Doctor Who Collector

David Hughes’ wonderfully readable The Greatest Sci-fi Movies Never Made is not only a fascinating insight into the machinations of the Hollywood production factory, but a true testament to Sci-fi’s enduring popularity as a film genre among mainstream audiences. It’s amazing how long many of these movies languished in “development hell” and even more amazing how long the people involved hung on, despite the fact that quite often it was perfectly obvious that the project was on its last legs. Movie buffs and Internet users will be familiar with a lot of the tales here which have now practically passed into Hollywood folklore. Using combinations of new interviews and press clippings, quotes and statements Hughes pieces together the development behind some truly major motion pictures which all fell foul of budget constraints, studio nerves or extensive rewrites. And he unearths some real gems about movies that came tantalisingly close to the big screen, only to fail at the last hurdle. There’s James Cameron’s take on Spider Man (now being filmed by Sam Raimi) that was caught up in years of wrangling over who owned the rights; the live action version of Thunderbirds which would have seen Lady Penelope taking on the villainous Hood in a fist fight and Steven Spielberg’s SF horror Night Skies which eventually transformed into ET with a slightly more cuddly alien as its star. Superhero fans will delight in reading about the cheapo version of the Fantastic Four, shot in just under a month, as well as Batman director Tim Burton’ s attempts to get Superman to fly again in the ill-fated Superman Lives. There’s also contributions from Alien designer HR Giger and Harry Knowles, who runs the Aint-It-Cool movie news Web site, and several pages of rare illustrations from aborted SF movies. This is by far the most well-written and absorbing account of Hollywood’s broken dreams and it’s truly heartbreaking to read about some of the fantastic films that were so close to becoming reality. Hughes writes with energy and enthusiasm, resulting in a book that movie buffs and Sci-fi fans cannot afford to miss. –Jonathan Weir –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.