10 Movies That Took Forever To Make
Movies take a long time to make–all those actors, the crew, props and sets, and of course a script are required before filming kicks off–it’s a lot of spinning plates to keep in the air all at once, and many movies never make it to full production because the process is so complicated. That’s especially the case when it comes to blockbuster pictures. Even a relatively smooth production can take three or more years to get from the greenlight to the finish line.
And while some movies are just work for most of the people involved, others become passion projects. An actor knows they were born to play a given character, or a director has a clear vision to bring an idea to life on the silver screen. These movies can take a lot longer to make just because someone involved has a very particular vision of what they want to see, or because the people signing the checks don’t really “get it.”
These movies can drag on for years or even decades, and even then they can still fall apart. But the movies in this list actually made it out of production and onto moviegoers’ screens, both big and small. They all spent a lot of time in development, though.
10. The Flash
First Mention: 2013Began Filming: 2021Released to Theaters: 2023Time Passed: 10 years
When the MCU was gaining steam, DC Comics and Warner Bros. sought to put together their own universe of superhero movies. The plan was for Zack Snyder to lead the charge. At that time, The Flash was announced alongside a slate of other movies including Aquaman, Batman, and Cyborg. While the films and events that followed that announcement are well known by this point, The Flash had the most tumultuous journey from announcement to screen of all. Some films, like Cyborg, were canceled entirely. The Flash, somehow, stuck around. The movie went through a bunch of different directors before landing on It director Andy Muschietti. Even after filming in 2021, the drama continued as Ezra Miller’s public life became the source of many headlines. The movie finally made it to theaters in 2023, for better or worse.
9. Schindler’s List
First Mention: 1983Began Filming: 1993Released to Theaters: 1993Time Passed: 10 years
Sometimes, movies take forever to make and are somehow still right on schedule. Steven Spielberg first heard about Oskar Schindler in 1983 when MCA president Sid Sheinberg sent him a review of the book Schindler’s Ark. Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the children rescued by Schindler, had been attempting to get a movie made for the story since 1963, and when he met with Spielberg in 1983, the director told him the movie would be made in 10 years. In the intervening time, Spielberg shopped the movie around to various directors, including Roman Polanski and Martin Scorsese, thinking that he wasn’t mature enough to make the film himself. Scorsese was attached to direct it at one point, but Spielberg later did a trade–1991’s Cape Fear remake for Scorsese, and Schindler’s List back into his hands. Scorsese handed the film back to Spielberg, who felt ready to handle the film, who would go on to release it in 1993 as predicted.
8. Avatar: The Way of Water
First Mention: 2010Began Filming: 2017Released to Theaters: 2022Time Passed: 12 years
The main reason behind Avatar: The Way of Water’s long development time is James Cameron himself. Just look at the development of Alita: Battle Angel! After the wild success of Avatar that made it the highest-grossing movie of all time worldwide, Fox executives were likely eager to get a sequel out while the getting was good. That didn’t happen, though. When you’ve made as many record-breaking, technological envelope-pushing movies as Cameron, you get to be one of the very few people in Hollywood that essentially gets to do whatever they want. There are very, very few directors that can boast the level of freedom Cameron has.
After Avatar, pre-production and production on the sequel were subject to numerous delays. One cause in particular was Cameron’s determination to get the look of CGI set underwater looking just right. Cameron has been obsessed with technology for most of his career, from the groundbreaking CGI of Terminator 2 to the technical challenges of Titanic. Cameron seems to be at least as interested in doing something brand new with each of his films as he is in simply making them. In theory, though, this long wait means a shorter wait for the third, fourth, and fifth Avatar movies. Cameron wrote scripts for all of the movies and got the CGI technology to a place he’s satisfied with. But with Cameron’s penchant for throwing in new technical challenges, we’ll believe Avatar 3 is coming on schedule in 2025 when we see a trailer.
7. Boyhood
First Mention: 2002Began Filming: 2002Released to Theaters: 2014Time passed: 12 years
Linear time is a cruel thing, always moving more quickly or more slowly than we’d like. Richard Linklater had no choice but to succumb to it when he decided to make Boyhood. In 2002, Linklater announced Boyhood, a movie that would follow a boy from first grade up through high-school graduation. The crew would film for a few weeks each year. While Linklater wanted the movie to end with the young adult’s graduation, he knew that people change over time and was willing to tweak the story as filming continued each year. Boyhood was also created during an incredibly tumultuous time in filmmaking in terms of technology. Extensive use of computers in making and showing movies was just getting going in 2002, and it was at full steam by the time 2014 rolled around. If Linklater had stuck with whatever was new and shiny across that 12-year period, then Boyhood would’ve had a bunch of distinct looks due to the differences in cameras, film types, and post-production technology. To avoid the movie showing the advancement of technology used to make it, Linklater filmed things entirely in 35mm. Boyhood finally released in 2014, with critics bringing attention to both the unique technical scope and intimate story of the film, and it holds a 100 rating on Metacritic as a result.
6. Mad Max: Fury Road
First Mention: 1987Began Filming: 2012Released to Theaters: 2015Time Passed: 15 years
In 1981’s Mad Max: The Road Warrior, George Miller created the still-enduring look for post-apocalyptic movies from almost whole cloth. The costumes, repurposed technology, cobbled-together settlements, and many other elements form the basis for the Fallout game series and many other games and movies. Miller made Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome next, and then in 1987 had the idea for Mad Max: Fury Road–a Mad Max movie that would be a continuous chase. Miller took a break from directing movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and returned instead to direct family dramas and CGI movies, like Lorenzo’s Oil, Babe: A Pig in the City, and Happy Feet for the next 25 years. Bits and pieces came to him, and he worked with storyboard artists to put 3,500 shots together. Filming on Fury Road was set to begin in
In 1981’s Mad Max: The Road Warrior, George Miller created the still-enduring look for post-apocalyptic movies from almost whole cloth. The costumes, repurposed technology, cobbled-together settlements, and many other elements form the basis for the Fallout game series and many other games and movies. Miller made Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome next, and then in 1987 had the idea for Mad Max: Fury Road–a Mad Max movie that would be a continuous chase. Miller took a break from directing movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and returned instead to direct family dramas and CGI movies, like Lorenzo’s Oil, Babe: A Pig in the City, and Happy Feet for the next 25 years. Bits and pieces came to him, and he worked with storyboard artists to put 3,500 shots together. Filming on Fury Road was set to begin in 2001, but according to Miller himself, 9/11 put the movie on ice due to the collapse of the American dollar and heightened security requirements. The movie sat for years and Mel Gibson aged out of the role by both Miller’s and his own admission. The movie shifted to being an animated feature for a time before shifting back to live action. Tom Hardy was cast in 2010, and filming finally began in 2012. Mad Max: Fury Road hit theaters in 2015 to nearly universal critical acclaim, and would take home six Academy Awards–the most for any film that year and the most for any Australian production ever.. While Miller had the first idea almost 30 years before the movie came out, the 2001 production time makes the most sense here–Fury Road took 14 years to get made.
5. Black Adam
First Mention: 2007Began Filming: 2021Released to Theaters: 2022Time passed: 15 years
If you don’t pay attention to superhero movies, it might seem like the Dwayne Johnson vehicle Black Adam came out of nowhere–The Rock was finally getting in on the superhero trend after all this time. But the truth is, Johnson had been working on this project since before the MCU even had a name. As the movie hit theaters in 2022, Johnson shared a screenshot from the first press coverage of the movie in November 2007, prior to even the release of 2008’s Iron Man. In the same post, Johnson called out Black Adam’s status as an anti-hero of color as being something that has excited him about the character since he was a child. Johnson was attached to the Shazam film back in 2014, and then to a standalone Black Adam film. They had a script by 2018, and shooting was to begin in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it into 2021. Once the film got rolling, things moved quickly, with shooting lasting from April to August of 2021. The movie hit theaters with a resounding thud, however, and was the last appearance of Henry Cavill’s Superman, and part of his long-tenuous connection to the DC universe of films–which would undergo a massive change just weeks later as Peter Safran and James Gunn became co-presidents of DC Studios, leaving the potential for a Black Adam sequel in question.
4. Alita: Battle Angel
First Mention: 2003Began Filming: 2017Released to Theaters: 2019Time passed: 16 years
As noted above, few directors love big, messy, technology-driven projects the way James Cameron does. Avatar and its one sequel (so far) are the movies most typically associated with Cameron’s penchant for long-running projects, but there’s another that is often overlooked: Alita: Battle Angel. Based on Yukito Kishiro’s manga, Gunnm (Battle Angel Alita in its English-speaking release), Cameron first announced his intent to direct an Alita movie in 2003. All that stood in his way at the time was finishing up the Dark Angel series, which starred Jessica Alba in one of her breakout roles. In 2005, however, Cameron announced that he was giving priority to what was then called Project 880–the first title for what would become 2009’s Avatar. Avatar only took another five years to make, but it also made a billion dollars at the box office, and Cameron’s attention kept getting pulled away from Alita. Eventually, he relinquished directing duties to Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, From Dusk Til Dawn), and shooting finally began in 2016. After a delay, Alita hit theaters in January 2019–just a few months less than 16 years after Cameron announced his intent to direct the film.
3. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
First Mention: Late 1970sBegan Filming: 2001Released to Theaters: 2001Time passed: 20+ years
Stanley Kubrick was notoriously meticulous and secretive about his movies, and he often took his time making them. The story that would become A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Supertoys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldiss, was written in 1969, and Kubrick began developing the movie in the late 1970s. After nearly 20 years, the movie was to begin development in 1994. After a series of delays, Kubrick asked Steven Spielberg to take over the project, but he chose to focus on other projects and instead persuaded Kubrick to stay in the director’s chair. Kubrick filmed Eyes Wide Shut instead, following concerns about CGI visual effects being able to tell the story he wanted. After Kubrick’s passing in 1999, his wife Christine asked Spielberg to take the project on, at which point he accepted it. Things moved quickly from there, with the movie both filming and releasing in 2001.
2. The Meg
First Mention: 1996Began Filming: 2016Released to Theaters: 2018Time passed: 22 years
Based on the 1997 novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, The Meg was in development for a long time before it finally made it to screen with Jason Statham starring. Disney acquired rights to the book almost immediately upon release and had a couple of scripts developed before the rights reverted to the author, Steve Alten. New Line Cinema tried it next, but ultimately canceled the picture due to budgetary concerns, and the rights eventually went back to the author again. The Meg remained submerged for another decade, before it resurfaced in 2015. This time it stuck, with Jon Turtletaub directing and Jason Statham starring. Filming began in 2016, and The Meg arrived in theaters in 2018.
1. The Up Documentaries
First Mention: 1964Last installment: 2019Time Passed: 55 Years
Like Boyhood, the whole point of the Up documentaries was tracking someone’s life in real time. While Boyhood was a fictional life that developed alongside a real one, though, the Up documentaries, filmed for the BBC in Britain, tracked the lives of 20 children as they grew up. The documentary caught up with as many of the members as possible throughout the years. Some asked not to participate further, while others passed away or were unavailable. Only 10 of the 20 children were available for all 10 installments. The final episode, which caught up with the children at age 63, was filmed and released in 2019. No plans are currently made to film a “70” episode, following the death of the director, Michael Apted, in 2021.