During his long career, American film director Barry Levinson worked on numerous projects that never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction.
[1] According to journalist Stephen Rebello, an unproduced screenplay called The Eagle of Broadway was long sought after by Levinson and producer Mark Johnson in the 1980s.
[2] Another iteration, directed by Ivan Passer, had James Cagney starring as gunfighter-turned-NYC sportswriter Bat Masterson, and William Hurt as Damon Runyon.
[3] In 1986, Rob Cohen of Taft-Barish Productions hired Terrence Malick to adapt Larry McMurtry's The Desert Rose into a screenplay for Levinson to direct.
[25][26] On January 18, 2011, Levinson was replaced by Robert Connolly as the film's director, with Vera Farmiga and Mia Wasikowska alongside Sam Neill and Sebastian Stan.
[51] On September 30, 2020, Levinson was set to direct Andrew Farotte's biographical script Francis and the Godfather about the development of The Godfather, with Oscar Isaac and Jake Gyllenhaal starring as Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Evans respectively, and Echo Lake Entertainment's Mike Marcus, Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding are producing with Kevin Turen, Jon Levin and Baltimore Pictures' Jason Sosnoff,[52] In early 2021, Elizabeth Moss and Elle Fanning were set to star as Eleanor Coppola and Ali MacGraw respectively.
[53][54] On September 1, 2021, it was announced that Levinson would direct the limited television series One Giant Leap about the Apollo 11 mission, to be written and showrun by Stephen Kronish, who would also executive produce the project alongside Thoroughbred Pictures' Jeremy Fox and Howard Stringer, Benjamin Anderson, Kevin Costner, and Phoenix Pictures' Mike Medavoy.