Shekhar Kapur's unrealized projects

In 1992, he was set to direct the sci-fi film titled Time Machine, which was to star Aamir Khan, Raveena Tandon, Naseeruddin Shah and Rekha, but he abandoned the project halfway through due to financial problems.

[3] According to screenwriter John Rogers, the success of Elizabeth led to Kapur being tapped to work on an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, but later both the projects got shelved.

He revealed that the story would be based 60 years from the present in a hypothetical time when water has run out, and he noted that he thought of the theme when he was making Bandit Queen (1994).

A team including scriptwriter Andrew Niccol, music composer A. R. Rahman, editor Jill Bilcock and production designer John Myhre was announced for the project.

[9][10][11] Reports throughout the late 2000s suggested that producers including Barrie Osborne and Danny Boyle were interested in the project but no official announcement from a studio was made.

[21][22] Kapur denied media reports that actresses Monica Bellucci and Anushka Sharma were approached to play the leading female role.

[31] By June 2015, Kapur and producer Chopra decided not to collaborate on the film owing to creative disagreements, especially on the casting of Rajput in the lead role.

[34] The project was shelved by April 2017, but the success of Baahubali: The Beginning (2017) prompted Kapur to resume his plans of making the film in late 2017, potentially with Ranveer Singh in the lead role.

[40] He had planned this project with his longtime friend and previous collaborator Heath Ledger in the role of a popular television news anchor.

In 1992, he had shot some scenes for Barsaat, which originally was titled Champion, and it was going to be the debut film of Bobby Deol, but he left the production and was replaced by Rajkumar Santoshi.

[47] In 1995, he partly directed Dushmani, starring Sunny Deol, Jackie Shroff and Manisha Koirala, then its producer Bunty Soorma completed the film.