Sometimes you see a movie so bad that you wonder how on earth it ever entered production, let alone made it to theaters, and you have to ask just how many idiot mistakes went into it getting made. However, there have been a few movies that have been canceled due to stupid decision-making as well, and some of the stories are quite surprising.
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00:00It's a miracle any movies ever get made, given anything can go wrong.
00:04With hundreds of people using dangerous equipment while spending tens of millions of dollars,
00:08there are so many variables that sometimes filmmakers have to call the whole thing off.
00:13All because someone did something dumb.
00:15Here are some movies that got canceled because of an idiot mistake.
00:26Star Trek Planet of the Titans
00:28Star Trek was canceled after three seasons in 1969, but its popularity exploded in syndicated
00:34reruns.
00:35By 1977, the series was set to hit the big screen with a film called Star Trek Planet
00:40of the Titans, where the Enterprise and Captain Kirk would face off against the giants of
00:44Greek mythology.
00:45But just before filming was set to begin, Paramount president Barry Diller canceled
00:49the whole thing for a really stupid reason.
00:52Star Wars was already scheduled to arrive in theaters that year, and he didn't think
00:56fans could like sci-fi enough to support two space epics in the same year.
01:00Uh, way to totally, completely misread the entire industry, Barry.
01:07Justice League Mortal
01:08Long before Marvel crushed the box office with Avengers, Warner Bros. was planning its
01:12own superhero team-up in the form of Justice League Mortal, which went into production
01:17in 2007.
01:18With Mad Max Fury Road director George Miller set to direct, the film had a budget of $200
01:24and had already begun rehearsing with a cast that included Armie Hammer as Batman, Meghan
01:28Gale as Wonder Woman, and the rapper Common as Green Lantern.
01:31Just one problem, they forgot to actually finish writing the script, and before they
01:35could get around to it, the Writers Guild of America went on strike.
01:38By the time the strike ended, the actors had moved on to other projects and the whole film
01:42had to be scrapped.
01:43Whoops!
01:48Newt
01:49In 2008, Pixar announced its slate of films for the coming years, and among them was a
01:53movie called Newt.
01:54The plot?
01:55What happens when the last remaining male and female blue-footed Newts on the planet
01:59are forced together by science to save the species, and they can't stand each other?
02:03It was so far along in production that Pixar animators left little easter eggs referencing
02:07Newt in Toy Story 3, such as the Newt crossing sign on Andy's bedroom door.
02:11But in 2011, Fox Animation Studios released Ryo, which had almost the exact same plot
02:17only with birds instead of lizards, and which had reportedly been in production since around
02:212007, one year before Newt was announced.
02:24Pixar panicked, worried that Newt would be considered a rip-off, and canceled it entirely.
02:28Strange.
02:29They didn't do that with Ants and a Bug's Life.
02:33"...okay, can we stop?
02:35Get me Cindy, I'm a zombie."
02:37Inhumans
02:38It sure looked like Inhumans, which features Marvel characters who are kind of like mutants,
02:42but also kind of from space, would be the next massive on-screen team for Marvel.
02:47Released for a 2018 release, the film seemed to be built up from two entire seasons' worth
02:51of storylines on ABC's Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
02:54But then Inhumans was quietly dropped from the schedule.
02:57Why?
02:58There are a couple of theories.
02:59Because of the disconnect between Marvel's TV efforts and its movie business, Marvel
03:03Studios may not have been happy at having the Inhumans movie's details dictated by a
03:07television show with middling ratings.
03:09Meanwhile, rumor has it that Inhumans was the pet project of Marvel's CEO, Ike Perlmutter.
03:14And when Perlmutter was ousted from his role at Marvel Studios in favor of studio president
03:18Kevin Feige, Feige dumped the film to stick it to his rival and pursue his own vision
03:23instead, namely Captain Marvel.
03:25"...Captain Marvel herself, Brie Larson!"
03:34Although when you think about it, the biggest mistake of all might have been Marvel selling
03:38the X-Men movie rights to Fox way back in the 1990s.
03:40We'd never have had to hear about the Inhumans movie in the first place.
03:45A Revenge of the Nerds remake
03:46In 2006, Fox Atomic began filming a modern-day reboot of the classic 80s college movie series
03:52Revenge of the Nerds at Emory University in Atlanta, and then school officials actually
03:56read the script.
03:57Here's actual footage from when Emory University's president finished looking at the screenplay.
04:03Anyway, after that, the college immediately pulled out of the project.
04:07Even though much of the movie had already been filmed, producers were forced to complete
04:11the movie at tiny Agnes Scott College.
04:13When Fox Atomic honcho Peter Rice saw how rinky-dink the movie looked as a result, he
04:17decided to just scrap the entire thing.
04:19Who made the bigger mistake?
04:21Emory for agreeing to participate in the movie before reading the script, or Fox for actually
04:25caring about production values on Revenge of the Nerds?
04:28"...You know karate?"
04:29"...No."
04:30"...Good."
04:31Two sequels to Terminator Salvation
04:33In 2009, Terminator Salvation earned $371 million worldwide, thanks in part to the star
04:40power of Christian Bale as the time-traveling, robot-killing, humanity-saving John Connor.
04:45Two sequels were planned, except the Halcyon Company, which produced the movie, went bankrupt.
04:49Even with all that revenue, through some kind of financial idiocy, they couldn't pay off
04:53the $39 million they owed the hedge fund Pacificor.
04:57In order to pay their debt, Halcyon auctioned off the rights to Terminator.
05:00The winning bid?
05:01$29.5 million from…
05:03Pacificor!
05:04Nice exit strategy!
05:05"...Come with me if you wanna live."
05:08Dumb and Dumber 2
05:09Here's a real what-if.
05:10Way back in 1998, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone signed a $1.5 million
05:16deal with New Line Cinema to write a prequel to the 1994 hit comedy Dumb and Dumber.
05:21It sounds like a match made in heaven.
05:23"...So you're telling me there's a chance."
05:26So what was the idiot mistake?
05:28Turns out Parker and Stone didn't actually want to do the project in the first place.
05:32They eventually gave the money back, leading New Line to hire other writers for what eventually
05:36turned out to be the universally panned 2003 prequel Dumb and Dumberer, when Harry met
05:41Lloyd.
05:42Hey, I like that movie.
05:43The Adventures of Fartman
05:45Howard Stern first created his superhero alter-ego Fartman back in 1981, and it turned into a
05:50pre-internet meme with a massively popular appearance at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.
05:56"...How'd that ass feel, Luke?"
05:58"...Great ass, great ass, man."
06:00"...Yeah?"
06:01It was such a hit that New Line Cinema started production on a feature film called The Adventures
06:05of Fartman, which screenwriter J.F.
06:07Lawton promised would be just as crude and lewd as you'd expect from a Howard Stern movie.
06:12However, when executives got wind of what Lawton was planning, they asked him to tone
06:15it down and make it a mainstream PG-13 film instead.
06:19Stern immediately quit in protest at the dumb request, and that was the end of Fartman.
06:23"...Fartman!
06:24Oh!"
06:25Oh well.
06:28The Queen-slash-Freddie Mercury biopic
06:30Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was once set to play the legendary lead singer of Queen, Freddie
06:35Mercury, who died in 1991.
06:37It seemed like the perfect fit, since Cohen is not only a big fan, he also bears more
06:41than a passing resemblance to Mercury.
06:43But Cohen backed out of the project when he discovered that the surviving members of Queen
06:47wanted the second half of the film to focus not on Mercury, but on how great the band
06:51has continued to be since his death.
06:53Two more Fletch sequels
06:55Eight years after Chevy Chase last played smug and smarmy reporter I.M.
06:59Fletch in 1989's Fletch Lives, the franchise was set to make a comeback thanks to filmmaker
07:04Kevin Smith.
07:05Smith wanted the film to focus on Fletch's daughter, to be played by his then-girlfriend
07:09Jerry Lauren Adams.
07:10But after Smith and Chase squabbled over a plan to have Chase reprise his role as Fletch,
07:15the entire project was scrapped.
07:16Apparently, Chase had something better to do.
07:18"...Yeah, I was just passing through town and, uh, looking for something to do this
07:22evening.
07:23There was nothing going on at the Rotary Club.
07:24I heard about this."
07:25Not to be deterred, Smith later convinced Miramax to buy the rights to the franchise,
07:28this time for an Origin prequel that would star his buddy Jason Lee, and wouldn't involve
07:32Chase at all.
07:34Miramax didn't think Lee was a big enough star and shut the whole thing down.
07:37Looks like Chase had the last laugh.