18 of the greatest movies never made

DreamWorks Pictures

Russell Crowe in "Gladiator."

For every movie made, there are hundreds of rejected screenplays, germs of ideas, and screen tests that just never worked out.

But sometimes, a filmmaker comes up with a vision that's so ambitious or interesting that it just doesn't work out. Even great filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick and Guillermo del Toro sometimes can't get the funding they need. And some great novels, begging to be adapted into novels, just can't get off the ground.

Here are the stories behind 18 of those amazing-sounding movies. Far from being mere great ideas from great filmmakers, these movies made significant steps toward production, but never got off the ground.