Shadow Company


Shadow Company is probably one of John Carpenter's most famous unfinished projects, with its script forming a cult following of its own over time. Not only was the Vietnam War zombie bloodfest to be helmed by the Master of Horror himself, but it was written by horror icon Fred Dekker of The Monster Squad and Hollywood screenwriter powerhouse Shane Black of Lethal Weapon fame. It was also supposed to star Kurt Russell, a recurring staple of Carpenter classics. Black described the project as a cross between Platoon and The Exorcist, and the story featured a squadron of undead super soldiers taking vengeance on American citizens to bring "the war home to those who betrayed it," in the words of the film's villain.

Pincushion


Three decades before Charlize Theron's Furiosa would travel the wasteland in Mad Max: Fury Road, pop superstar Cher was set to star in a post-apocalyptic road trip in 1989. The script, penned by little-known writer John Raffo, is mostly known for being sold to Sony/Columbia for a whopping half a million dollars during the writers' strike that was going on at the time. However, the high budget, including the cost of Cher's housekeeping deal, sunk the project into development limbo.

Creature From The Black Lagoon


Another of Carpenter's more well-known and lamented works-that-never-were was supposed to be a collaboration with makeup and special effects titan Rick Baker, who was in charge of the creature design. The project was actually Universal's revisit to the franchise after a failed attempt at a 3D remake helmed by John Landis in the early 1980s. Carpenter planned to expand upon the original movie's ideas on an amphibious evolutionary missing link by introducing more Lovecraftian themes, namely related to the killer fish people cult story, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." Considering how seamlessly the director incorporated Lovecraftian elements and groundbreaking special effects in his remake of another 1950s horror film, The Thing From Another World, Creature from the Black Lagoon may have gone down as a classic. Alas, production stalled and never revved back up.

Riot


Carpenter was slated to direct this blacklisted script written by Joe Gazzam and originally entitled Scared Straight, based on the notorious Academy Award-winning documentary of the same name about prisoners who traumatize teenagers into avoiding a life of crime. The project developed enough to cast Nicolas Cage in the role of an inmate who tries to protect one of the youths when a prison riot breaks out. An unhinged Nic Cage screaming at juvenile delinquents followed by a plot not too far removed from Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 sounds more than intriguing, but the project disappeared after the actor left the project.

Darkchylde


Darkchylde was on the road to becoming one of the late 2000s gritty comic book adaptations, but to this day remains unmade. The creation of artist Randy Queen, the story is about one Ariel Chylde, who can morph into nightmarish creatures to protect her town from the forces of evil. Test footage was released in 2010, proving that there was genuine interest in moving the project forward. Despite the character's popularity in the late nineties, though, the heroine has fallen into obscurity and probably won't receive a finished feature film.