10+ Movies That Were Completed But Never Released

Hollywood movies can be very expensive to produce, so most of the time they get released.

Notice how I said, “most” of the time. There are some movies that go through all the motions of getting made and then never come out.

These, dear readers, are those movies.

1. ‘Hippie Hippie Shake’

Nobody really knows why this movie about the obscenity trial against the counterculture magazine Oz back in the ’60s died, but we do know that the director and writer both quit in post-production.

2. ‘Unlawful Killing’

This movie about the conspiracy behind the death of Princess Diana was bureaucracied to death.

The U.K. government demanded 87 cuts to the movie before it could be shown, so they didn’t bother.

3. ‘Glitterati’

There was a scene in The Rules Of Attraction where Kip Pardue is going through Europe in a big montage.

That montage was actually 70 hours of footage that director Roger Avary wanted to turn into a film.

The problem? The “actors” didn’t know they were taking part in a movie.

4. ‘The Day the Clown Cried’

This was a movie starring Jerry Lewis about a clown in a German concentration camp who led a group of children to their deaths.

Jerry Lewis worked hard to suppress the movie.

5. ‘Uncle Tom’s Fairy Tales: The Movie for Homosexuals’

This movie was destroyed when Richard Pryor’s wife tore it up after he screened it at his house.

Apparently, it was about a white man who is captured by the Black Panthers and is tried for A) raping a young African American Girl and B) all the crimes in history.

6. ‘The Last Film Festival’

This movie died because it ran out of money.

Since Dennis Hopper passed away, director Linda Yellen has been desperately trying to drum up some cash for this thing…to no avail.

7. ‘Empires Of The Deep’

The entire country of China was behind this “epic” (using the word charitably) and it had the biggest budget in Chinese history and went through about 8 screenwriters before being shelved.

Wah-wah.

8. ‘Fantastic Four’

There are some movies that are just made because the people who own the rights are about to lose them, and that’s the case with this old Fantastic Four movie.

It was German producer Bernd Eichinger who had the rights…

And he hired Roger Corman to make the movie, on a budget of $1 million.

Trailers for the movie were actually shown at Comic-Con, and yet the movie was never released.

9. ‘Dark Blood’

It was River Pheonix’s death on set that caused this film to not get released.

Joaquin Phoenix refused to dub his late brother’s part and the whole family wanted nothing to do with the movie.

For years, the film went unreleased.

Until 2012, when the director showed the film at a couple of film festivals, with himself narrating the parts of the movie that were unfinished.

It sounds like a real blast.

10. ‘Don’s Plum’

This is a story and a half.

Back in the 90s, Leo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and some other teenage heartthrobs were part of a group called “The [P-Word] Posse”. They… well, they hunted [p-word].

So this [p-word] posse made a movie together.

However, the movie was so offensive that Leo and Tobey, amongst others, lobbied to have it never shown.

Luckily, if you e-mail the director at freedonsplum.com he will send you a link and you can watch it.

Trust me: it works!

11. ‘[C-Word]Sucker Blues’

This movie is actually a documentary about the Rolling Stones and their 1972 tour of the US, the first one since Altamont.

It features heroin, sex and a lot of debaucheries… so of course, it was never released.

12. ‘My Best Friend’s Birthday’

This 1987 short film was done by a little known director named… how do you spell this… I believe it’s “Quentin Tarantino?”

Anyways, strange name aside, he did this movie back in the 80s…

About a guy who wants to do something nice for his friend’s birthday.

Only for disastrous (and hilarious) results to ensue. He shot it on a budget of $5,000, but most of it was destroyed in a fire.

The 30 minutes that remained can be seen here:

13. ‘Black Water Transit’

The reason this movie has never seen the light of day is because of litigation. Lawsuit after lawsuit has kept this movie at bay (the most recent being in 2016).

Doesn’t look like we’ll be watching it any time soon.

14. ‘The Brave’

This was the only movie ever directed by Johnny Depp.

It was about a Native American man named Raphael and his family, desperately struggling with poverty and the world around them.

So why have we never seen it?

Well, Johnny Depp himself was so disgusted by how the American Press received his movie (calling him out for having his name all over the credits), he forbade its release in the US.

15. ‘All American Massacre’

This was a Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel that was done by the son of the original director, William Hooper.

However, it lost funding and it’s been lost ever since. Check out the trailer!

16. ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’

This movie had a weird premise. It was produced by Lorne Michaels, written by Saturday Night Live writer Tom Schiller, and starred Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd.

It also starred that kid who played Billy in Gremlins .

So here’s the premise:

We start in a dystopian New York, where a totalitarian government has taken over.

Billy from Gremlins dreams of one day becoming an artist, but you know, totalitarian governments tend to look down on that sort of thing.

One day, he finds out there are magical hobos living in the sewers that can grant his wish…

But first, he has to go to the moon in a bus driven by Bill Murray and charm one of the moon people.

Yeah… This movie was never really screened and kind of just floats around in bootleg copies today.

17. ‘The Star Wars Holiday Special’

Yes, technically it was shown on television like once, and you can probably get a bootleg copy somewhere, but this movie does not have an official release date.

So it counts.

18. ‘Bill Cosby: 77’

This special was supposed to be released on Netflix and was supposed to be about everything that happened to Bill Cosby on his 77th birthday…

But then… the controversy broke. And the project was… let’s say “Shelved.”

19. ‘Frat House’

Before he was the king of comedy in Hollywood, Todd Phillips was making this documentary for HBO.

It was supposed to be about the horrific acts of one Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.

However, once the movie was screened…

People were accusing Todd Phillips and his co-director, Andrew Gurland, of the vicious crime of staging some events.

And even though it won some awards at Sundance, the movie was shelved by HBO.

20. ‘I Love You, Daddy’

Much like the Cosby controversy, this movie was supposed to be released a week after all that stuff about Louis C.K. dropped.

Once it did, the movie was canceled and has never officially been released.

21. ‘Spring Break ’83’

This movie was canceled simply because the people who were filming it weren’t actually paying anyone.

Although more footage was shot, the film still has yet to be released…probably to avoid legal trouble.

22. ’10 Things I Hate About Life’

This was supposed to be a movie about two people who fall in love… right before they are about to kill themselves.

As strange as that is, what’s stranger is the movie was canceled for “undisclosed reasons.’

23. ‘Atrapados’

When this movie first made the film festival circuit back in 1981, it got great reviews.

But then it just never received funding for distribution. So, not a lot of people have seen it.

24. ‘Livid’

So the Weinstein company actually bought the rights to this french film in order to remake it in the U.S, so the original was never released.

Obviously the Weinsteins aren’t going to be doing much in movies anymore, though.