In the spring of 2011, it was announced that visionary filmmaker Robert Zemeckis would be developing a live-action/CGI-hybrid film adaptation of the Chuck Sambuchino humor book How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack: Defend Yourself When the Lawn Warriors Strike (and They Will), a tongue-in-cheek survival guide to help garden gnome-owners prepare for and ward off an imminent invasion from the menacing lawn statues. The project was set up at Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation, intended to be the latter's first adult-themed film, complete with an edgy tone and a PG-13 rating. Two years later, Chad Damiani and J.P. Lavin would adapt the screenplay for Zemeckis to produce — through his ImageMovers banner alongside production partners Jacqueline Levine, Jack Rapke and Steve Starkey — and potentially direct. No doubt many of Zemeckis' frequent collaborators would've also joined in, including casting directors Victoria Burrows and Scot Boland, score composer Alan Silvestri, costume designer Joanna Johnston, visual effects supervisor Kevin Baillie, film editor Jeremiah O'Driscoll, production designer Rick Carter, and cinematographer Don Burgess. Alas, no further news came of the project since then. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" Music: "Travel Delays" – Alan Silvestri (Avengers: Infinity War) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXuvHNJoG5E

In the early-to-mid-2000's, it was announced that Warner Bros. Pictures had acquired the rights from Universal Pictures and the estate of author Ernest Hemingway to develop a new feature film adaptation of Hemingway's acclaimed novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is set during the Spanish Civil War and tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American man in the International Brigades who is attached to an anti-fascist guerilla unit in the mountains. There, he finds a reason to live when he falls in love with a beautiful refugee named Maria, and that life-changing event comes just as he's tapped for a potential suicide mission. David Benioff was hired to write the screenplay, having impressed Warner Bros. with his work on the Illiad adaptation Troy as well as his passion for the source material. Benioff would also serve as an executive producer on the project, to be produced by Nick Wechsler of Industry Entertainment. In the spring of 2005, it was reported that Leonardo DiCaprio was keenly interested in playing the role of Jordan but won't commit to the film without a director. Warner Bros. was in talks with visionary filmmaker Christopher Nolan to take on helming duties, having previously offered him the opportunity to direct Benioff's script for Troy, which he turned down. Had Nolan came aboard, no doubt he and Emma Thomas would also serve as producers through their Syncopy banner, and that many of his frequent collaborators would've also joined in, including score composer Hans Zimmer, costume designer Jeffrey Kurland, film editor Lee Smith, production designer Nathan Crowley, and cinematographer Wally Pfister. Alas, this adaptation of Hemingway's book would ultimately never come to be. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" Music: "On Stranger Tides" – Hans Zimmer (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06337_Y-Uok

A second remake of the classic 1950's sci-fi horror film The Blob has been in varying stages of development for over twenty years, with numerous writers, producers, directors, and stars — including Jon Peters, Scott Rudin, Joe Ballarini, Chad and Carey W. Hayes, Scott Kosar, James Wan, Simon West, Samuel L. Jackson, and Halle Berry — coming and going on the project. One of the great what-ifs of the development process was a version that was to have been written and directed by acclaimed rock musician and divisive neo-grindhouse horror auteur Rob Zombie, which would've taken a much darker and more radically different approach with the material. As opposed to a gelatinous alien lifeform engulfing everything it touches, Zombie's take would've been more along the lines of a zombie film, with the titular blob possessing the people that it consumes and mutating them. Zombie would also produce the project alongside frequent production partner Andy Gould, The Genre Company's Richard Saperstein and Brian Witten, and the original film's producer Jack H. Harris. No doubt Zombie would also serve as music supervisor and bring on many of his frequent collaborators, including score composer Tyler Bates, costume designer Mary E. McLeod, special make-up effects designer Wayne Toth, film editor Glenn Garland, cinematographer Brandon Trost, and cast members Richard Brake, Ken Foree, William Forsythe, Meg Foster, Sid Haig, Clint Howard, Udo Kier, Bill Moseley, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Daniel Roebuck, Danny Trejo, Dee Wallace, and Sheri Moon Zombie. Filming was set to begin in the spring of 2010 on a production budget of $30 million, which would've made it Zombie's most expensive film. However, Zombie was apprehensive about directing another remake from the start, having previously helmed the poorly received Halloween reboot duology for the now-disgraced Bob and Harvey Weinstein's Dimension Films, and he eventually walked away from the project: "I didn't feel good about the situation and I just walked away from it. My gut told me this was not a good place to be." Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" Music: "Maxine Meets Pearl" – Tyler Bates and Chelsea Wolfe (X) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aztFJs3VUwA

The high-concept sci-fi thriller Gemini Man had been in varying stages of development since the late 1990's, when the original western-influenced screenplay by Darren Lemke was first set up at Disney's Touchstone Pictures with visionary action filmmaker Tony Scott directing, Don Murphy and Jane Hamsher producing, and Harrison Ford and Chris O'Donnell considered to star as the main character and his younger clone, respectively. Over the years, Lemke's script would undergo various rewrites by the likes of Brian Helgeland, Jonathan Hensleigh, Andrew Niccol, Billy Ray, and the team of Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson, turning it much more of a contemporary action film. The closest the project ever came to getting off the ground at Disney was in the late 2000's when it was reported that the late great Curtis Hanson would be helming the project from the latest draft of the script at the time, which was penned by future Game of Thrones veteran David Benioff, with blockbuster action producer Jerry Bruckheimer also joining as the new main producer through his self-named production company. Hanson and his production partner Carol Fenelon would also serve as producers — alongside Bruckheimer and Scott — through their Deuce Three shingle, with Benioff and Murphy serving as executive producers alongside Michael Fottrell, Chad Oman, Mike Stenson, and Barry Waldman. After the idea of casting Ford and O'Connell was nixed, Disney and the producers toyed with the idea of an actor playing both roles through the use of extensive visual effects, even going so far as to develop a series of tests to create complex effects involving the creation of a younger computer-generated clone of whatever actor they desired as the lead. With the recent release of the multiple Oscar-winning The Curious Case of the Benjamin Button, it seemed like the impossible could finally be made possible. Nicolas Cage was said to be attached to the project around this time, but just when it was about to go into production, Cage convinced Bruckheimer and Disney to instead produce The Sorcerer's Apprentice. As if that wasn't enough, the technology still wasn't advanced enough to accomplish the kind of effects they were looking for. Ultimately, the film never materialized at the studio, and would eventually be acquired by Paramount Pictures and Skydance Media sometime in 2016, with Ang Lee hired to direct the following year. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X22EHxEswo