As insane and strange as the idea of an alternate universe where Ridley Scott's I Am Legend, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was made, when you see films like the mess that is Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead, which is a contemporary film when this review is being written; you might say, "Oh, these did have a chance of being made." This book is filled with possible, very possible, crazy casting and crazy director choices for 50 films that just couldn't do whatever Zack Snyder does to get his movies made.
by
Josh Hull
(Author),
PosterSpy
(Illustrator)
$26.99
Out Now
As, I wrote in my preview of the book, when I was just getting
a taste for it. I thought of it as getting a cinephile chocolate cake. Instead, it was a book of bite-sized
un-made movie lore, like chocolate cupcakes. The reason that it's not cake, is the book breaks down each strange movie like John Carpenter's Shadow Company, about zombie soldiers destroying a town in a Quicken Sheet, pref-orated way. Easy to take bites of, but not like cutting a slice out for each chapter.
Josh Hull, the author, first gives you details on the director or writer and their previous work. Like, what John Carpenter was up to at the time and where he was in his career. Then he goes into the details about the idea of the movie; a bunch of our guys from Vietnam come back as murderous corpses and their old leader, Kurt Russel has to stop them from destroying a small mid-west town. Then Josh clacks the clapperboard
and literally puts ,"CUT!" in the book. You find out why the film
couldn't get made. In Shadow Company's case, it was a little too early for any studio to to do a movie reminding everyone how bad Vietnam went and having our own soldiers slaughter a town. Some people might have seen it... in a bad light.
Some films get a lot more love. You get a longer description of what went wrong and back story on director or writer who wanted it made. Sometimes, Josh can only put "creative differences." Sometimes we found out it just was someone talking big. In any case, these movies just couldn't come out.
What I really got from the book was a reminder that I haven't seen everything. I've marked page after page with sticky notes on films I should check out or work from a director I might have missed. There's one film, Jerry Lewis' The Day The Clown Cried that won't get released until 2024 by The Library of Congress and other weird cinephile tidbits too that are like the sprinkles.
Sure, there's some films in here you wish came out like Alien 5 from Neill Blomkamp, which would have taken place after Aliens and set up Ripley in an alien mech suit. Or Guillermo Del Toro's At The Mountains of Madness, where Tom Cruise would battle Cthulhu.
And we get another layer for our cupcakes with never-made movie
posters from the art collective PosterSpy for each film. It's nice to have a visual for each film in the book.
For and movie fan whose hungry for more than Hostess and wants some special bakery strange un-made movie lore box of cupcakes it's perfect to go through a find out why they just didn't make another Ninja Turtles movie after the third one.
Book provided by publisher for review purposes.
As, I wrote in my preview of the book, when I was just getting 
