Sometime in the 2000's, it was reported that an original fantasy comedy entitled Wish List was in development at Walt Disney Pictures, with the screenplay penned by Mrs. Doubtfire scribe Randi Mayem Singer concerning an ambitious career-driven man who lost his inner child at the age of ten, due to the ten wishes he made back then never coming true. It turns out that the coin upon which he wished got stuck in the wishing well and never reached the bottom. When the coin suddenly becomes dislodged, floating to the bottom of the pool, the uptight professional must deal with all ten of his childhood wishes coming true, all at the same time. The film initially had Andy Fickman sitting in the director's chair, in what would've been his fourth film for Disney after The Game Plan, Race to Witch Mountain, and You Again, with Mayhem Pictures' Gordon Gray and Mark Ciardi producing. In 2011, it was announced that Kung Fu Panda writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger would be providing a rewrite, specifically retooling script for Academy Award-winning actress Reese Witherspoon, who would star in the film. Furthermore, Fickman would remain onboard mainly as a producer through his Oops Doughnuts Productions shingle. In April of 2012, veteran comedy writer Paul Feig was hired to direct, fresh off of the critical and commercial success of Bridesmaids, with filming scheduled to begin later that year as Disney was eyeing a release sometime in 2013. No doubt many of Feig's frequent collaborators would've also joined in, including score composer Theodore Shapiro, music supervisor Erica Weis, costume designer Renée Ehrlich Kalfus, film editors Brent White and Melissa Bretherton, production designer Jefferson Sage, and cinematographer Robert Yeoman. However, no further news ever came of the project, with Feig instead moving on to helm action comedies such as The Heat and Spy for 20th Century Fox. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" Music: "Time & Life" – Theodore Shapiro (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLPbv6aRrA8

For purely experimental purposes, I took the trailer for Chris McKay's upcoming Renfield and converted it to black and white to see how it would look given that it's a new take on the classic Universal Monsters, and the classic Universal Monsters films were photographed in black and white. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLQJO2HmUSs

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

In the summer of 2006, it was announced that DreamWorks Pictures had tapped Arlington Road and The Ring screenwriter Ehren Kruger to pen the script for a thriller entitled Nightlife, based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Perry, whose story follows a female serial killer who changes her identity every time she commits a murder. Hot on her trail is a female police detective, and by the end, the two women grow close both in proximity and in identity. Attached to produce the film were Neal H. Moritz and Toby Jaffe through their Original Film shingle and Transformers scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who would later collaborate with Kruger on the screenplay for that film's sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Alas, no further news ever came of the project. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" Music: "Shadow of a Doubt" – Brian Tyler (Law Abiding Citizen) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN6esE_M_74