and Michael Gingold
Actually, two of these are photonovels and one is a screenplay, so to be more accurate (some would say nitpicky) it's 17 novelizations that were announced for publication but ultimately never reached completion. We would've bought most of these if they'd seen the light of day.
BATTLEFIELD EARTH (2000)
Fotonovel announced but scrapped once the movie bombed
BEWITCHED (2005)
Novelization by Cathy East Dubowski, from HarperEntertainment
THE CAPTURE OF BIGFOOT (1979)
A novelization was announced by Dale Books
THE CHELSEA GIRLS (1971)
Novelized by William Johnston, from Lancer Books
DEATH WISH 3 (1985)
A novelization was announced in the trailer, but reportedly one phone call from Death Wish author Brian Garfield put a stop to it
DEUCES WILD (2001)
Pocket Books novelization by Max Allan Collins
ED (1996)
A junior novelization by Elaine Moore, from Price Stern Sloan
EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING (2003)
The movie was released as DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST but the novelization -- written by Steven Piziks, from Pocket Star -- was never published.
GIGLI (2003)
Novelization by Robert Westbrook, from Onyx, apparently unpublished
An illustrated hardcover novelization from Putnam & Sons
HERE ON EARTH (2000)
Novelization by Wendy Loggia, from Dell Books
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 (2008)
A color "Cine-Manga" photonovel from TokyoPop
HIGHWAYMEN (2005)
A British novelization by Jonathan Clements, from Black Flame
THE INTERPRETER (2005)
Novelization from Berkeley, written by David Jacobs
THE LAST MOVIE (1971)
Dennis Hopper's screenplay was to be published by Signet Film Series
NACHO LIBRE (2006)
A junior novelization by Marc Cerasini, from Simon Spotlight
OCEAN'S 12 (2004)
Novelization from Onyx
STEP UP 2: THE STREETS (2008)
Announced by Disney but unpublished
SUPERNOVA (2000)
Novelization by Steven E. McDonald, from Tor
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING (2006)
British novelization from Black Flame, written by Stephen Hand
I never wrote nor was I approached to write a novelization of DEUCES WILD. That may have been a tentative title for a CSI novel.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction! We'll have to strike that one from the manuscript.
ReplyDelete"Superman the Movie" (1978) by Mario Puzo was written and typeset, but ended up being replaced by Superman: Last Son of Krypton" by Elliot S! Maggin (yes, that's his name) which was based on the comic version, not the movie version of Superman.
ReplyDeleteJust stumbled across this blog entry, dragging up memories...
ReplyDeleteI finished writing the Highwaymen novelisation, delivered it and got paid. I was pretty proud of it, too, and my editor warily cautioned me that it "bordered on being literature."
The film didn't quite go straight to video, but might as well have done -- it was essentially buried. Since the novelisation was a marketing expense, for a film that would not now be marketed, it was just shelved. I put an extract from it on my website, only to get an email from Black Flame reminding me that I didn't own it, and it was up to New Line to decide what to do with it... which turns out to be Absolutely Nothing.
Maybe one day they'll dump it on the Kindle. I hope so.
Excellent rundown of such books, and enjoyable comments above mine here. Thanks. But to respectfully correct and add to the accuracy of one on the list...
ReplyDeleteCopies of an "advanced uncorrected bound manuscript" of Steven Piziks' indeed unpublished 2003 novelization of Paul Schrader's DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST exist, in indiscernibly miniscule quantities (and under the original title of EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING, of course later recycled for Renny Harlin's revision of that film released a year later as DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST).
Having read as a book reviewer both versions, Piziks' newer one novelizing Harlin's features many passages retained, moved elsewhere in the story, and/or repurposed with character names changed.
So while the studio never released that novelization of Schrader's version once Harlin and Piziks got to work on E:TB v2.0, it exists, just never in bookstores.
May the e-book gods also one day bestow that first version by Piziks. It's a much stronger, classier, more unified piece than his second, and deserves at least that.