In 2003, it was announced that visionary filmmaker Christopher Nolan would be directing an adaptation of the Doug Miers comic book The Exec for Warner Bros. Pictures, with his younger brother Jonathan Nolan tasked with penning the screenplay. Presumably, the elder Nolan would take his own pass at the script afterwards, much like he did with The Prestige, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, and Interstellar. Set in the near-future, the comic book concerns Jack Pierce, a hotshot executive-slash-executioner who begins his last day of work much like any other: with a skirmish in the outer office, a bloodbath in the boardroom, and then a break for lunch. The story looks at a society where corporations govern and business is waged like warfare, where executives are above the law and important decisions are accompanied by the sounds of gunfire and explosions, where the level of income literally determines whether one is regarded as a predator or the prey. No doubt many of Nolan's frequent collaborators would've also joined in, including score composer David Julyan, film editor Lee Smith, production designer Nathan Crowley, and cinematographer Wally Pfister. Nolan and his wife Emma Thomas would also serve as producers through their Syncopy banner, alongside Heyday Films' David Heyman and Weed Road Pictures' Akiva Goldsman. It was to be Nolan's follow-up to Batman Begins, but ultimately, with Nolan being busy with other projects such as The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and planned but scrapped film adaptations of The Prisoner and For Whom the Bell Tolls, the project came and went, and Miers would tragically pass away in 2005. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?" Music: "Beware the Harbinger" – David Julyan (The Cabin in the Woods) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81gfn-MBUGg

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