History Main / DevelopmentHell

* ''The Captal's Tower'', third book in MelanieRawn's ''Exiles Trilogy'', is still nowhere to be seen 13 years after the release of the second book.

** The Hellgate Series, cowritten with Linda Evans, ended the second book on a cliffhanger and there's no sign from the publisher or the authors that a third book will ever come out.

* Go to the YKTTW and you likely see unfinished tropes that have been there for MONTHS.
** Which is why we have the YKTTWBump handy to keep developing {{trope}} concepts alive.

* The DisneyChannel series JONAS suffered from this. The original plan was to launch the vehicle for TheJonasBrothers with the band serving as a front for a group of secret agents (think a WesternAnimation/KimPossible meets HannahMontana hybrid) with the name standing for "'''J'''unior '''O'''peratives '''N'''etworking '''A'''s '''S'''pies). For whatever reasoning, that didn't fly, resulting in ReTool after ReTool, ultimately culminating in a standard, run of the mill sitcom (albeit sans LaughTrack). Then after a botched launch on Saturdays where ''Series/ICarly'' cleaned its clock, it went through yet another retool after the first season, and with the Jonas Brothers fading among teenagers, turned into an unexpectedly depressing soapish dramedy in the second season, renamed, JONAS LA, (yes, it's in ALLCAPS). JONAS LA was canceled, because of predictably low ratings.

** However, 2013 did bring a revival on TheComedyNetwork in Canada, with comedian Darrin Rose hosting.

* Devil's Due Publishing has been putting off publishing ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'' comics, including the third and final issue of ''HalloweenTheFirstDeathOfLaurieStrode'' and the miniseries ''The Mark of Thorn'' (which had at least a dozen covers revealed) over and over again for somewhat vague reasons.

** Gaiman also mentioned in interviews that he was planning to do a {{Batman}} story illustrated by painter SteveBisley, which was to be titled "''Night Circus''". This was in about 1992, and the story is still yet to appear.

[[folder: Other]]
* U.S. Route 31 has sloooooowly been in the process of conversion to freeway from South Bend, Indiana to just east of Benton Harbor, Michigan. A leg on the west side of Niles, Michigan was opened in 1992 as a divided highway without exits but later upgraded. The next-to-last stretch was completed in 2003, but halted just a couple miles shy of an obvious hookup into the existing I-94/I-196 exit, due to a creek in the freeway's path being the habitat for a rare species of butterfly. For over a decade now, plans have been bandied about to fill in that last gap.
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** ''Shadow Rising'' has been put on hold in favor of another film project, ''Robotech: Love Live Alive'', which will be released on DVD with the special edition reissue of ''Shadow Chronicles'' in July 2013. ''Love Live Alive'' will be taking the 50-minute OVA ''Anime/GenesisClimberMospeada: Love Live Alive'' and adding 40 minutes of new bridging material written and conceived by the late Carl Macek to create a full-length feature designed as a direct lead-in to ''Shadow Rising''.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'': Due to Tokyopop's losing the license to the series, only two volumes of the manga version were released, with all further stuck in development hell. Ditto with ''[[GreatTeacherOnizuka Shonan Junai Gumi]]''.
** It's no better in Japan, where after five volumes it just ''stopped''. (Word has it they plan to go back to it after the manga of ''358/2 Days'' finishes.)

* An {{Appleseed}} television series titled "Appleseed: Genesis" was first announced in 2005 and languished in Development Hell until it was officially canceled in 2008, resulting in several lawsuits. A new series titled "Appleseed XIII" has been slated for a 2011 release.

** A pilot was taped for GSN on June 16, 2012. The revival finally started in September.

* ''Truckers'': Creator/DreamWorks was supposed to do an adaptation of Creator/TerryPratchett's book with Academy Award winning writer Simon Beaufoy writing the script and a set release date of 2012. The talks of making the film seemed to die down once the script was completed and Creator/DreamWorks and Beaufoy have since moved on.
** Similarly, Creator/DreamWorks purchased the rights to make a film adaption of the comic strip PearlsBeforeSwine in 2006, shortly before they released their adaption of fellow comic strip ''Film/OverTheHedge''. Since then however, nothing has come of it.
** They also wanted to do an adaptation of ''ComicBook/TalesFromTheAniverse'', an obscure 1980s furry comic. It was shot down when one of the higher-ups couldn't understand the treatment the comic's co-writer sent them.

* A Aardman/Dreamworks project retelling "The Tortoise and the Hare" that might have featured Michael Caine as one of the voiceover performers withered on the vine.
** Dreamworks also planned to adapt a character from the extremely obscure 1980s black-and-white furry comic ''ComicBook/TalesFromTheAniverse'' in the early 2000s, but reps had a hard time comprehending the treatment that the comics' creator gave them.

[[folder:Music]]
* Despite the success of the BlueOysterCult and their solid record of acclaimed albums, it ''still'' took the best part of twenty years for band Svengali Sandy Pearlman to get his pet project, ''Imaginos'', off the ground. Even though individual tracks had appeared on the band's early LP's and were sound and well received, delays and stalling and indifference from record companies meant it was 1988 before Pearlman's supernatural concept LP saw the light of day. By then, only the TwoOysterCult were left - two of the original lineup - and the record was scratchily completed by a gaggle of hopefuls and disinterested studio session musicians. It was not a hit and to this day, the new tracks from the album are never performed on stage.
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** A small outdoor mall in suburban Flint, Michigan called Trillium Circle was first proposed in 2004. Things first hit the skids when an existing grocery store decided to close instead of relocate into the mall. A theater opened on the site in 2006, but the economic decline and poor anchor choices (it would've had a Circuit City, but they went out of business) ground development to a halt, with only a restaurant and bank opening on outparcels. The developers have since sold off the land.

[[AC:Music]]

* Nothing horrible or fatal happened to any core band members, but despite the success of the BlueOysterCult and their solid record of acclaimed albums, it ''still'' took the best part of twenty years for band Svengali Sandy Pearlman to get his pet project, ''Imaginos'', off the ground. Even though individual tracks had appeared on the band's early LP's and were sound and well received, delays and stalling and indifference from record companies meant it was 1988 before Pearlman's supernatural concept LP saw the light of day. By then, only the TwoOysterCult were left - two of the original lineup - and the record was scratchily completed by a gaggle of hopefuls and disinterested studio session musicians. It was not a hit and to this day, the new tracks from the album are never performed on stage.

[[folder:Radio]]
* The ''Radio/{{Star Wars Radio Drama|s}}'' adaptation of ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' ended up shelved for a decade due to RonaldReagan's cuts to Creator/{{NPR}}'s federal funding.

* ArchaiaEntertainment announced a prequel to ''{{Labyrinth}}'', an origin story for [[DavidBowie Jareth the Goblin King]], in early 2012. It was supposed to be in stores by year's end, and the one-shot story "Hoggle and the Worm" was published in the company's Free Comic Book Day compilation to hype it. Then the date was pushed back to April 2013...but at the end of February it was pushed back ''again'' to sometime in 2014, with its Amazon preorder page taken down entirely. A ''second'' one shot (this time about Sir Didymus) has been promised for the 2013 Free Comic Book Day book, while the offical explanation for the delay on the main book is that the company doesn't want it to go out until it's ''perfect''. Given how controversial the previous attempt to establish an ExpandedUniverse for this movie -- {{Tokyopop}}'s OELManga ''ReturnToLabyrinth'', by a different writer and artist -- was in the fandom, particularly over how it handled Jareth, one can forgive Archaia for not rushing things.

* Richard O'Brien has, for years, planned on making a sequel to the ''[[RockyHorrorPictureShow Rocky Horror Show]]''. So far, however, nothing beyond a few rumors and some scrapped script ideas. All that's known about the yet-to-be-made sequel is that it would've involved Frank N Furter coming back to life.

* The Broadway version of ''LoveNeverDies'' was set to open Fall 2010, but it was pushed back first to Spring 2011 and then indefinitely.

[[caption-width:229:Aagh, the anticipation is killing me![[note]][[http://www.telltalegames.com/strongbad/dangeresque3 November 2008]], [[SavedFromDevelopmentHell ultimately]].[[/note]]]]

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