Fox movies scrapped forever after Disney's big takeover
Though the Disney acquisition of Fox is good news for X-Men fans hoping the mutants will receive the Marvel treatment, plenty of slated Fox movies have officially been axed by the mouse house.
According to Variety, the decision came after Fox posted an operating loss of $170 million in Disney's third quarter. Poor returns on Dark Phoenix and high budgets on movies like Ford v Ferrari (aka Le Mans '66) go some of the way to explaining the losses.
Bob Iger, Disney's CEO, said he plans to take Fox "in a new direction, with an all-new development slate that will focus on a select group of properties".
But the decision to punish upcoming movies for Fox's previous failings has been seen as cynical by some (especially with the news that Disney is planning a Home Alone reboot, because nothing is sacred).
Still safe are the Avatar sequel(s), the Planet of the Apes series, and everything under Fox Searchlight. Of the 246 movies in development at Fox, there were some real gems we may never get to see.
Ben Affleck planned to tell the bizarre true story of an ex-cop-turned-McDonald's security guard who stole winning McDonald's Monopoly tickets to sell to the highest bidder. Affleck likely would have starred, too, alongside Matt Damon, but now we may never know.
A Flash Gordon remake from Thor: Ragnarok's Taika Waititi was also on the cards. Given Waititi's penchant for humour, this is a real loss.
Adding to the growing canon of Stephen King adaptations, The Boogeyman – announced in 2018 with A Quiet Place's Scott Beck and Bryan Woods – has also been cancelled. Instead, you'll have to be satisfied with the 1982 or 2010 adaptations.
Comic fans may be sad to know that a female-centred reboot of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen now will not be made. But we are all undoubtedly devastated to hear we'll never see The Return of the Killer Klowns from Outer Space in 3D, a sequel to the classic horror-comedy from 1988.
Two prequels that were in development and that we'll likely never get to see now – for better or worse – are Die Hard and Pinocchio, titled McClane and The Three Misfortunes of Geppetto respectively. There was also an untitled Sandlot prequel in the works.
One movie cancelled which we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief over is Assassin's Creed 2, which was still on Fox's slate despite poor reviews for the original starring Michael Fassbender.
Also not worth weeping over was the live-action adaptation of Magic: The Gathering (not the animated one from the Russo brothers), The Sweetest Fig (based on the 1993 novel about an evil man who eats a delicious fig and gets the power to make dreams come true), and The Sims movie.
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