20 movies that got stuck in release purgatory

The movie that became a cause célèbre. To a degree, it makes sense. Warner Bros. literally wanted to shelf “Coyote vs. Acme” as a tax write-off, which struck a lot of people the wrong way, and not just “Looney Tunes” fans. Eventually, Warner Bros. sold the distribution rights to Ketchup Entertainment, which meant it was going to come out, but Ketchup tends to grab rights to movies that aren’t terribly good, and then they flop. That didn’t turn out to be the case with “Coyote vs. Acme.” It got good reviews, good audience buzz, and made plenty of money. No tax write-off needed.

Kenneth Lonergan makes thorny films, and he has a specific vision he is willing to fight for. Sometimes, somewhat literally, and for years. He filmed “Margaret” in 2005, when star Anna Paquin could plausibly play a high school student. Lonergan couldn’t wrap his head around it, though, and tinkered away, much to the studio's annoyance. Lawsuits popped up. Martin Scorsese tried to play mediator. In 2011, Fox Searchlight released a 150-minute version. The next year, Lonergan released a three-hour director’s cut with a new score and different sound mixing. What’s remarkable is that after all of this, the version of “Margaret” that came out is often cited as one of the best movies of the new millennium.

When the filming of a movie generates a documentary as compelling and fraught as most dramatic films, you know it was chaotic. When Francis Ford Coppola began filming “Apocalypse Now” on March 20, 1976, the plan was for it to be released on Coppola’s 38th birthday, April 7, 1977. The movie did not finish filming until May 21, 1977. Then, the editing began. Things got pushed and pushed and pushed until “Apocalypse Now” finally hit theaters on August 15, 1979. Critics lauded it as brilliant, but at what cost?

Before the first Marvel movie even hit theaters, several projects were already in development. One of them was “Ant-Man,” announced in 2006, with Edgar Wright directing. The process of writing, filming, and scheduling ran hot and cold, and then Wright left the project in May 2014. By this point, of course, the Marvel machine was in full force. Peyton Reed was hired to direct in June, filming began in August, and it hit theaters in July 2015. It also turned out pretty good, and Wright still got a writing credit.

Anna Faris and Chris Pratt met while filming “Take Me Home Tonight.” By the time it hit theaters, they had been married for two years. That’s how long it took this mediocre ‘80s-set comedy to hit theaters. It was filmed in 2007 but shelved for years, with star Topher Grace saying Universal didn’t know how to market the movie, which may also explain the multiple title changes. In the end, it was released and, unsurprisingly, bombed.

David O. Russell had his movie taken off the list. Kristin Gore is credited on the screenplay twice, once solo and once as part of a team. Those are two things that speak to the bizarre story of “Accidental Love.” You start working on a dark romantic comedy with the wrong production company, and the next thing you know, nobody gets paid, production keeps getting halted, the company goes bankrupt, and the director walks off the film. “Nailed” became “Accidental Love,” and after years in purgatory, it got a small release from a different distributor. All that for a movie pretty much everybody considers terrible.

“The Other Side of the Wind” was released in 2018, which is notable because the movie’s director, Orson Welles, died in 1985. It took 48 years for Welles' movie to finally be finished. There was, of course, plenty of tinkering while Welles was alive, and after he died, plenty of work was done to try to salvage his “lost film.” Eventually, that did happen, paired with a documentary about Welles and the movie fittingly titled “They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.”

Tom Cruise saved the movies! In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic obliterating filmgoing, many big films, many intended blockbusters, accepted being released to streaming services or as on-demand offerings. Cruise, though, would not let that happen to “Top Gun: Maverick.” It got pushed, and pushed, until the movie finally hit theaters in May of 2022. “Top Gun: Maverick” made $1.5 billion. The bet paid off, and these days movie theaters are doing as well as they have since before the pandemic.

“Grizzly” was released in 1976, one of the many movies that came out in the wake of “Jaws,” but this one was set on land. “Grizzly” wasn’t good, but it was cheap, and it was successful, so a sequel went into production. “Grizzly II: Revenge,” which got to the idea of revenge in the second movie while “Jaws” waited for the fourth, was filmed in 1983 and shout out to the casting department. Laura Dern, Charlie Sheen, and George Clooney, none of them famous at the time, are in the movie. Of course, “Grizzly II” wouldn’t be released until 2020, by which point those three were all well-known, and Sheen’s career was effectively over.

Like “Chinese Democracy,” “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” seemed like a project that would never really come to fruition. Terry Gilliam, formerly of Monty Python, first started working on the project in 1989, but it wouldn’t get on the docket anywhere until 1998. That wasn’t the end of it, though. A documentary released in 2002 was supposed to be the making-of featurette, but it became a chronicle of a failed production. For the next decade, they made multiple attempts, but to no avail. Finally, “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” was filmed, with enough time passing that Jonathan Pryce changed roles and played Don Quixote, though, like “Chinese Democracy,” it landed with a thud.

Sometimes all the incentive a studio needs is somebody in a movie they’ve shelved becoming famous. “The Cabin in the Woods” is a meta horror-comedy that’s a little too self-satisfied, i.e. a Joss Whedon production, but it’s pretty fun. The film was going to be released for Halloween 2009, then in February 2010, which makes it sound like a Dumpuary offering, and then it was delayed a year for – Hey, remember this trend? – 3D conversion. Before that could happen, though, MGM ran into serious financial difficulties. Also in 2011, “Thor” came out, and Chris Hemsworth just so happened to be in “The Cabin in the Woods.” Wouldn’t you know it, Lionsgate bought the distribution rights in 2011, and the movie finally came out in 2012.

This is pretty much literally the same story. Chris Hemsworth is in this “Red Dawn” remake. The movie was set to be released in 2010 by, yes, MGM. There was also the concern about the bad guys being China, so in post-production they were changed to North Korea, always a sign a movie is going to be both good and coherent. In addition to Hemsworth being “Thor,” it had been announced that Josh Hutcherson was going to be in the “Hunger Games” movies, so FilmDistrict snagged this one from MGM and put it in theaters in 2012.

No, this is not an adaptation of the arcade game like the Dwayne Johnson movie. It’s William Friedkin making a movie about a serial killer. Friedkin handled his end of the bargain, and “Rampage” was screened at the Boston Film Festival in 1987. The problem is that the film’s production company, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, went bankrupt. Miramax swooped in to buy the rights to “Rampage” in 1992. Friedkin reedited the film for some reason; after the fact, he said he never felt like he quite figured the movie out, and the project proved rather polarizing to audiences and critics.

Eddie Murphy at the nadir of his career in a role built around the conceit that the famed motormouth comedian can’t talk. A movie with a zero-percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. No wonder “A Thousand Words” sat on the shelf for years. Filmed in 2008, “A Thousand Words” was set for release in 2009, but that was pushed to 2012, then moved around again that year. For a moment, Murphy was going to host the Oscars, so the studio tried to tie it to that, but when he stepped down, the studio threw up its hands and just released it in theaters.

Not to be confused with “Repo Man,” the ‘80s punk cult classic. Please don’t confuse it with that movie, which is great, because this is a dull sci-fi movie. It’s based off a book called “The Repossession Mambo!” Just call it that! Production on “Repo Men” started in 2007, but the film didn't limp into theaters until 2010.

Would you believe a movie called “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” had trouble finding distribution? The film was shot in 1985, but then mostly just screened at festivals looking for distribution, building up its reputation for controversy. On that front, it probably helped the movie get an X rating, what we now call NC-17, which is ideal for a cult movie trafficking in controversy. Eventually, in 1990, “Henry” got a limited theatrical release, and it remains a polarizing film.

Sometimes even a connection to Marvel and some notable young actors can’t get momentum behind a movie. “The New Mutants” was an X-Men product but spooky and skewing young, like “First Class” but different. The guy from “Stranger Things!” The woman from “Game of Thrones!” No, not her! Not her either! The other one! Anya Taylor-Joy! “The New Mutants” was shot in 2017, but then Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, which complicated things, and it was dumped into the world in August 2020.

Little did we know how long “No Time To Die” would have to sustain us on the James Bond front. Daniel Craig’s last effort in the series had setbacks during filming that hindered the release schedule. Original director Danny Boyle left the project, which pushed the movie from a November 2019 release to April 2020. You can figure out what happened to the scheduling at that point. “No Time to Die” would not get locked into the schedule and released in the United States until October 8, 2021.

It also feels like “Roar” was never meant to be released. Director Noel Marshall and his then-wife, Tippi Hedren, got really into wildlife preservation and then went about it in the most deranged way possible. They started bringing wild animals, including big cats. Lions and cougars and stuff. And they decided to shoot a film with them. The number of injuries and illnesses suffered in the filming of “Roar” makes this comfortably one of the more unethical, unprofessional productions we can think of. It got a limited release in 1981, but not in North America. It was not until the legend of the making of “Roar” grew loud enough that, in 2015, the movie was released in the United States as something more akin to a snuff film than a work of cinema.

We end with a movie hoping for a “Coyote vs. Acme” style resurrection. You may remember “Scoob!,” a Warner Bros. reboot of “Scooby-Doo” that got a COVID-era release. A Christmas-centered prequel, “Holiday Haunt,” was greenlit as an HBO Max original. It was supposed to drop in December 2022, but Warner Bros. decided not to release it. The thing is, they did that in August 2022. Yes, like “Coyote vs. Acme” and “Scoob! Holiday Haunt” are completed films that Warner Bros. decided not to release anyway. It’s just sitting there, hoping to see the light of day. Perhaps hoping for a Christmas miracle?