A movie adaptation of Phenomena was publicly announced early in 2012, but nothing new came up. One and a half years later, during the summer, a Twitter account surfaced called @PhenomenaWriter, led by the script writer for the pilot as he wanted to adapt it into a TV series. The first script was rejected despite Ruben Eliassen liking it. He finally got a script accepted late in 2014 and they tried to get funding on AFM. This has been difficult, probably because the books haven't been translated into many languages (including English). Attempts to find fundings are still ongoing.
Dreamfinders was a planned original series that was to be aired on the channel when it first launched in 1983. Based off the Journey into Imagination attraction, it would have featured Dreamfinder (or Old Eli, as he was to be named) and Figment taking kids to the "Realm of Imagination" to find solutions to real world problems and dealing with a villain named Fear and his minions (who sought to destroy the aforementioned "Realm of Imagination"). At least one script was written, and an actor had even been cast in the role of Dreamfinder, briefly appearing on the channel's launch countdown (skip to 1:23). Unfortunately, no episodes were ever completed and the show fell into this trope, with no chance of it happening in sight.
JONAS suffered from this. The original plan for the show was to have it's stars, The Jonas Brothers, serving as a front for a group of secret agents (think a Kim Possible meets Hannah Montana hybrid) with the name standing for "Junior Operatives Networking As Spies). For whatever reasoning, that didn't fly, resulting in Retool after retool, ultimately culminating in a more standard sitcom (albeit sans Laugh Track). Then after a botched launch on Saturdays running against iCarly, it went through yet another retool after the first season, and with the Jonas Brothers' popularity fading among teenagers, it was retooled with a more dramatic tone in the second season, renamed JONAS LA, and was cancelled soon afterwards.
A TV show based on the novel series The Cheetah Girls was announced by Disney Channel to premiere in 2003; however, it was cancelled after filming only four episodes, none of which aired. Instead it became The Cheetah Girls film, which spawned two sequels.
Kamen Rider Kuuga was planned to have a movie which would take place after the events of the TV series, but the staff could never come up with a script that really suited the idea, and after spending five years in Development Hell the plans were finally canned for good in 2006. It didn't help that Joe Odagiri would never come back to reprise his role due to Shigenori Takatera being fired due to the Troubled Production of Kamen Rider Hibiki.
The team behind Human Giant announced that MTV had allowed them a third season. Unfortunately, they couldn't film much because Aziz was busy on Parks and Recreation. Since then, nothing has been said.
The Sci-Fi Channel announced in 2002 that they would produce a Quantum Leap television movie featuring Sam's daughter as a new leaper. A proposed release date of 2004 was given, and the movie's writer even gave a QL fansite an interview about the plot, but ultimately nothing ever came of it.
A few years ago, a planned live-action Star Wars TV series was announced, but since then there hasn't been much news about it. Reportedly, it would be a Darker and Edgier episode-based show that focused on the minor characters of the series rather than the main storyline, and took place between Episodes III and IV.
It seemed to pick up a bit after the CGI Star Wars: The Clone Wars started doing well, but has been put on hold because they couldn't figure out how to do Star Wars on a TV show budget. The title has been announced to be Star Wars: Underworld.
Since then, Disney bought the franchise and immediately set about making a new trilogy, plus several spin-off movies with the aim of making one Star Wars movie a year after 2015. Given the amount of money Disney are funneling into the new movies, it's looking very, very unlikely that Star Wars: Underworld will ever be made, with an official live-action series being realised in 2019 via “Series/The Mandalorian”.
ER's Pilot script was written in 1974 but the show wasn't filmed until 1994.
Also Marvel planned to adapt Super Sentai into Power Rangers with Executive Margaret Loesch being laughed out of building similar to Saban. Loesch eventually gave up and the rights reverted back to Toei, but as fate would have it Loesch was the very person who gave Haim Saban the go ahead to do the series.
Entertainment Weekly reported in 2010 that a remake of The Wild Wild West (the series, not the movie) was being developed by Ron Moore and Naren Shankar for CBS; exactly nothing else about the project has been announced since then.
A spinoff from Buffy the Vampire Slayer focusing on Giles to be called Ripper was on the drawing board for years once the original show ended in 2003. It's probably safe to say the actual spinoff will remain the only one...
A reboot was announced in 2018, with Monica Owusu-Breen as the showrunner and Joss Whedon as an executive producer. Nothing about the reboot has been announced since then. The sale of Fox to Disney as well as the multiple allegations against Joss Whedon have made it less likely that the show will actually make it to air.
No fewer than ten pilots were made between 1996 and 2010 for a revival of the Pyramid game show franchise. Even with a successful revival from 2002 to 2004, the pilots just kept coming in the subsequent years. A revival launched on GSN for a short time in 2012, and another finally started in 2016 on ABC.
In September 2011, FX started advertising a series called Untitled Jersey City Project with a vague "Coming Soon" mention (which probably meant it would start in Winter 2012). Cut to Summer 2012 and the show still hasn't aired (and according to some reports, the show was never intended to air and was instead supposed to be an ad for the Audi A6).
The fourth series of Torchwood ended on a massive cliffhanger, and Russell T Davies said that he intended to do a fifth season in America (where part of the fourth series was filmed.) Unfortunately, his partner fell ill, requiring him to move back to the UK so they could be closer to their families while he underwent treatment. While there, he started developing Wizards vs. Aliens as a replacement series for The Sarah Jane Adventures. The majority of the cast have said they'd like to do more, but there's no definite answer regarding when or if that'll happen. It didn't help that "Miracle Day" was not very well received.
Between 1999 and 2016, there were at least two attempts to revive Match Game: One in 2004 was titled What the Blank?! and intended for FOX; the other was to have aired on TBS in 2008. Both stopped at the pilot stage. Going back even further, three revivals have been produced since 1982 and none have lasted a full season, counting The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour (two more attempts in the mid-80s were unsuccessful). Ultimately, a revival joined ABC's lineup alongside a new version of Pyramid in 2016.
The American version of Red Dwarf never got past the two pilots made. NBC wanted to create their own version but couldn't capture the spirit of the series.
The only classic Doctor Who story with half or more of its episodes surviving that has never been released on DVD is "The Underwater Menace", because the animation studio commissioned to replace the missing episodes 1 and 4 decided to 'focus on higher priority projects'. (A trailer for it had already been released as a special feature for the DVD release of "The Moonbase".) This fuels speculation on the "omnirumour" (a theory that holds all/most of the WhoMissing Episodes have been found and The BBC is keeping them hidden) - some people theorise that the BBC is refusing to pay for animated recons of the episodes, because the original episodes were found during the animation development process. However, the animation quality of the recons has been steadily increasing (note the beautiful Animesque "The Moonbase"), so a more plausible theory is that the complexity got to the level where it was significantly more difficult and expensive for the animators to do it than anticipated.
At one point in time there was talk of a Fallout TV show. But so far nothing has emerged. There has, however, been a fan series announced called Fallout Revelations at Comic Con 2016. Then in summer of 2020 it was announced that the creators of Westworld would be developing it for Amazon.
There was also Blood and Chrome, a prequel series to Battlestar Galactica. Three webisodes were made for YouTube. But after that nothing else was heard about the prequel series.
It was always insisted upon that Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country did not necessarily represent the last appearance ever of any of the original Enterprise crew, just the last appearance of them together. And indeed, they have made sporadic individual appearances up to and including the present day. Knowing that Sulu was now captain of the Excelsior, producers gave fans the idea that they were considering a series (or even movies) about Captain Sulu. Nothing was ever done to discourage these rumours. Nor, however, was anything done to prove that anyone was seriously ever working towards the adventures of Captain Sulu. Most agree that they may have seriously considered it but ultimately elected to focus on the current generation and limit appearances by original crew characters to cameos and guest appearances, and a straight continuation of 'the original Enterprise crew going about on their adventures' seems very unlikely given Leonard Nimoy's death.
Another reboot of the Degrassi franchisenote Degrassi: The Next Generation was itself a reboot was announced in January 2022, nearly 5 years after the unceremonious end of Degrassi: Next Class. It was intended to be a HBO Max original production with new showrunners, with franchise co-creator (and sole creative mainstay since the beginning) Linda Schuyler serving as a consultant. Although it was due to be released in January 2023, the initial announcement was followed up with absolutely no updates, and the controversial Warner Bros. Discovery merger put a damper on hopes that the reboot would happen. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was revealed in November 2022 that HBO had scrapped the new Degrassi. However, while many still believe it to be cancelled for good, both Wild Brain and Linda Schuyler have said that there are still plans to make it happen; in an August 2023 podcast interview, Schuyler mentioned that there was a new pitch in the works, but mentioned that because it required an American partner, plans were greatly affected by the then-ongoing Hollywood strikes, meaning that while not cancelled, production is still in limbo.
A Night Thrasher TV show for the UPN was announced in 2002, with the character billed as "A superhero for today's generation." Work began on a pilot script, but nothing further was ever reported about the project.
Guillermo del Toro was working on a new Hulk live-action show for a while, but the project was shelved after the Hulk became a Breakout Character in The Avengers. Del Toro has said there is still a slight chance the project could happen, but that it gets less likely with each passing day.
Likewise, Jeph Loeb announced a Mockingbird series alongside the aforementioned Hulk show in 2011. The show would've featured Bobbi Morse as a college freshman working for S.H.I.E.L.D., with the plot revolving around her trying to balance her double life as a student and a spy. The series was presumably buried for good when an alternate take on Bobbi Morse was introduced on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. instead.
Speaking of which, there were plans for Mockingbird and Lance Hunter to star in an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.Spin-Off called Marvel's Most Wanted. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Season 2 finale was meant to set up the new series, but plans were delayed when ABC passed on the project. Another attempt was made the following season, with Mockingbird and Lance being written out of the show and Marvel filming a pilot for Most Wanted, which featured Delroy Lindo as Dominic Fortune. Things then fell apart again when ABC rejected the pilot, with the show's fate seemingly being sealed when Adrianne Palicki left to join the cast of The Orville.
An X-Men show called Hellfire was announced alongside Legion, with plans to air on Fox. The series would have seen a secret agent trying to thwart the Hellfire Club's plans for world domination during The '60s, similar to X-Men: First Class. Fox ultimately passed on Hellfire in favor of ordering The Gifted (2017), a different X-Men show.
In the 90s, Warner Bros. announced plans for a live-action Wonder Woman pilot, but it fell apart before filming began. Comic book artist Nicola Scott was actually one of the women who auditioned for the lead role, and made it to the final round before the plug was pulled.
Warner Bros. announced in 2011 that a Live-Action Adaptation of Wonder Woman was to be produced as a series. NBC picked up a pilot after initially turning it down. However, after the pilot was finished and screened to the standards & practices division, NBC turned it down, knowing it will not be something the audiences and fans alike will enjoy.note And upon the pilot's leak to the net, they were right.
In 2012, it was announced that the The CW was pursuing a Smallville-style series called Amazon, which would have focused on a teenage version of Diana in the years before she actually became Wonder Woman. Initial casting began after Allan Heinberg wrote the script, with the CW aiming for a debut during the 2014/2015 television season. The project was eventually put on hold in favor of The Flash, and was later shelved indefinitely. The announcement of Wonder Woman (2017) seems to have ensured the project will never see the light of day, as DC/WB generally dislikes having conflicting live-action versions of their characters.note For instance, a planned Harley Quinn appearance on Arrow was nixed to avoid confusion with the Suicide Squad (2016) movie.
In late 2020, it was announced that the CW was developing a Wonder Girl series from Greg Berlanti and Queen of the South's Dailyn Rodriguez. The show would have followed Yara Flor, a young Latina immigrant who becomes a superhero after discovering that she's the daughter of a Brazilian river god. Just a few months later, Rodriguez revealed that the CW had passed on the project.
A Smallville-style series called The Graysons was in the works at The CW for a while. The series would've focused on a young DJ Grayson in the years leading up to the murder of his parents and his subsequent transformation into Robin. The CW ordered a pilot, but the whole series was scrapped for not fitting with WB's plans for the Batman franchise at the time. Dick Grayson would eventually headline a live-action DC show, Titans, though it takes place long after he became a superhero. Titans itself was formerly in this trope, having been in development since 2014 but only began airing in 2018.
In 2013, the CW announced that they were developing a series based on Hourman from the JSA. In a departure from the comics, the series would've been a mostly In Name Only adaptation about a young man who discovers that he has the ability to see tragic events an hour before they occur. No further news about the project was released after the initial announcement, however. An alternate (and more comic-accurate) take on the Hourman character was introduced as a minor character in Legends of Tomorrow, and another incarnation had a starring role in Stargirl.
Back in 2014, a live-action Static show was said to be in the works from Reginald Hudlin and WB's Blue Ribbon division. Nothing more was ever revealed about the series.
In 2019, a Green Lantern series was announced for HBO Max, with Greg Berlanti producing and Seth Grahame-Smith and Marc Guggenheim attached to write. Described as a Space Opera spanning several decades, the show was said to feature multiple Green Lanterns like Alan Scott, Guy Gardner, Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz across different time periods, with Sinestro serving as an antagonist. The project was also said to be the most expensive DC series to date, with a lavish production budget similar to the ones enjoyed by the MCU and Star Wars shows on Disney+. Development on the series moved slowly, with Jeremy Irvine and Finn Wittrock joining the cast as Alan and Guy, respectively, in 2021, before a long news drought. Near the end of 2022, following the purchase of WB by Discovery, it was announced that the series was being heavily ReTooled, with Grahme-Smith exiting the project and the scope being drastically narrowed for budgetary reasons. In January 2023, it was confirmed that Berlanti had left Green Lantern as well, and that it had been redeveloped into a new series entitled Lanterns as part of James Gunn's reboot of the DCEU following the establishment of DC Studios. Now described as a sci-fi Police Procedural, Lanterns will reportedly follow John Stewart and Hal Jordan (the two most famous Green Lanterns) as the protagonists instead of the original plan for multiple separate GLs across many years.
A Strange Adventures anthology series was also announced alongside Green Lantern, with a similarly large budget. The series was said to explore some of DC's lesser known heroes and villains, with Kevin Smith attached to write and direct an episode focusing on Jimmy Olsen and Bizarro. After a few years without any updates, Smith confirmed in 2022 that development on Strange Adventures had ceased due to the WB-Discovery merger.
A television series following up on the film 2012 was proposed after the film's success, but cancelled due to budgetary concerns.
In 2011, it was announced that Prime Focus — the company that made the DiscworldMade for TV Movies — were in discussions with Terry Pratchett concerning a TV series based on the Watch, which Sir Terry described as CSI: Ankh-Morpork. In 2012 it was announced that this was now being done by Sir Terry's own production company Narrativia, and that The BBC Worldwide were very interested and were bandying about terms like "the next Doctor Who". Since then, the only word is that it is still progressing, but only once they're sure they can do it right. In October 2018, there was a press release from BBC America which basically said "Yes, this is actually happening". In 2021, we got The Watch. Whether they did it "right" is another question.
Various attempts have been made to get an adaptation of V. C. Andrews's Landry Series made. First by CBS (who had also bought the rights to the Cutler Series) in the mid-90s as a four hour miniseries, which was canceled after the executive who wanted it was no longer apart of the network. CBS tried again in 2002, which quickly went nowhere. Lifetime then started development for a miniseries under the title The Landry in 2007, but the writers' strike disrupted those plans and the possibility of moving to another station came up due to money issues with the Lifetime before it was abandoned. In 2013, it was announced that the project was going on again, and development started in 2014, with rumors of Warner Bros. Television involved.
The concept for the game show Combination Lock has been floating around the game show industry since 1996, when it was piloted for the UK with Ross King hosting. Pilots were shot in 2006 and 2007 with Marc Summers and Ty Treadway respectively hosting, but neither was picked up due to King World being merged into CBS Television. The 2007 pilot was filmed alongside a revival of The Joker's Wild which also never made it to air.
The CW began discussing the possibility of a Battle Royale adaptation for TV in 2012, but a spate of high profile school shootings have made it extremely unlikely that the show (which would have focused on high school students killing each other with weapons) will ever make it to air.
Two examples involving 1985 Sci-fi/Horror film Lifeforce (1985):
In November 22, 2013, Ringleader Studios announced the acquisition of the rights to develop a TV Series based on Colin Wilson's The Space Vampires. At the point of this writing (August 2016) no further news on the project are available.
In May 5, 2015, Chiller TV announced a TV series based on Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce that was supposed to be out by the end of the same year. As of August 2016, no further news on the project was available, and considering the Chiller network later shut down in 2017, it's safe to call this one dead.
Back in 2012 or 2013, there was talks of a live action Resident Evil TV show called "Arklay", which had a well received proof of concept short, but so far nothing else has been heard about it. Another show based on the franchise was announced in 2019, but that has since been delayed.
The Steven Spielberg-produced Halo TV show for Showtime. Announced at E3 and hadn’t been heard from for two years, before Pablo Schreiber was confirmed in April 2019 to be playing the role of Master Chief. Showtime advertised the show for the first quarter of 2021, only for several delays and a shake-up in management to result in the show being delayed an additional year to the first quarter of 2022, with the show now set to air on the Paramount Plus streaming service instead of Showtime.
In 2015, NBC ordered a revival of the 1980s sitcom Coach starring Craig T. Nelson; however, various problems resulted in the show's cancellation shortly after just beginning production.
Commando Nanny, the only scripted series ever produced by Mark Burnett, was announced as part of The WB's fall 2004 lineup, but an egregious case of Troubled Production - including star Phillip Winchester breaking his foot and Gerald McRaney undergoing lung surgery - caused the sitcom to be scrapped altogether.
NBC picked up Day One, a sci-fi drama about apartment residents that survive an unknown worldwide cataclysm that destroys modern infrastructure, for midseason in 2010. It ultimately got reduced from 13 episodes to a four-part miniseries, then a standalone TV movie before being shelved permanently.
Eight Days a Week was picked up by The CW for the 2007-2008 season. Unfortunately, the writers' strike put that show to a halt before any post-pilot episodes were produced.
Subverted with NBC's Emerald City, which was initially canned due to disagreements with producer Josh Friedman, but was later restarted with a new writer and a 10-episode order.
Friend Me, a 2012 CBS sitcom about workers at Groupon, was canceled due to the suicide of head writer Alan Kirschenbaum.
A series named Galantyne, akin to Revolution was ordered by AMC in 2014, and a pilot was even filmed, but for unspecified reasons the show was cancelled.
A Philippine soap opera entitled Haram was to air on GMA-7 starring Robin Padilla's daughter Kylie, but due to its subject matter involving Muslims, along with hostile reaction to the video Innocence of Muslims overseas, it was eventually shelved out of respect for the said community.
Following the death of Eddie Garcia (of FPJ's Ang Probinsyano fame) in an on-set accident, Philippine TV network GMA decided to cancel Rosang Agimat partly out of respect for Garcia, with the lead actress Gabbi Garcia being given a new lead role in its place.
Hieroglyph, first picked up in October 2013, was cancelled by Fox in July 2014 without even filming an episode besides the pilot.
Before Arrested Development, Jason Bateman was set to star in an NBC sitcom titled The Jake Effect for broadcast in early 2002. It unfortunately was dropped after filming seven installments, six of which were aired on Bravo in 2006.
A TV prequel to the 1999 film Cruel Intentions, Fox's Manchester Prep, was cancelled for, well, being too risque for broadcast TV. The pilot eventually got released Direct to Video (with some additional nudity and coarse language added) as Cruel Intentions 2.
Members Only was a prime time soap starring John Stamos that was supposed to be part of ABC's 2014-2015 midseason lineup. However, co-creator David O. Russell left shortly after it was ordered, and the drama was subsequently shelved.
Misconceptions, a planned 2006 midseason series for The WB, was cut to just six episodes, and ultimately failed to make The CW's inaugural fall lineup.
NBC's Mission Control, a sitcom starring Krysten Ritter and Michael Rosenbaum, was cancelled without filming any episodes other than its pilot.
NBC axed the Dane Cook comedy Next Caller after filming four out of its six-episode order, citing creative differences.
The Scott Baio comedy Rewind, despite being highly promoted over the summer of 1997, was suddenly cancelled by Fox without any explanation.
The U.S. version of The IT Crowd first aired on NBC in February 2007, and was subsequently picked up to air in early 2008. However, it ended up being pushed back to fall 2008, but ultimately never got a place on the 2008-2009 schedule. Fortunately, the pilot did leak onto YouTube.
The WB ordered the Adam Sandler-produced sitcom The Mayor for midseason 2003-2004, but quickly withdrew its six-episode order due to poor creative direction.
The Men's Room was an NBC sitcom starring John Cho that was supposed to air in early 2005, but production was shut down after six installments, and none of them ever aired.
Schimmel, an eponymous sitcom starring Robert Schimmel, was pulled from Fox's fall 2000 schedule due to the actor undergoing treatment for lymphoma. Though it was rescheduled for midseason 2001, it was ultimately cancelled.
Yet another NBC comedy, The Singles Table, was cancelled after filming only six episodes and none airing.
Snip, a 1976 comedy about a man and his ex-wife who are both in the same hairdressing school, which is run by an openly gay man. The show was likely pulled due to concerns about having an openly gay character, which was very abnormal at the time.
Star Trek: Phase II was announced in 1977 to debut in 1978 as part of the proposed Paramount Television Service. But in August 1977, those plans would fall apart, as Paramount CEO Barry Diller decided that Phase II would be better as a live-action film, resulting in the creation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which inherited the first script of the unmade series.
Thick & Thin was prematurely axed despite being announced as a midseason replacement for 2005-2006; creator Paula Pell and co-star Chris Parnell returned to Saturday Night Live afterwards.
Fox originally ordered 13 episodes of Us & Them, but cut the order to seven before shelving it permanently.
HBO once announced that Game of Thrones producer Christopher Newman and his team would be developing a historical drama series about Wu Zetian, titled Empress, starring Liu Xiaoqing. Liu herself had portrayed Wu in a Chinese TV series back in 1995. This was in 2016 and, as of this writing in 2022, it hasn't been heard from since.
CBS ordered Waterfront as a midseason series for 2007; however, creative and financial issues led the network to axe the series after completing just five episodes.
Syfy got Masi Oka and Alex Sabeti to co-write the pilot for a time travel series called The Correctors (presumably about Time Police or those who Set Right What Once Went Wrong), with Oka also slated to produce the pilot and perhaps also co-star. Unfortunately, the pilot never aired for unknown reasons (although Oka's absolutely insane schedule probably made keeping him around difficult).
Fox got Masi Oka to co-write and co-produce the pilot for ESL, a comedy about an English as a Second Language class, with Zak Shaikh as co-writer and Ben Queen as co-producer. While the pilot was slated for 2015, it never surfaced.
Fearless was officially placed on the 2003 fall schedule by The WB, but later delayed to midseason (One Tree Hill appeared in its place) and then canceled without ever being broadcast.
The Grubbs was cancelled by Foxtwo days before its premiere, supposedly due to bad reviews.
The Ortegas, an American adaptation of the British sitcom The Kumars At No. 42, was cancelled a few weeks before it was supposed to debut.
All My Babies' Mamas was set to premiere on Oxygen in early 2013, but was cancelled in the wake of public outcry and a subsequent petition.
CBS ordered Arranged Marriage in mid-2009, but for unknown reasons, it never aired.
Buy It Now was originally slated to be part of ABC's summer 2006 lineup; however, eBay pulled out of the series' participation before it debuted, resulting in its cancellation.
Do You Trust Me?, a CBS game show hosted by Tucker Carlson, shot six episodes in 2007, but didn't make it to the air at all.
ABC announced Let's Dance in 2009, only to cancel it in November due to casting difficulties.
Marie, a syndicated talk show hosted by Marie Osmond, was scheduled to debut in the fall of 2009. However, despite being cleared in 80% of the country, it was withdrawn by Program Partners over a month before it even debuted, leading to several affiliates dropping the series as well. Finally, in 2012, it aired on the Hallmark Channel.
Our Little Genius was a game show produced by Mark Burnett and hosted by Kevin Pollak, that was supposed to premiere in January 2010 with American Idol as a lead-in. However, a week before its debut, it was pulled at Burnett's request due to concerns about integrity; Fox would eventually shelve the series for good.
Surprise with Jenny McCarthy was announced in May 2012, only to be scrapped in January 2013.
The CW ordered the reality game series The Frame in late 2010, and nothing has been heard of it since.
After being picked up by Fox in 2007, When Women Rule the World got delayed three times; it was planned to debut that summer, then pushed back to early 2008, then to June 2008, before the network ended up pulling the plug on the series for good. However, the United Kingdom did get their own version of the show on Channel 4 in September 2008.
ABC axed Welcome to the Neighborhood before it aired in the summer of 2005, likely due to its inappropriate subject matter.
Despite premiering on TV in 1968, The Mod Squad began as a pilot written in 1960.
In 2015, Canadian company 9 Story Media Group announced they were in active development on a reboot of Barney & Friends set to premiere in 2017. The year has come and gone, and the show has yet to materialize.
American Crime Story: After the success of the first season, it was announced that the followup season would be called Katrina and center around Memorial Medical Center scandal that occurred during Hurricane Katrina, followed by a third season called The Assassination of Gianni Versace which would focus on the events that led up to Gianni Versace's murder. However, due to production issues with Katrina, it was later announced that Versace would go forward as the second season instead while postponing Katrina as the potential third season. While Versace ended up airing in 2018, series producer Ryan Murphy later stated that the Katrina project had stalled and wouldn't go into production after all, leaving it unclear if the season would ever go into development.
The TV miniseries adaptation of Nine Inch Nails' album Year Zero has fallen into this. Originally announced as a film project, Trent Reznor met with various producers and writers back in 2007, but pre-production got slightly derailed during the 2007 Writers Guild strike; despite this, Reznor insisted that the project was still alive, and in 2010 he began working with HBO and BBC America. However, in 2013 it was announced that HBO had passed on the project, and it is currently unknown what its exact status is. Rob Sheridan, the band's former art director, revealed in a 2019 episode of the NIN-themed podcast Pod Like A Hole that he and Reznor had at one point planned on adapting the album as a comic book instead; this also went nowhere, as Reznor and Sheridan parted ways in 2017.
Netflix bought the rights to make a live-action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender in the summer of 2018 but production has hit some snags that didn’t allow it to start shooting until Q4 of 2021. The original creators of the show were attached to be the showrunners and things were looking good for about the first year and a half of development. It hit trouble in early 2020. Production was scheduled to start in Hawaii that February but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it was put on indefinite hold since they’d plan to film extensively on location. That summer, the creators left due to unknown Creative Differences. The fate of the show is now further complicated by the founding of Avatar Studios, a studio specifically controlled by said creators to produce new content replayed the series for Nickelodeon and Paramount Plus, as well as control spin-off media related to the franchise. Production began in November 2021 in Vancouver, BC in a state of the art production studio that will make use of the same virtual background technology used in The Mandalorian since the pandemic made location filming unfeasible.
Sword Art Online, with fairly ambitious plans including a virtual reality tie-in game after the series debuted. In early 2018 the rights were sold to Netflix with the promise that lead characters Kirito and Asuna would be cast with Asian leads to avoid concerns of whitewashing. However, nothing has been said about the show since, be it writers or casting.
When it was announced in 2017 that Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss' next project for HBO would be an Alternate History series in which The American Civil War ended in a stalemate between the North and South titled Confederate, critics, journalists and the public alike expressed apprehension at the premise, especially given the tense state of American race relations at the time due to then-recent events such as the Unite the Right rally. Despite the creative teams (which included two black writers) asking that people reserve judgment for when the show aired, the controversy made them wary of going forward with the project and it was ultimately cancelled in January 2020.
Mega-City One, an adaptation of Judge Dredd, specifically, a sequel of sorts to the 2012 film Dredd, which, despite the film's mediocre box office, was spurred on by its success on home video and On-Demand. The series was announced in May 2017, only to be followed by several years of silence. Finally, in July of 2020, the CEO of Rebellion (current owners of the TV rights to Dredd) announced the scripts were ready but the COVID-19 Pandemic made it impossible to begin production, while expressing hope of getting Karl Urban to reprise his film role as Dredd, as well as wanting to cast Sylvester Stallone in a role. In August 2020, Urban expressed he was open to returning to the role of Dredd if the show ever begins production. Time will tell if it does.
After a well-received short film called Voltron - The End, Greg Aronowitz, the creator of that short, (and producer of Power Rangers S.P.D.), got into serious negotiations with Voltron rights holders World Events Productions about making a Voltron television series. However, DreamWorks SKG exercised their option to Voltron media through their 2012 purchase of the Classic Media assets (which included not only Voltron but numerous Filmation properties such as She Ra and Bravestarr), and announced they were going to make what eventually became Voltron: Legendary Defender. Negotiations quickly fell apart afterward, but Aronowitz, as recently as 2018 when Legendary Defender ended, has publicly expressed hope that his version of the series will eventually see the light of the day. While in October 2020, WEP Inc. President Bob Koplar mentioned he was looking into possibly making a live-action Voltron show if it made more sense than a film, he did not mention who, if anyone he was negotiating with for said production.
The Tomorrow Studios adaptation of One Piece was announced back in July of 2017. Nearly two years later in March of 2019, it was announced Netflix had secured the rights to the show. Since that time, there has been no news regarding any sort of casting, and the series has missed numerous rumored production start dates. In September of 2020, showrunner Steven Maeda claimed in an interview the show was still scheduled to come out, but casting had yet to begin, specifically debunking rumors casting was set and the show was ready for production. Since that time, Maeda has provided no further updates other than to say that it is still scheduled to be made.
In the early 2010s, The CW optioned The Selection no less than two times, giving each a pilot order with a different cast, before giving up on the project. Years later, Netflix was reported to have picked it up. We'll see if they are successful.
Ultimate Slip 'N' Slide, a reality game show produced by Universal Television and hosted by Bobby Moynihan and Ron Funches, was slated to air on NBC in summer 2021, premiering as the lead-out program to the Tokyo Olympics closing ceremony. Filming was nearly complete when an outbreak of the waterborne parasite Giardia violently sickened as many as 40 crew members with a bad case of diarrhea. The show was initially postponed, but was then scrapped entirely when it proved unfeasible to move the show's massive set to a safer location.
On October 30, 2019, HBO Max announced a live-action/animation hybrid series called Tooned Out which starred Christopher Lloyd, Zach Galifianakis, and directed by Robert Zemeckis. The series involved Christopher Lloyd's character interacting and getting help from the Looney Tunes characters and Droopy. Before HBO Max launched, footage from the series was shown during a sizzle reel for a Warner Brothers Earnings Meeting. Tooned Out was originally planned for a 2020 release, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. With Discovery Inc. acquiring Warner Media (now Warner Bros. Discovery) on April 9, 2022, the series has either been Quietly Cancelled or hasn't restarted production. The show still has an official IMDB page, which claims it will premiere on November 6th, 2023, but no official announcement regarding so has been made and the IMDB isn't always reliable.
In 2021; former longtime Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider (who had departed that network in 2018 following an investigation revealing that he was overly aggressive and verbally abusive) announced that he had sold an unnamed pilot script that was implied to be Schneider's comeback vehicle. As of August 2022; no further word on the pilot has surfaced. Additionally; incidents such as the publication of "I'm Glad My Mom Died" by former iCarly star Jennette McCurdynote which includes allegations of being photographed in a bikini for a wardrobe fitting - McCurdy being only 15 when iCarly first began; being encouraged to drink alcohol by who she referred to as "The Creator" {which Buzzfeed suggested was a thinly-veiled reference to Schneider} and that Nickelodeon tried to pay her $300,000 in hush money; which she rejected leading to several other allegations coming to public attentionnote such as former Victorious co-star Daniella Monet noting her discomfort over a scene involving her character, Trina Vega, sticking a pickle in her mouth due to Monet feeling the scene was too sexualized for a children's show; the incidents that led to Alexa Nikolas leaving Zoey 101 after getting yelled at by Schneider and Britney Spears during a feud between Nikolas and series star (and Britney's sister) Jamie Lynn Spears and a Business Insider article mentioning incidents such as Schneider having driven Anquelique Bates to tears on the set of All That when a sketch fell apart; rarely hired female writers (with an unnamed female writer for The Amanda Show accusing Schneider of pressuring her into simulating being sodomized, while that show's other female writer - Jenny Kilgen - said she was uncomfortable with Schneider repeatedly requesting massages; with Kilgen's 2000 lawsuit being settled out of court); tried to erase another writer's name from unaired episodes of one show after the unnamed writer quit only to back down when told that action would be illegal; Schneider repeatedly trying to push for the actresses on Victorious and iCarly to wear skimpier outfits; misconduct allegations dating to the early days of All That being referenced by Liz Feldman, currently showrunner for the Netflix series "Dead to Me" and a video showing a Victorious where Ariana Grande's Cat Valentine character was shown with her big toe in her mouth {likely related to Schneider's long-rumored foot fetish} while pouring water on herself from online extras where Schneider was credited as a writer going viral while re-igniting long-running rumors about Schneider possibly being a pedophile; making it highly unlikely Schneider's pilot would see the light of day.
In 2020, The CW ordered a live-action adaptation of The Powerpuff Girls, set to air in 2021. It ended up being delayed indefinitely and eventually Quietly Cancelled in 2023, following poor test screenings of the pilot and the subsequent leak of its script that was widely mocked for its overly hip dialogue and gratuitously dark tone, as well as the departure of cast member Chloe Bennet (who played Blossom).
In 2009, a Puppet Show from Flexitoon based on Felix the Cat was announced, slated to have 13 episodes and 65 interstitals. Nothing ever came of it and Craig Marin (founder of Flexitoon) eventually confirmed that the show never made it past the planning phase:
"Hi. Thanks for asking about the show. Unfortunately, it never made it past the planning stages: Puppets were built as you see but the producers decided not to go forward. It would have been a great one though — UNCLE FLOYD was brought in to be the host... Keep checking www.flexitoon.com for an exciting new show about to drop. All the best, Craig Marin"
In 2014, Underworld co-creator Len Wiseman announced plans to expand the film series into a franchise with the possibility of spin-offs in addition to a television series. Development on a TV adaptation was officially announced in September 2017 with Wiseman as executive producer and with Sony Pictures Television, Screen Gems, Sketch Films, Lakeshore Entertainment and 20th Century Television producing the show, but nothing has been heard of the project since.
(skip to 1:23). Unfortunately, no episodes were ever completed and the show fell into this trope, with no chance of it happening in sight.