in the series' usual location of Broken Hill unexpectedly turning the desert into a meadow of flowers, delayed the film further until filming began in June 2012 in Namibia. Aside from a few extra shots in late 2013, the film wrapped filming on 17 December 2012 and was finally released in 2015 after nearly two decades in development hell, earning universal acclaim from critics and audiences, though it was a box office disappointment.
Artemis Fowl: Originally started its production in 2001, it named Miramax Films like the one who acquired the rights to the film and Lawrence Guterman to direct it, although in 2003 It was confirmed that the film had little chance of happening, for 2011 Jim Sheridan was interested in directing the film but in the end, nothing happened, in 2013 it was announced that Disney is developing a project, which began production during 2017 and was planned to premiere in mid-2019, but in the end, it had to be delayed until 2020 because Disney wanted to improve it, not that it helped. Due to negative reception and Covid-19, it went straight to Disney+ for no additional charge and never saw a theatrical release of any kind.
Avatar sequels: These films were first announced in 2010, aiming for a release of the second installment by 2014. The timeline has been pushed back a total of 8 times, due to director James Cameron being occupied with other projects, the VFX team working on creating underwater motion capture, and the COVID-19 pandemic affecting production.
Space Jam II: A sequel to the 1996 live-action/animated hybrid Space Jam was in the works in 1997, with Joe Pytka from the first film to direct, Bob Camp to design an all-new character, Berserk-O! and his henchmen, and Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone signing on as the animation supervisors. The potential sequel reentered development as Spy Jam and was to star Jackie Chan in a different script. The studio was also planning a film titled Race Jam which would have starred Jeff Gordon. Additionally, Pytka revealed that following the first film's success, he had been pitched a story for a sequel that would have starred professional golfer Tiger Woods, with Jordan in a smaller role. Pytka explained how the idea came from an out-of-studio script conference, with people who worked on the original film allegedly involved. Another idea for a Space Jam sequel entitled Skate Jam was in early development with Tony Hawk in the starring role. Plans were underway for production to begin immediately following the release of Looney Tunes: Back in Action, but it was canceled given that film's poor box office performance despite otherwise improved critical reception from Space Jam. Over 10 years later, however, talks for a sequel were resurrected with LeBron James as the main star. Filming began from June 25 to September 26, 2019, with Malcolm D. Lee helming as director. In addition, in March 2020, photos during the shooting were leaked as Warner Bros. characters aside from the Looney Tunes would also appear in the film, such as Superman, Batman, Pennywise, Scooby-Doo and Shaggy, Harry Potter, Joker, Gollum, Bane, Scorpion and Sub-Zero, Agent Smith, Mad Max, Finn and Jake, The Mask, the Gremlins, Tom and Jerry, Austin Powers, King Leonidas, George the Gorilla, Dr. Manhattan, Harold and Kumar, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, among others. The film, titled Space Jam: A New Legacy, was released on July 16, 2021, to generally negative reviews for being a blatant ad for HBO Max and failing to capture what made the original so great and was the box office failure.
Dune (2021): Prospects to make a successful adaptation of Dune improved after the critical and commercial success of the film series adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, both of which maintained most of the works' key characters and plots while managing the limited running time. In 2008, Paramount Pictures brought on Peter Berg to direct an adaptation. Berg left the project in October 2009, with director Pierre Morel brought on to direct in January 2010. However, Paramount dropped the project in March 2011, as they could not come to key agreements, with their rights reverting to Rubinstein. 5 years later, the film and TV rights for Dune were acquired by Legendary Entertainment in November 2016. Variety reported in December 2016 that Denis Villeneuve was in negotiations to direct the project, which was confirmed in February 2017. Villeneuve explained in March 2018 that his adaptation will be split into two films, with the first installment scheduled to begin production in 2019. After the years, Dune was finally released on October 22, 2021, to generally strong critical reviews and was a box office success, leading Warner Bros. and Legendary to green-lit Dune: Part Two for planning a release on October 20, 2023, with Denis Villeneuve returning to direct.
It (2017): The project has been in ongoing development since 2009 with Warner Bros. Pictures planning to bring it to the big screen. The proposed film adaptation has gone through two major phases of planning: initially with Cary Fukunaga from 2009 to 2015, with the early contributions of screenwriter David Kajganich, and with Andy Muschietti, with Fukunaga remaining in some capacity due to prior screenplay contributions. After the changes, Muschietti is announced to direct this film and the film has been moved to New Line Cinema. The film was released on September 8, 2017, to critical and commercial success, promoting New Line Cinema to green-lit Chapter Two.
The Dark Tower: An adaptation of The Dark Tower has been in development since at least 2007. The film was eventually released on August 4, 2017, to a generally negative reaction.
Speed Racer: A live-action Speed Racer film was in the works since 1992 when Warner Bros. opted for the rights to make a film version of it in conjunction with Silver Pictures. In October 1994, singer Henry Rollins was offered the role of Racer X. In June 1995, Johnny Depp was cast into the lead role for Speed Racer, with production slated to begin the coming October, In September 2000, Warner Bros. and producer Lauren Shuler Donner hired writer-director Hype Williams to take the helm of the project. In June 2004, Vince Vaughn spearheaded a revival of the project by presenting a take on the film that would develop the characters more strongly. Vaughn was cast as Racer X and was also attached to the project as an executive producer. With production never becoming active, Vaughn was eventually detached from the project. However, The Wachowskis were brought on board by the studio to write and direct the film in October 2006. The film was released on May 9, 2008. Although critics gave it mixed reviews and was a box office bomb, it was received positively by fans.
Tom & Jerry: Plans for a new theatrical Tom and Jerry movie was planned in 2009, as a live-action/CGI film following the success of Alvin and the Chipmunks. 6 years later, Warner Bros. wants to put a renewed focus on animation and plans changed from a full-on live-action film to a full-on animated film. 3 years later, plans have officially been finalized as a live-action/animated hybrid that began to film in 2019, originally planned to be released on April 16, 2021. The movie has had a lot of time put through as it was then pushed back for a December 23, 2020 release. The film was officially released on February 26, 2021.
The Garfield Movie: After Fox let the film rights to Garfield lapse, Alcon Entertainment announced plans in 2016 to reboot the film franchise as an all-CGI animated film. Mark Dindal (The Emperor's New Groove, Chicken Little) was attached to direct the film in November 2018, with Garfield creator Jim Davis (who had no involvement in the Fox films) as executive producer. The following summer, however, Davis sold the Garfield IP to Nickelodeon, and Dindal left to work on a film based on the Funko Pop! toys for Warner Bros., leaving the film's fate in limbo for two years, until November 2021, when more news of the movie surfaced: it was announced the movie would be distributed internationally by Sony Pictures and that the titular cat would be voiced by Chris Pratt. Garfield's design for the movie was also revealed alongside that news.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: In 1990, Tim Burton commissioned a sequel to Beetlejuice called Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian, written by Jonathan Gems. After multiple studio rewrites, in 1997 Gems stated that the film would never be made. In 2011, Warner Bros. hired Seth Grahame-Smith to write and produce a sequel. In 2013, Winona Ryder expressed her interest in the sequel saying, "I'm kind of sworn to secrecy but it sounds like it might be happening. It's 27 years later." In January 2015, writer Grahame-Smith said the script was finished that he and Burton intended to start filming by the end of the year, and that both Keaton and Ryder would return to their respective roles. In April 2019, Warner Bros. stated the sequel had been shelved; however, in February 2022, a sequel was announced, produced by Plan B Entertainment with Warner Bros. Pictures. Brad Pitt will serve as a producer, while Keaton and Ryder will reprise their respective roles. Principal photography is intended to begin in the summer of that year.
Fourth Jurassic Park sequel: The fourth film of the Jurassic Park series was in development hell ever since the release of Jurassic Park III in 2001 when it was first announced. After scheduling and release conflicts, the fourth film was eventually retooled as a soft reboot known as Jurassic World, which was released theatrically on June 12, 2015, to generally positive reviews and became a huge box office success.
Watchmen: The 2009 film based on the Alan Moore graphic novel from DC Comics had undergone various production problems; such as penning the script from four different studios and directors and attaching different screenwriters for the project; thus halted the adaptation's development through twenty years. That was until 2006, when Zack Snyder, fresh out of the production of the soon-to-be-released 300, was hired as director for the film. It was eventually released on March 6, 2009, with mixed reactions from critics and was a moderate success worldwide at the box office; but received more acclaim from fans gaining more of a cult following over the years.
Warcraft: A live-action adaptation of the Warcraft series was first announced in 2006. The film spent several years in development hell before the project advanced. It was scheduled for a 2016 release. The film was released in June 2016 worldwide with a Paris premiere in May to generally mixed reviews by critics but was very well received by fans.
Untitled animated Mickey Mouse movie: An animated Mickey Mouse movie was announced when Burny Mattinson revealed in one interview that he was developing a "Mickey, Donald, Goofy feature film idea," but he has yet to pitch the idea.
Avatar: Originally started development in 1994 after James Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for the movie. Filming was meant to take place in 1997 after the development of Titanic wrapped up, with a planned release in 1999. The problem was, according to Cameron, the necessary technology did not exist yet to achieve his vision of the film. Therefore, it took 10 years to develop, with the Na'vi language being worked on in 2005, and the development of a fictional universe in 2006. It was eventually released in December 2009.
Untitled live-action Soulcalibur movie: A live-action adaption of Namco's hit fighting game, Soulcalibur was announced back in spring 2001. The film’s plot revolves around two warriors who are chosen by Shaolin monks to recover and destroy a powerful sword that has fallen into the hands of an evil prince who plans to use it to open the gates of hell and destroy the world. It was planned to be released in 2007 but nothing has come out of the project ever since.
The Addams Family: In 2010, when Universal and Illumination own the rights to make an animated movie version of the Addams Family, they were going to make it a stop-motion film that was supposedly going to be directed by Tim Burton (who would later be part of the Addams Netflix series, Wednesday) and that the stop motion was going to be in a style similar to his previous stop motion films like the Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride, however after 3 years without any development time given prior to cancellation such as hiring a cast, screenwriter, composer (most likely Danny Elfman), or a stop-motion animation company like Laika (like Corpse Bride) or Mackinnon & Saunders (like Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs) to animate the film due to Universal and Illumination losing the rights as well as Tim Burton possibly being busy with the stop-motion remake of Frankenweenie with Disney at the time, on the same year the stop motion idea was scrapped and when the franchise and animated film rights were given back to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (the same company behind the 1964 series as well as the 90s live-action movies), they reworked the film into a CGI film with the help of most of the Sausage Party crew (including both directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, as well as the same animation company behind that movie, Nitrogen Studios who were known for animating Season 12 to 16 of Thomas & Friends and the infamous Happily N'Ever After) following the success of the Hotel Transylvania franchise from Sony Pictures Animation, the film eventually released in October 2019 to mixed-to-negative reviews, nearly 9 years after it was announced in 2010, as well as the sequel in October 2021 made to cash in on Hotel Transylvania's fourth and final film, Transformania, making it the only planned Illumination film to be entirely different from the final product.
Sadé, a live-action Disney film based on an original idea by Ola Shokunbi and Lindsey Reed Palmer about the classic story of an African princess has not seen any updates since its announcement in 2018. As of 2022, it’s currently unknown if the film will ever be released.
Untitled Betty Boop movie: Since 1993, there were plans for Betty Boop to get an animated feature that would have featured Jimmy Rowles and Sue Raney as the voices of Betty and Benny yet it was later canceled. Later on Steven Paul Leiva and Jerry Rees attempted to make a new Betty Boop feature film for the Zanuck Company and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The script by Rees detailed Betty's rise in Hollywood in the Golden Age of Hollywood. It was to be a musical with music by jazz musician Bennie Wallace and lyrics by Cheryl Ernst Wells. Wallace and Wells had completed several songs and 75% of the film had been storyboarded when two weeks before voice recording was to begin with Bernadette Peters set to voice Betty, the head of MGM, Alan Ladd Jr., was replaced by Frank Mancuso, and the project was abandoned. Around 2014, Simon Cowell's Syco and Animal Logic announced they were developing and producing a feature-length film based on the character yet it's unknown if the film is canceled or not since Animal Logic is set to be acquired by Netflix.
The Video Game Corruption Chaos: A Super Mario Bros. Movie: A more mature and fan-made take on the Super Mario franchise in movie form was planned to release on April 5th, 2023 (to coincide with the theatrical Mario movie), but suffered throughout a good amount of delays in the process midway through development (it first went from April 2022 to December 30th, 2022, to April 5th, 2023, to July 28th, 2023, to November 3rd, 2023, and then to April 5th, 2024, before being delayed indefinitely). It was highly unclear when SlashcraftGaming himself will release the film, or if it turned out to be canceled all along, until it was given its final confirmed release date of April 3rd, 2026.
The Incredible Mr. Limpet remake: Since the 90s, Warner Bros. wanted to make a remake of the 1964 Don Knotts film of the same name. The earliest attempt was when Jim Carrey was set to star in the remake with Steve Oedekerk directing the film and Don Knotts supporting it. Jim's character as a fish was to be animated via CGI with motion capture used on Jim's face. That version was cancelled due to being deemed uncanny. The next attempt was having Mike Henry of King of the Hill fame to direct the remake with either Robin Williams, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, or Mike Myers starring. In 2009, Kevin Lima of Enchanted fame was in the talks of directing but got replaced by Richard Linklater. Zack Galifianakis was set to star with Jon Hamm, Danny McBride, Sarah Silverman, Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Keegan-Michael Key, and Jordan Peele being in the talks of different roles. Linklater eventually worked on other projects.
Akira live-action film: Since early 2000s, Warner Bros. bought the film rights to make a film adaptation of the cyberpunk manga and anime. In the 90s, however, Sony Pictures acquired the film rights to Akira before WB did but Sony's version was cancelled due to budget reasons. During it's time at Warner Bros., there was so much trouble with film production due to switching directors including James Cameron, Stephen Norrington, Ruairí Robinson, the Hughes brothers, George Miller, Christopher Nolan, and Jaume Collet-Serra. The writing also went through numerous changes such as one placing the film set in Chicago, another splitting films into separate parts just to cover certain volumes of the manga, and another set in both New York and Japan. The project was met with skepticism due to the film potentially whitewashing or racebending characters as well as having the story be westernized such as including an influence to the 9/11 attacks instead of the atomic bombings of Japan. The most recent attempt of the film was when Taika Waititi wanted to direct the film with the intention of casting Asian-Americans. However Taika's version was put ok hold many times due to commitments to other projects including his own Star Wars film.
At the Mountains of Madness: Guillermo del Toro planned on making an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's horror novella. Due to executive meddling, it never went through. Warner Bros wanted the film to have a love story or a happy ending which is impossible to do in a Lovecraft story. Warner Bros also didn't want to work on the film due to budget reasons. Later, Universal rejected the project due to wanting a PG-13 instead of an R rating. Netflix acquired the film rights with del Toro still involved with the intention of making it either live action or stop motion animated.
Untitled fourth Austin Powers film: Mike Myers since 2005 has discussed about a fourth film of the satire spy comedy series. The film was said to have Dr. Evil as the main character rather than Austin. Various factors made the film development more longer than intended such a lack of script, Mike Myers still figuring out what would the script be like, the death of Verne Troyer (who plays Mini-Me), casting difficulties, and Myers' parenthood.
The Bob and Larry Movie: A film adaptation based on the Christian cartoon series VeggieTales was in development since the early 2000s. It was said to be made after the release of Jonah and would've talked about how Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber met, how they got their show, and how can fruit and veggies talk. Humans would've appeared in the film as well. The film kept jumping release dates and hiatuses is due to the box office failure of Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie and eventually the bankruptcy of Entertainment Rights and Classic Media. However, Phil Vischer has a copy of the script of the film but can't share it due to being owned by Universal and DreamWorks yet he still hopes the film will get released. Big Idea eventually went into limbo due to key members leaving Big Idea.
Bone: A film adaptation of the 1991 comic of the same name was in development since the late 90s with an early attempt being done by Paramount via Nickelodeon Movies (which failed due to executive meddling in regards to the soundtrack and voice cast). Warner Bros. later attempted to do the film but never came to be. Netflix wanted to make an animated series instead but got cancelled due to changes in Netflix Animation.
A Confederacy of Dunces: This Pulitzer Prize winning novel had a motion picture adaptation announced at least 7 times yet every attempt always kept stalling and abandoned.
Disney's Don Quixote: Since the 1940s, Disney wanted to do an adaptation of the Spanish novel. Various attempts were different from one another including those that are animated and those that are live action with the recent attempt being from 2016.
Dragon's Lair: Since the 80s, Don Bluth planned a feature film based on the LaserDisc arcade game. The first attempted would've focused on how Dirk and Daphne met with Mordroc being involved in the plot with Michael J. Fox being considered as the voice of Dirk. In 2015, there was a Kickstarter page to pledge a fully animated film based on the game. In 2020, Netflix announced a live action film instead with Ryan Reynolds as Dirk.
Untitled Family Guy film: After the show got revived, Fox announced a theatrical Family Guy film with Seth MacFarlane later confirmed it was official. The story would've been something that he couldn't do on the show with the possibility of being a musical similar to that of The Sound of Music. The project was put on hold due to development of Ted 2. Fox on 2018 announced that a live-action/animated hybrid film based on the show was in development. The film is on hiatus right now due to the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney.
The Legend of Zelda: Since 2007, Nintendo's iconic fantasy action-adventure game faced film adaptation plans with the earliest being done by Imagi Animation Studios as an animated film which never happened due to Nintnendo not wanting to repeat the same mistakes as what happened to the live action Super Mario Bros. film. Game designer Eiji Aonuma talked about how he wanted to make an interactive Zelda movie which had players taking their Nintendo 3DS into the cinemas and players can participate in the film somehow. After the box office hit of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, rumors about Illumination doing an animated Zelda movie started to spread which were later proven false. However, in 2023 of November, Wes Ball announced a live-action Zelda movie with Shigeru Miyamoto and Avi Arad producing with the former claiming that he's been trying to get a Zelda movie to work for many years.
Live 2 Tell: A film based on rapper Tupac Shakur's screenplay that he had written during his incarceration in 1995 about a drug dealer's tale of redemption. The project goes back to 2005 when IMDB listed as currently in production. Lack of recent news or interest led the film being on limbo.
Mega Man: A film based on Capcom's sci-fi run-n-gun series. Fox announced the film being developed with Chernin Entertainment and Peter Chernin producing the film and Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman directing the film. The film's development was part of Capcom's plan to increase the value of the Mega Man franchise. Due to the Disney buying Fox, the film went into limbo until Netflix bought the film rights from Disney. Mattson Tomlin had a script involving the titular character being explored as a real person while another draft talked about the future of automation and man and robot becoming as one as either good or bad. Josh Konigsberg wrote a new draft with research via playing past games.

Shows

Starter Squad: While a good show, it had times of development hell. For example, Episode 10 was made in 2019, it was originally supposed to be released in 2020, but later got delayed to 2021 (Most of the time is being spent on realistic snow effects). As of October 23, 2021, the episode was released and had a good reception from viewers.
The Flintstones (Seth MacFarlane version): A series reboot of The Flintstones produced by Seth MacFarlane was announced in 2011, set to air on FOX, but due to MacFarlane's busy schedule, the premiere was delayed before being canceled when FOX's rights to the Flintstones were sold back to Warner Bros. MacFarlane later admitted that he couldn't find a way to differentiate a modern-day Fred Flintstone and Peter Griffin.
Close Enough: This animated series by Regular Show creator J.G. Quintel was originally slated to air on TBS in 2018 alongside another animated show, The Cops, starring Albert Brooks and Louis C.K.. However, The Cops was canceled in light of Louis C.K.'s sexual misconduct allegations, and Close Enough ended up getting delayed to 2020, when it became an HBO Max original series.
High Guardian Spice: This Crunchyroll original series was meant to premiere in late 2019, but due to the first trailer's negative feedback, the show was delayed for two years with barely any news in the intervening time until quietly appearing on the service on October 26th, 2021.
Kung Fu Spy Troll: An animated series created by Butch Hartman featuring mutant animals was archived via a Nickelodeon website snapshot at Wayback Machine, but no other information for the series exists outside of a description. It is widely speculated that this series was retooled into T.U.F.F. Puppy.
Crash Nebula: An animated series created by Butch Hartman and Steve Marmel based on the in-universe TV show of the same name from the Fairly OddParents. A pilot episode was made with the beginning and end segments featuring Timmy and his fairies playing the guessing game on what the current Crash Nebula episode is airing at the moment, only for Timmy to miss said episode once he finally answers the fairies at the end. No further progress was made on the Crash Nebula series due to Hartman and Marmel already working on Danny Phantom at the time.
Power Rider: This Tokusatsu show would've been Saban Brands' second attempt at a Kamen Rider adaptation after the disastrous Black RX adaptation known as Saban's Masked Rider. Its title is a name mashup between Power Rangers and Kamen Rider. Information about this show is currently unknown, though was rumored to be an adaptation of either Kamen Rider Decade or Kamen Rider W. The show kept getting delayed until Haim Saban lost interest in it and decided to abandon the idea. Though with Hasbro now owning the Power Rangers franchise, it is possible that they could bring back the idea of a Kamen Rider adaptation.
IDFB (Island Dream For Battle): While an improvement over BFDIA for the most part, the season as of now has only one episode, released on September 1, 2016, but was then followed up by BFB on November 3, 2017. Despite that, the season has not been officially confirmed that it was canceled, and a second episode may eventually happen. It hasn't. Fast forward to today, and it was likely put on indefinite hold.
Growing Around: Based on the concept of the short Flip-Flopped from the series Shorty McShorts' Short, which Mr. Enter himself reviewed on Animated Atrocities, the project started back in 2014, when Mr. Enter and Nayolfa started creating character designs for the show. In July 2014, they wrote a few scripts and finished with the character designs. Mr. Enter initially wanted to pitch the show to Disney or Cartoon Network but it never happened. In 2015, Mr. Enter wrote a book based on his show, Growing Around: Party Panic, which was ridiculed by many due to the concept, the writing, the characters, and so on.
Tankmen: In 2021, JohnnyUtah (Jeff Bandelin), the creator of the web series, Tankmen, revealed on Twitter that Tankmen was originally going to have 5 episodes. However, the remaining 3 remain unfinished to this day. The reason why is that Bandelin was experiencing burnout and lack of interest in the series. He revealed he has all the production material (except animation) completed and only leaked a small percentage on Twitter. While he expressed interest in someone else picking up the project, he has not contacted anyone since. The entirety of the production material remains as lost media to this day. It is unknown if these final episodes will ever be completed.
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (TV series): The series was announced in 2018, but after that, production quietly went on hold & the show was scrapped after the pilot was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, as there were no updates, until July 2020, where the series had been picked up by Channel 4. On February 25, 2022, Becky Sloan (creator of the series) posted a behind the scenes video on Instagram, with the caption "Hello! Just recording final sound for the new series!" meaning that production of the series had concluded. On June 19, 2022, a video called "FLY" was uploaded onto the Don't Hug Me I'm Scared YouTube channel, hinting that the show would have a September 2022 release window. On September 6, 2022, the channel uploaded a video called "LATE SEPTEMBER! (EGG)" to promote the show's release date (September 12, 2022) but due to schedule changes regarding the death of Elizabeth II, it was quietly delayed. The final series was released on September 23, 2022, 11 days after the show was originally meant to release.
The Beeps: Originally known as The Wot-a-Lots, its pilot was made in 1997, followed by another pilot where it was reworked into The Beeps in 2005, thus, making it a full series by 2007, which took an outrageous 10 years to develop into a full series. The reason why this might have happened was because it started out with wood-animated models which were later developed into a CGI-animated series.

Videos

References

↑ https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/679871-longest-time-between-a-videogame-project-start-and-final-release

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Development hell

Contents

Reasons and causes for development hell

Games

Movies and Shows

Notable examples

Games

Movies

Shows

Videos

References

Comments

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Development hell

Reasons and causes for development hell

Games

Movies and Shows

Notable examples

Games

Movies

Shows

Videos

References

Comments

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