The feature film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's inexplicably best-selling young adult romantic fantasy novel Twilight was initially in development at Paramount Pictures and MTV Films, with Mark Lord first hired to pen the screenplay. Lord originally pitched his take on the material as a vampiric twist on the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, but MTV Films president David Gale requested he turn in a draft that would deviate significantly from the novel, as he feared that an overemphasis on the romantic element would alienate male audiences. Lord's script was more of an action-horror hybrid than the romantic fantasy of the book, with Bella Swan being written as a much more active character, a track star who fights back against the rogue vampires and is turned into a vampire herself at the end of the story. Furthermore, Edward Cullen was more of a Blade-type vampire than he was in the novel, Bella's father Charlie gets killed, a Korean FBI agent-slash-vampire hunter was included as an additional antagonist, and there were several set pieces, including: Bella riding jet skis while being chased by the FBI, and the rogue vampires picking off members of a SWAT team who were sent into a forest after them. Paramount's production co-prexy at the time, Karen Rosenfelt, was so determined to get the film made that she even attempted to forge a co-production deal between the studio and Fox 2000 Pictures. In an interview with MTV Hollywood, Home Alone helmer and Harry Potter veteran Chris Columbus revealed that he took a glance at a script for Twilight very early on during the adaptation process; presumably, he might have been referring to Lord's draft. Had Columbus signed on, no doubt many of his frequent collaborators would've also joined in, including score composer James Horner, costume designer Judianna Makovsky, film editor Richard Pearson, production designer Howard Cummings, cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt, and producing partners Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe. Alas, Columbus was too busy working on other projects, and Meyer's displeasure with the changes made from the source material and a change in management over at Paramount ultimately put the kibosh on this version, with the studio putting it into turnaround and letting the rights expire, which led to Rosenfelt taking the project over to Summit Entertainment, who agreed with Meyer that a much more faithful adaptation of the novel be produced, and the rest — as they say — is history. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" Music: "A Kaleidoscope of Mathematics" – James Horner ft. Charlotte Church (A Beautiful Mind) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7JGTV_WoC4

Said to be one of the greatest films never made is an alien invasion horror-thriller that was to have been produced by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Entitled Night Skies and based on an idea conceived by Spielberg after having recently made Close Encounters of the Third Kind for Columbia Pictures, the film was inspired by the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter, where a family in Kentucky claimed that they had been terrorized by gremlin-like aliens. Spielberg's concept, described as "Straw Dogs with aliens," involved a band of malicious extraterrestrial scientists trying to communicate with chickens, cows, and other livestock in an attempt to discover which of Earth's animal species are sentient, before turning their unwelcome attentions to a human family and dissecting their farm animals. Piranha scribe John Sayles was hired to pen the screenplay, which included a subplot involving one of the aliens — the only kind and innocent one — befriending the human family's autistic son. Spielberg also enlisted Rick Baker to design and create the special make-up and creature effects for the aliens and tapped The Texas Chain Saw Massacre helmer Tobe Hooper to direct the film. However, after making Raiders of the Lost Ark for Lucasfilm and Paramount Pictures, Spielberg began having second thoughts about the project, wanting to instead get back to the tranquillity and spirituality of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. After the film was cancelled, the material developed was instead utilized in two other Spielberg productions: the Hooper-directed Poltergeist, and the Spielberg-directed E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" Music: "Main Title" – Jerry Goldsmith (Psycho II) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGea90uBvcU