Been binging a lot of Hammer films this past week (tis the season!) and consequently mulling over a few of their unmade films that the fates conspired to deprive us of their presence in our lives.
They had planned to adapt Richard Matheson's
I Am Legend in the early 1960s as
Night Creatures. Would have starred Peter Cushing and opened on a deserted and silent London showing various locations before he begin to hear some noise in the distance that would eventually be revealed as the protagonist sharpening stakes before doing his rounds. The BBFC said 'no chance, mate' and
Night Creatures was recycled as the US name for
Captain Clegg, itself loosely adapted from Russell Thorndike's
Doctor Syn. This was done because Hammer had already promised Universal a film called
Night Creatures and had to deliver.
Then there's Nessie, which was to come in the late 1970s and have been a co-production between Hammer and Toho. Filming was to have been done in Scotland with Andrew Keir starring and Toho handling all the creature effects including the titular plesiosaur which would be attacking oil rigs out in the North Sea - a concept
Doctor Who had done in 1975 in
Terror of the Zygons. There was actually a lot of pre-production work done on this including a teaser poster and Toho doing some early work on the creature. Unfortunately by that point Hammer was really on a downward spiral after several failures and the deal just fell apart.
Then there's
Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter, which actually was released and is a very enjoyable swashbuckling vampire film, but was intended to be the start of a new series featuring the title character a sort of action Van Helsing like was later tried in 2004. Written by Brian Clemens who wanted to bring a real touch of what was done on television in
The Avengers to the production only set in 19th century central Europe, his original script came close to steampunk in some parts but unfortunately a lot of this was lost in the thrifty Hammer filmmaking methods. Honestly surprised this property is still dormant since it seems so ripe for a remake ticking all the boxes, but perhaps it and Hammer are just not as marketable a name despite on paper a steampunk superhero vampire hunting series spelling money money money.