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Retrospectives on films, remakes and the projects that changed shape on their way to the screen.

A film’s reputation is rarely settled on its opening weekend. Some movies that were dismissed on release have since been rediscovered; some that were huge hits are now barely discussed. This section looks back at both, along with the sequels that took decades to arrive and the adaptations that were announced, recast and rewritten without ever reaching a cinema.

The pieces below draw on the public record: credits, release years and how each film was received at the time and since. They are written as essays rather than reviews, so expect opinions, but no invented behind-the-scenes stories.

Articles

• Batman: Year One (2011): Animating a Landmark Comic
• DC Universe Animated Original Movies: Why They Mattered
• Super Mario Bros. (1993): Could It Have Been a Krull?
• Alien Resurrection: What Could Have Been
• Avatar (2009): The Secrecy, the Hype and the Film
• Cars 2: Bigger Isn’t Always Better
• Castlevania: The Live-Action Movie That Never Was
• Del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness: The Unmade Film
• Fright Night: The 2011 Remake vs the 1985 Original
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) Revisited
• Indiana Jones: The Trilogy’s Most Memorable Villain Exits
• Jennifer’s Body Reconsidered
• Land of the Lost (2009): Why the Comedy Remake Sank
• Why H.P. Lovecraft Is So Hard to Adapt for Film
• Machete (2010): From Fake Trailer to Feature Film
• Masters of the Universe on Film: 1987 and Beyond
• Men in Black 3 (2012): A Time-Travel Rescue Mission
• The God of War Movie That Never Arrived
• The Highlander Remake That Keeps Not Happening
• Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Looking Back
• Tron: Legacy, From “Tron 2” to the Finished Film
• Twilight (2008): How the Novel Became a Film Phenomenon