In the spring of 2018, it was announced that acclaimed director Ava DuVernay would be helming a film based on the DC comic book series New Gods for Warner Bros. Pictures, intended to serve as an installment in the DC Extended Universe. The initial script was penned by DuVernay alongside Chasing Mavericks scribe Kario Salem, with rewrites by DuVernay in collaboration with famed comic book writer Tom King. The plan was for Darkseid to serve as the film's primary villain, with Granny Goodness and the Female Furies as secondary threats. Characters such as Mister Miracle, Big Barda, and Highfather would also appear in the film. However, after several years of development, Warner Bros. unceremoniously cancelled the project in the spring of 2021, citing Darkseid's appearance in the recently released Zack Snyder's Justice League, wanting time to pass before the character appeared in a film again, despite that film being non-canon to the DCEU. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" Music: "Life" – Ramin Djawadi (Eternals) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGOK9PXzkEo

Before it was retooled into a micro-budget $5 million horror film for the Blumhouse library, a live-action feature film adaptation of the classic Hasbro board game Ouija had been in development at Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes as a four-quadrant supernatural fantasy adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones, Jumanji, The Mummy, and Pirates of the Caribbean, with certain rules of the game — i.e. never use it alone, never use it in a graveyard, and always say goodbye — figuring into the plot. Elf and The Haunted Mansion scribe David Berenbaum was initially hired to write the script, which would later be retooled by the Tron: Legacy duo of Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. Charlie's Angels helmer McG was hired to direct, having beaten out the likes of Breck Eisner, Pierre Morel, John Moore, Scott Stewart, and Sylvain White for the job. No doubt some of McG's frequent collaborators would've also joined in, including production designer Martin Laing and cinematographer Shane Hurlbut. When Kitsis and Horowitz were too busy with their commitments to ABC's Once Upon a Time, Evan Spiliotopoulos was brought on to rewrite their draft. Further revisions were provided by X-Men: The Last Stand and Mr. & Mrs. Smith scribe Simon Kinberg, who had previously worked with McG on the romantic action comedy This Means War. Kinberg's draft would've cost $125 million to produce; this didn't sit well with the higher-ups at Universal Pictures, which led to the studio abandoning this incarnation in the summer of 2012. The producers then had talks with Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox about tackling the film, as the former had established relationships with Bay and Hasbro and the latter had established relationships with McG and Kinberg. Buffy the Vampire Slayer veteran Marti Noxon was also brought on for further rewrites in order to scale the budget down, increase the horror elements, and make the story more intimate. Alas, a big-budget blockbuster take on the property was ultimately not meant to be. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" Music: "Runner Runner" – Christophe Beck (Runner Runner) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btcPI_cCy2o