10 Unmade Steven Spielberg Movies That Would Have Been Great

In a career reaching back to the 1960s, Steven Spielberg has made a string of classics, but the projects that didn’t materialize are just as interesting. Ultimately, it’s hard to look back on Spielberg’s glittering career so far and suggest that he should have done anything differently. Still, it’s a shame to see some of the exciting projects that fell through, and fans can only imagine how they would have looked.

Steven Spielberg’s best movies include Jurassic Park, Jaws and the Indiana Jones franchise. Had things played out differently, he might have some other classics to his name. Spielberg has worked in a variety of genres, and he has always shown a willingness to experiment with new ideas. Some of the most interesting movies he almost made include sci-fi thrillers, animated video game adaptations, and biopics about historical figures.

10 Superman

Spielberg Almost Directed Christopher Reeve’s First Outing As Superman

Shortly after the massive success of Jaws in 1975, Steven Spielberg was a man in demand in Hollywood. Producers Ilya Salkind and his father Alexander purchased the rights to make a Superman movie from DC comics, and they next needed to find a top-class director and the perfect actor for the lead role. Spielberg was one of the names being considered, but he chose to direct Close Encounters of the Third Kind instead before negotiations became too serious.

Spielberg’s Superman could have turned out differently to Richard Donner’s version. While Spielberg has shown over the years that he has a flair for splashy action sequences and spectacular sci-fi imagery, he has never directed a superhero movie. He also might have swayed Ilya and Alexander Salkind to choose another Superman from their shortlist. Christopher Reeve turned out to be a hugely popular casting choice, but the producers considered Al Pacino, Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen and even Muhammad Ali too.

9 James Bond

Spielberg Was Interested In Two Bond Movies

Another project Steven Spielberg considered after Jaws was The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore’s third outing as James Bond. Spielberg asked legendary Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli to be considered, but Broccoli chose Lewis Gilbert for the job instead. Not to be dismayed, Spielberg once again threw his hat in the ring for the next Bond movie two years later, Moonraker. Again, Broccoli stuck with Gilbert.

After being turned down twice in quick succession, Steven Spielberg reportedly lost interest in directing a Bond movie. Of course, Spielberg developed his own iconic action movie hero shortly afterward, as Raiders of the Lost Ark came out in 1981. Now that Bond 26 is searching for a director, Spielberg is firmly out of the running, but fans will always wonder what ideas he might have had for 007.

8 Montezuma

Spielberg Tried To Make A Movie And Then A TV Show About Hernán Cortés

In 1965, legendary Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo completed a script titled Montezuma, which examines the 16th century conflict between Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés and Aztec leader Moctezuma II. Almost 50 years later, Spielberg became interested in directing the script, edited by Schindler’s List writer Steven Zaillian. Javier Bardem was attached to star as Cortés.

Many of Javier Bardem’s best movies showcase his intimidating presence as a villain, and it’s possible that the project would have interpreted Cortés as a bloodthirsty colonizer. The movie morphed into a four-part TV miniseries, which was picked up by Amazon, but production was halted after just a couple of weeks in 2020 after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Martin Scorsese also tried and failed to get a TV series about Hernán Cortés off the ground.

7 Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn?

Steven Spielberg And Ryan Murphy Nearly Teamed Up

American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy claims that he sold a script to Steven Spielberg in the 1990s called Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn? The movie was set to follow a woman with the Breakfast at Tiffany’s star who is jilted on her wedding day before meeting a man who shares her passion. Spielberg ended up being too busy in the 1990s to find time for the project, and it was shelved.

Spielberg was clearly interested in honoring Audrey Hepburn’s legacy after directing her final movie, 1989’s Always. She passed away in 1993. Based on the details revealed by Murphy, it’s hard to imagine how the movie would have looked. It sounds like it could be a romantic comedy, but Murphy’s horror background and theme of obsession suggest that it could also have been a psychological thriller. Sadly, it seems as though this project won’t be revived.

6 Lindbergh

Spielberg Briefly Developed A Biopic On The Famous Aviator

Most people who have heard of Charles Lindbergh know two things about the man. The first is that he was a famous pilot, the first to make a non-stop journey from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis. The second detail is that his infant son was kidnapped in the 1930s, leading to one of the biggest media circuses in American history. His life provides ample material for a great biopic, and Steven Spielberg bought the rights in 1998.

While developing the project, Spielberg couldn’t find a way to reckon with Lindbergh’s antisemitic views and his Nazi sympathizing tendencies. Spielberg ultimately decided that a biopic would celebrate the life of its subject, and this was something he had no intention of doing. Lindbergh’s life is an incredible story, with many interesting threads that are largely unknown today, but he also had some abhorrent views which mean a big-screen biopic may never materialize.

5 The Curse Of Monkey Island

Spielberg’s Video Game Adaptation Never Panned Out

Steven Spielberg eventually directed his first animated movie in 2011 with The Adventures of Tintin, but this wasn’t his first attempt to break into animation. In 2000, Spielberg was set to direct, produce and co-write a movie based on the video game Monkey Island, with Shrek screenwriter Ted Elliott. George Lucas originally developed Monkey Island, and he seemed keen for his friend to take on directing duties for the movie adaptation.

The Monkey Island series follows an inept adventurer named Guybrush Threepwood as he battles supernatural enemies and tries to become the most feared pirate in the Caribbean. Spielberg has tried to make several pirate movies over the years. He directed Hook, but he was almost involved in Pirates of the Caribbean and an adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel Pirate Latitudes.

4 Night Skies

Night Skies Would Have Been A Much Scarier E.T.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a huge success for Columbia Pictures, but Steven Spielberg had no intention of making a sequel. Instead, he began developing a spiritual sequel of sorts, called Night Skies. Spielberg envisioned Night Skies as a sci-fi horror movie about a group of aliens who come to Earth and start terrorizing a family living in a rural area of America. Spielberg was inspired by the notorious Kelly-Hopkinsville alien sightings which took place in Kentucky in 1955.

A story based on the Kelly-Hopkinsville has the potential to be a great sci-fi horror movie, combining the alien invasion genre with home invasion movies. Although the project didn’t come together in the end, Spielberg used ideas from the script to develop E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, as well as Poltergeist and Gremlins which he handed off to other directors. Steven Spielberg is returning to the sci-fi genre for another original UFO movie soon. Hopefully this project stays on track.

3 The Ninth Man

Spielberg Wanted To Make His First War Movie In The 1970s

Steven Spielberg has held a fascination with the history of the Second World War for decades. Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List are two of the best movies set during the conflict, and he also produced the acclaimed TV miniseries Band of Brothers, The Pacific and Masters of the Air. He nearly made his first World War II movie in the 1970s, adapting John Lee’s thriller novel The Ninth Man.

The Ninth Man is based on the true story of Operation Pastorius, a failed Nazi plot to deliver saboteurs to the United States by submarine. Ultimately, eight men were captured by Americans, four in New York and four in Florida. The Ninth Man imagines an extra saboteur who evaded capture and managed to assimilate into American society. Tár director Todd Field also tried to adapt The Ninth Man for the big screen decades after Spielberg, but both men eventually abandoned the idea.

2 The Catcher In The Rye

Spielberg Isn’t The Only Filmmaker Who Has Tried To Adapt Salinger’s Novel

The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most popular and important books in the history of American literature, but it has never been made into a movie. The reason for this is usually attributed to J. D. Salinger’s distaste for My Foolish Heart, a 1949 movie based on his short story “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut.” After this flop, Salinger never allowed filmmakers near his work again, although many tried.

Steven Spielberg tried to acquire the rights to make The Catcher in the Rye into a movie in the early 2000s, but Salinger refused to grant him permission. Spielberg became the latest in a long line of famous filmmakers who have tried and failed to adapt the novel for the big screen. Billy Wilder, Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Elia Kazan have also been unsuccessful. Disney almost made an animated version replacing the characters with cartoon dogs to get around the copyright laws, but this never panned out either.

1 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Biopic

The Rights To King’s Life Story Have Been Disputed

Steven Spielberg announced that he was working on a movie about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 2009. He didn’t want to call it a biopic at the time, preferring to describe it as “a story of King and the movement and also about how his admiration for Mahatma Gandhi helped to shape his moral core.” The rights were disputed for a while, meaning that the project was put on hold, but Spielberg emerged from the legal battle ready to press ahead.

Ultimately, Spielberg’s movie about King fizzled out. It’s possible that he could revive the project in the future, but it has been about a decade without any concrete updates. Anthony Mackie, Jeffrey Wright and David Oyelowo have all played King in movies, and casting the lead role would surely prove to be the first big challenge for Spielberg to contend with. King’s life has been mythologized ever since his death, meaning that a thoughtful biopic could set the record straight.