[6] Soon after the publication of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, in 1964, Russell was set to direct the adaptation, which was originally projected as a vehicle for the Rolling Stones with Mick Jagger in the role of Alex.
He intended to return to the BBC to make the film after completed post-production obligations on Billion Dollar Brain, but no meetings were held with Symons' brother Julian, who owned the rights to the story.
[1] Before choosing to direct Billion Dollar Brain, Russell had a contract with producer Harry Saltzman to film the life of the Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky with Rudolph Nureyev in the lead.
[1] In 1968, during production on Women in Love, Russell declared his interest in making an adaptation of the life of the writer and Bloomsbury Group member Lytton Strachey, based on Michael Holroyd's biography, for the BBC's Omnibus.
[1] In the late 1960s, Russell developed an adaptation of William Faulkner's children's story The Wishing Tree that he intended to star Twiggy, who was seventeen at the time.
While in production on The Boy Friend, Russell promised White that he would fly to Australia early in the new year to scout locations for Voss and then return for filming in late July 1972.
[13] In the early 1970s, at the same time he was engaged to direct The Boy Friend, Russell was attached to film Under the Volcano starring Albert Finney, which was later made by John Huston.
[19] While filming commenced on Savage Messiah, Russell worked with Derek Jarman on a script called The Angels, about a pop star named Poppy Day who, after suddenly disappearing in a plane crash, is resurrected by her fans into "a giant sized statue... with cripples praying for a cure as they line up to touch her golden calf."
[28] Producer David Puttnam had commissioned music films on Gustav Mahler, Franz Liszt, Ralph Vaughan Williams and George Gershwin; the latter of which was the only one Russell did not make.
[33] In 1978, a screenplay for a 1920s-set "sex-propelled", comic interpretation of Bram Stoker's Dracula was written by Russell, intending for it to star Mick Fleetwood as a reimagined version of the Count, an arts philanthropist.
According to Russell biographer Paul Sutton, the film came close to being made by Columbia Pictures, only to be abandoned after Universal greenlit its version of Dracula for production at the same time.
While it was not made, it did however form the impetus for a 1996 ballet by Christopher Gable, as well as Francis Coppola's 1992 filming of the story, whose screenwriter James V. Hart was directly involved in the inception of Russell's interpretation.
Russell wanted to cast Liza Minnelli for the role of Eva Perón, but Stigwood and Evita lyricist Tim Rice favored Elaine Paige, who played the character in the London stage production.
To convince them, Russell flew Minnelli to London, fitted her with an expensive blond wig and custom period gowns and filmed a series of celluloid tests, costing six figures.
[39][2] In 1984, Russell was set to write and direct a mini-series for HBO documenting the events of the production of the 1963 film Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, which famously almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox.
In the mid-1980s, Russell began filming Two-Way Romeo based on Brian Aldiss' Brothers of the Head, about real-life conjoined twins Tom and Barry Howe.
[43] Also in the mid-1980s, producer Bob Guccione tapped Russell to write and direct a "bold, censor-free interpretation" of Daniel Defoe's novel Moll Flanders.
As soon as he arrived to find Italian approximations of English countrysides, Guccione sent a lawyer who proceeded to fire Russell's assistant, cameraman, editor, and costume designer.
[48] In 2006, a failed attempt at reviving Moll Flanders with a cast of Lucinda Rhodes-Flaherty, Steven Berkoff and Barry Humphries was to be filmed in Croatia with a multi-million budget.
[58] Early on in its production, Russell was attached to direct Cannon Films' The Mummy Lives with Anthony Perkins, Amanda Donohoe and Oliver Reed in the cast.
Russell was among six directors who, in September 1992, agreed to contribute a segment as a part of a six-hour documentary feature bankrolled by Cecco Films and Worldvision Enterprises about life in what used to be the Soviet Union, titled Momentous Events: Russia in the '90s.
Peter Bogdanovich, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard and Werner Herzog also signed on to direct individual segments for the project.
In December 1997, it was reported in the Variety trade papers that Russell was planning a film on the life of Christ titled Son of Man, that which would be depicted "with a lot of joy and humor".
[63][51] In a 2001 interview with The Observer, Russell revealed he was asked by an American company to do a script on the creation of Peter Pan based on the J. M. Barrie biography Neverland.
[65][66][64] Jim Carrey was allegedly approached as a possible lead, with Russell also considering Hugh Grant, Paul McGann, Alan Bates and David Hemmings to star.
[65] Despite enthusiasm from Belgrade's Tesla Museum and with shooting initially scheduled for June, by March 2003, government funding suddenly disappeared after the Serbian president was assassinated.
[69] Also in March 2006, Russell and his wife Lisi Tribble were planning to go to the Philippines in May where he was engaged to direct The Pearl of the Orient, based on the true story of a Filipino woman who tried to escape the Japanese during World War II by running into the jungle with an American missionary.
[68] In October 2006, it was reported that Russell was in pre-production on a revenge thriller Kings X, starring Emily Lloyd, Robert Carlyle, Kevin Spacey, Ray Winstone, and co-starring Twiggy.
[70] At the time of Russell's death, it was revealed by his widow Lisi that he had secretly been working on a musical-comedy film version of Alice in Wonderland, loosely based on the 1976 adaptation of Lewis Carroll's story.
[71] Russell hoped to attract an all-star cast of his favorite actors from his career, including Roger Daltrey, who was approached to play the Mad Hatter.