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itt: we share, discuss, and track projects in development hell
>Development hell, also known as development purgatory or development limbo, is media and software industry jargon for a project, concept, or idea that remains in a stage of early development for a long time because of legal, technical, or artistic challenges (Wikipedia). The term Vaporware may alternatively be used for software and video games.
Here's 3 projects that I check in on every now and then:
>Despera
Anime written by Chiaki J. Konaka with designs from Yoshitoshi ABe, the duo that brought you Texhnolyze and Serial Experiments Lain. First announced in 2009. Despera was to be directed by Ryutaro Nakamura, also of Serial Experiments Lain, before his death in 2013. Konaka is still invested in the project, giving brief updates on Twitter every couple years. The most recent piece of info I could find is from March 2021, just saying the project was delayed for a year due to the pandemic but has never been abandoned. The protagonist of Despera is Ain, a young girl in Taisho-era Tokyo one year prior to the Great Kanto Earthquake. She is an inventor of some description, who miraculously builds devices with no prior technical knowledge. It seems she'll be very similar to a certain other technophile protagonist. The setting seems very interesting. It is very well researched and historically dense. There's an art book out containing illustrations and a short story written in period accurate Japanese:
Art Book Scan: https://archive.org/details/despera-raw/
Story Translation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZTOdHKr5KNFbaKRiAcUbE4dqkffEi2bF0nN0fgSlCQI/edit?usp=sharing
>At the Mountains of Madness
A film adaptation of the best (don't try and deny it) Lovecraft story by Guillermo del Toro that he's been trying to get going since 2006. His main battle has been getting a studio to pick it up. He's been through Warner Brothers and Universal. Del Toro wanted a weird, horrifying film true to the Lovecraft novella, studios kept trying to shoot the idea down for being too scary and R Rated and not having a typical hollywood love story and not having a happy ending and other such bullshit. A brief VFX test and screenplay script from 2013 were recently dropped, but since then Guillermo del Toro has retooled into making a shorter/weirder film with Netflix and having it be in stop motion, both fantastic decisions in my book.
VFX test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBA6TThb1yI [Play]
Screenplay: https://lovecraftzine.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/at-the-mountain-of-madness.pdf
>The Bob and Larry Movie
This one treads the line between development hell and lost media. A VeggieTales origin movie that's been struggling since 2003. It covered it all; where the talking vegetables came from, how they influenced world events. It would have had humans in it, and veggie-human interaction. It would have revealed how Bob and Larry met, and what they did before they got their jobs on the VeggieTales show. All the deep lore, finally out in the open. Unfortunately this piece of cinematic history was strangled in the cradle. Big Idea's 2003 bankruptcy following the HiT suit, the abject failure of Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie and the In the House series, the acquisition by Universal and subsequent firing of all 10 members of the VT creative team. But, wouldn't that just make this film a failed endeavor? That's not development hell! What am I trying to pull here? Well, let me tell you: the film is out there. The series creator, Phil Vischer, claims to have a copy of the film stowed on his laptop. Furthermore, he is willing to share it with the hungry public. The only obstacle is Universal and Dreamworks' claims to the IP. These are difficult times, but we must be patient. The day will come.

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