For every classic that flickers across the silver screen, there are dozens of films that never made it out of the shadows. UnReel: The History of Films Never Made is a deep dive into cinema’s most fascinating failures — a tour of unrealized masterpieces, cursed productions, and lost dreams that vanished before a single frame was shot.
This book prsents a behind-the-scenes autopsy of some of the most legendary films that were once greenlit, cast, scripted, storyboarded… and then abandoned. 
snd exposes the truth behind Hollywood’s most heartbreaking "almosts":
Included in the analyses are films such as:
 
Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon – shelved by MGM after Waterloo bombed, leaving behind thousands of index cards and what could’ve been the definitive historical epic.
Tim Burton’s Superman Lives – a gothic reimagining with Nicolas Cage in the cape, undone by ballooning costs and a studio unsure whether the world was ready for a weepy Superman and a robotic spider.
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune – a messianic sci-fi opera with Salvador Dalí, Pink Floyd, and a 14-hour runtime — too weird, too long, and too expensive to live.
Guillermo del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness – smothered by a studio unwilling to fund R-rated cosmic horror in an age of PG-13 box office math.
Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis – a utopian, post-apocalyptic epic that fell apart under the weight of 9/11, studio nerves, and Coppola’s own sprawling vision (until decades later… perhaps).
David Lynch’s Ronnie Rocket — a surreal detective story about electricity, dwarves, and metaphysics that terrified financiers.
Guillermo del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness — a cosmic horror epic stopped cold by budget fears and an R rating.
The Unmaking of Marilyn — a fictional noir following a down-and-out 1950s director trying to shoot the last days of Marilyn Monroe through drug-fueled madness and studio sabotage.
The Silver Prophet – a Cold War biblical epic in which Moses leads a rebellion inside the Soviet Union, axed by censors who thought it was “too political” and “not biblical enough.”
The Last Broadcast of Johnny Dagger – a psychedelic thriller about a rock star who hijacks a pirate radio signal to expose a global conspiracy — shelved due to "moral panic" over its soundtrack.
Kubla Khan – a surreal, opium-soaked odyssey envisioned by an eccentric filmmaker who vanished in the Himalayas before the first day of shooting.
Toy Soldiers – an existential war film told through battle-worn plastic soldiers, cancelled after test audiences were left “deeply unsettled.”
 
Why did they fail? Some were too ambitious. Some were killed by risk-averse studios. Some crumbled under creative differences, rising costs, casting chaos, or bad timing. Many were victims of the industry’s oldest enemy: fear. Fear of failure, fear of innovation, fear that audiences wouldn’t understand.