History Main / ExtremelyLengthyCreation

* Creator/GeorgeMiller thought up the concept for ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'' back in 1997-98. After a ''long'' pre-production (during which he released three other movies), over a half-a-year of filming (with a very TroubledProduction) and two years in post-production, it finally released in 2015, nearly twenty years later.

* Creator/GeorgeMiller thought up the concept for ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'' back in 1997-98. After a ''long'' pre-production, over a half-a-year of filming (with a very TroubledProduction) and two years in post-production, it finally released in 2015, nearly twenty years later.

** Disney originally planned to update ''Disney/{{Fantasia}}'' every year, but its initial failure put a halt to that. After the success of the 50th anniversary re-release in 1990 and subsequent home-video sales, a second ''Fantasia'' feature was put into production, with each segment being made during production lulls starting in 1995. ''Disney/Fantasia2000'' was finally released in 2000, sixty years after the original.

As a general rule this trope covers anything that took more than ten years to write or make, or that involved some truly labyrinthine process, or simply because of DevelopmentHell. While a publicised work is trapped in an Extremely Lengthy Creation it is often comes to be considered VaporWare. Occasionally this can be a very good thing as having a long time to think about your creation can result in a worthy MagnumOpus, however spending too long on something can result in a work that is completely overwrought and filled with flaws that you don't notice because you have spent so long looking at whatever it is that you become blind to your own mistakes and used to your PurpleProse and alliterative grammar.

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein started working on a novel in the style of his juveniles and set his notes aside. Years after his death, those notes were passed on to SpiderRobinson, who turned them into the book, ''Literature/VariableStar''.

* Creator/{{Stephen King}} wrote "The Gunslinger", the first {{short story}} in ''Literature/{{The Dark Tower}}'', in 1978. This was followed by four more short stories between 1980 and 1981, which were collected as ''The Gunslinger'' in 1982. This was followed by ''The Drawing of the Three'' in 1987, ''The Wastelands'' in 1991, and ''Wizard and Glass'' in 1997. Then, in 1999 King got hit by a car, realised he might actually die one day, and released ''Wolves of the Calla, The Song of Susannah,'' and ''The Dark Tower'' within a year, 2003 - 2004.

* Creator/{{Stephen King}} wrote "The Gunslinger", the first {{short story}} in ''Literature/{{The Dark Tower}}'', in 1978. This was followed by four more short stories between 1980 and 1981, which were collected as ''The Gunslinger'' in 1982. This was followed by ''The Drawing of the Three'' in 1987, ''The Wastelands'' in 1991, and ''Wizard and Glass'' in 1997. Then King got hit by a car, realised he might actually die one day, and released ''Wolves of the Calla, The Song of Susannah,'' and ''The Dark Tower'' within a year, 2003 - 2004.

* George R.R. Martin is particularly infamous for his slow writing tempo, especially when working on his magnum opus, ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Six-year delays and more between new books in the series are the norm. Martin started writing the series in 1991, and he's not even close to the end.

* George R.R. Martin is particularly infamous for his slow writing tempo, especially when working on his magnum opus, ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. Six-year delays and more between new books in the series are the norm.

* ''Disney/{{Bambi}} was meant to be the second Disney feature after ''Disney/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'', with development starting in 1936, but production went slower than expected as animators struggled to get the realism Walt wanted for the film. By the time it was released in 1942, three other features had premiered in the meantime.

* ''Manga/HunterXHunter'' As of 2011, Yoshihiro Togashi has been drawing it for 10 years and is still not finished. It is not a particularly lengthy series compared to its ShonenJump brethren, but rather, Togashi took so many long breaks, one of which was 15 months, that it has taken this long to make it.

* Creator/JamesCameron started to work on the film that would eventually become ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' almost right after ''Film/{{Titanic}}'' was finished in 1997. Unfortunately, because he kept waiting for the technology to catch up to his vision, people started to place it on lists of "movies that will never be made."

* The ''SholanAlliance'' by Lisanne Norman: The first book was published in 1993, the 7th in 2003. The eighth book wasn't published until 2010. Some of the delays can be traced to the author moving from England to the Eastern U.S.A., then to the Pacific Coast.

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* In ''{{Middlemarch}}'' by George Eliot, Rev. Casaubon's life's work, an unfinished book ''The Key to All Mythologies'', is intended as a monument to the tradition of Christian syncretism. It turns out that this life's work is useless as he is behind on current studies (he doesn't read German, so his scholarship is incomplete). We also learn he is aware of this but has put too much time into his research to admit it to anyone else.

* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' FanFilm "Devious" has been in production since before 1996. (They got JonPertwee to reprise his role as the 3rd Doctor, in what was possibly his last filmed performance.)

* CharlesDarwin left his book ''Literature/OnTheOriginOfSpecies'' in a drawer for almost 20 years before finally publishing it out of concern for how it would be received (which, as history has proven, was [[HateDom very]] much [[MisaimedFandom justified]]). Indeed he intended for it to be published posthumously until Alfred Wallace had a similar theory and Darwin had to publish it or lose credit for his life's work.

* ''[[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey 3001: The Final Odyssey]]'' took Creator/ArthurCClarke ten years to write.

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* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'': Creator/CSLewis first pictured the faun from ''The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'' when he was sixteen. He finished the book when he was fifty.

* Gordon Dickson's ''Literature/ChildeCycle'' had a great scope: a book series that spanned humanity's development, that would have included not only several sci-fi novels, but historical and contemporary works as well. However, Dickson focused more on the Science Fiction novels, and died before he even got a chance to finish his work.

* ''Witness of Literature/{{Gor}}'', the 26th novel in the ''Gor'' series was stuck in DevelopmentHell for 13 years.
* ''The Shelters of Stone'', book 5 of the ''Literature/EarthsChildren'' series too 12 years. Jane Auel really likes to do the research.

* ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'' took ten years to write.

* ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' took seven years of planning and organizing before Jo Rowling published the first book.

* The eponymous ''Film/MrHollandsOpus''. Mr. Holland takes a temp job teaching music appreciation in a high shool to support himself while working on his opus - and it still isn't done 30 years later when his position is terminated, but that doesn't stop his [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming former students from coming together to perform it]] at his [[ReluctantRetiree retirement]] party.

* ''[[UltimateMarvel Ultimate]] {{Wolverine}} vs {{Hulk}}''. First issue dated February 2006, second issue April 2006 ... third issue May 2009. Three years. Apparently, after the intial delays, they decided they might as well hold onto it until the remaining issues were complete.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheThiefAndTheCobbler'' is a tragic example of a MagnumOpus crushed by DevelopmentHell and ExecutiveMeddling.

* It took Creator/StephenKing decades to finish ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' series.

* ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever'' took 13 years to develop. The answer to whether its quality after those years was worth the wait varies.

* The eponymous ''Film/MrHollandsOpus''. Mr. Holland takes a temp job teaching music appreciation in a high shool to support himself while working on his opus - and it still isn't done 30 years later when his position is terminated, but that doesn't stop his [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming former students from coming together to perform it]] at his [[ForcedRetirement retirement]] party.

* ''Literature/TheBible'' took millennia -- though it is, in actual fact, far more than one book.

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