David Gordon Green's unrealized projects

During his long career, American film director David Gordon Green has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction.

In September 2001, Green told The Guardian that one of his future projects was a three-hour long sci-fi epic in the vein of [Andrei] Tarkovsky.

"[3] Another early project Green discussed was a "Gothic, southern epic"[4] script about heroin addicts in the Wild West.

[5] Will Ferrell was to have portrayed Ignatius J. Reilly and Lily Tomlin, Drew Barrymore, Mos Def and Olympia Dukakis were to have co-starred.

[12] In March 2003, it was reported that Green was planning to direct a film adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees.

[13] Then, in 2004, it was announced that Green will write and direct the film for Focus Features, with Lauren Shuler Donner serving as producer.

[9][2] The Independent reported that had the film been greenlighted, Green was to have cast Paul Schneider as "a gay mechanic named Tess.

[2][3][16] Variety reported in July 2004 that Green was attached to direct a film adaptation of Will Clarke's Lord Vishnu's Love Handles: A Spy Novel (sort of) with Grant Morris writing.

[2] When asked about the fate of Nerd Camp in 2011, Green responded, "They took it away from me and Danny [McBride] before anybody knew who we were and had some other guy write it.

[22][23][24] The film was to have been based on John Grisham's non-fiction book about Ron Williamson titled The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town.

Variety further described it as about "an ex-Marine who finds himself deep in the jungles of Asia searching for his son who has been taken hostage by the most dangerous man in Cambodia.

[37][38] In addition to Fuhrman, Isabelle Huppert, Janet McTeer, Michael Nyqvist and Antje Traue were also to have appeared in the film.

[3] It was reported in 2016 that Green, if available, was attached to produce and direct a television series based on Freaks of the Heartland for MTV.

[50] In May 2010, it was announced that Paramount Pictures hired Green and Josh Parkinson to rewrite the Battling Boy script.

[54] It was to have based on Taking Flight: The Hunt for a Young Outlaw, a nonfiction book by Bob Friel about the life of Colton Harris Moore.

[57] Green announced in April 2011 that he expressed interest in doing a remake of the 1968 film Ice Station Zebra, adding that he wrote a script for the remake for Warner Bros.[16][58][59] In April 2011, Green also revealed a dream project of his about rival musical families in Branson, Missouri in the 1960s, adding that "If someone called me up and asked if I wanted to do Seven Brides for Seven Brothers I'd jump to the front of the line for that.

[66] It was reported in 2012 that Green was in talks to direct a film based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie for Sony Pictures.

[74][75][76] In a 2013 interview with the Special Broadcasting Service, Green expressed interest in remaking his film Prince Avalanche (2013) in Australia as an action movie and title it Hit the Road Jack.

[78] In August 2013, after financing fell apart for his Suspiria remake, Green was considering helming a horror film from a script written by Craig Zobel.

[99][100] In September 2019, it was reported that Green's company Rough House, Village Roadshow Pictures and Albert S. Ruddy would produce a sequel series to Hogan's Heroes about the descendants of the original characters teaming up for a treasure hunt.

[102] In October 2020, a Smokey and the Bandit TV series remake was revealed to be in development, with a pilot written by Green and Brian Sides and also executive produced with his Rough House confederates Jody Hill, Danny McBride and Brandon James and Seth MacFarlane and Erica Huggins of Fuzzy Door.

[103] In May 2021, an animated series based on the Garbage Pail Kids was announced as being in development at HBO Max with Green, Danny McBride and Josh Bycel on board as writers/co-creaters.

[105] Green was slated to serve as director on The Exorcist: Believer, while work on the scripts with the same writing team of himself, Danny McBride, Peter Sattler and Scott Teems for the two additional films was ongoing.

[107] Following the poor reception of Believer, sources from The Hollywood Reporter claimed there would almost certainly be some degree of creative re-think for the next two films, and that Green recently expressed some doubt about his participation.

According to Green, the project, which was still in the scripting stage, was to focus more on the creation of the park as opposed to how it changed and developed over the decades.