Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Main / SavedFromDevelopmentHell

Go To

1%%
2%%Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1643301284066728000
3%%Please don't add a new image without starting a new thread.
4%%
5->''"What? Did you think I was '''GONE''' forever?"''
6-->-- '''Duke Nukem''', ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever'' trailer
7
8DevelopmentHell is what some works go through if there's too much ExecutiveMeddling, lawsuits, [[TroubledProduction and so on]]. The fanbase is waiting more and more impatiently, but nothing gets done.
9
10Sometimes, however, divine intervention happens. After many, many years, [[NotHyperbole or even decades]], of promises, the work is finally released.
11
12Of course, the finished product is almost always significantly, or even completely, different from what the creator originally had in mind, if for no other reason than the conditions imposed by the passage of time.
13
14See also TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment, where it ''is'' finished, but not released. May involve WhatCouldHaveBeen if the project saw changes after being dusted off. Compare UnCanceled for serialized works.
15
16''Please only list examples here that have actually left development hell. Also, note that just because a title was saved from development hell doesn't necessarily mean that it's good. There are far too many examples of "saved" titles that were so bad or underwhelming that people would have preferred it stayed in development hell.''
17----
18!!Example subpages:
19
20[[index]]
21* [[SavedFromDevelopmentHell/LiveActionFilms Films — Live-Action]]
22* SavedFromDevelopmentHell/VideoGames
23[[/index]]
24
25!!Other examples:
26
27[[foldercontrol]]
28
29[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
30* Back in September 2016, there was an announcement on a basketball sports anime called ''Barangay 143'' which would be set in the Philippines and would be produced by Creator/TVAsahi and the Philippine-based studio Synergy 88. Initially, it was supposed to be released in Spring 2017; however, the project is delayed due to lack of manpower. A [[http://www.dageeks.com/games/synergy88-talks-about-barangay-143-game-and-upcoming-anime-during-esgs-2017/ a mobile video game app]] was released instead which is sort of a prologue to the upcoming anime. After months of being in limbo, the first-ever Filipino-made anime [[http://entertainment.inquirer.net/284238/filipino-made-anime-barangay-143-to-air-in-october will be aired on October 2018]] on GMA Network.
31* The ''Anime/CodeGeass'' Gaiden was first mentioned in the 2008 or 2009 time frame, though its official announcement wasn't until early-mid 2010. It was supposed to air in 2011. It finally came out in late 2012.
32* Whilst its stay in development hell was rather short, ''Anime/FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren'' does fit. Announced at TGS 2003, and originally targeted for a summer 2004 release, it ended up appearing in its original form in September 2005. The reason, according to [[WordOfGod director Tetsuya Nomura]], was that the movie was originally meant to only be roughly 40-50 minutes long. However, fan interest skyrocketed as soon as the movie was announced, so the script was rewritten and the movie lengthened to accommodate for an expectation. ''Advent Children Complete'' again deserves a mention: it saw release in April 2009, after being announced at TGS 2006.
33* The ''Anime/GiantRobo'' OVA, The Day The Earth Stood Still, took ten years to finish. There are seven episodes.
34* It took ''nine years'' for Creator/KeikoTakemiya to get her manga series ''Manga/KazeToKiNoUta'' published, due to the plot focusing on a homosexual relationship and Takemiya's refusal to release the series with any censoring.
35* ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'':
36** The second season, both in Japan and abroad. It only started airing in the middle of a rerun of the first, with no advertising to speak of, amid official denials from the publisher.
37* ''[[Manga/SgtFrog Keroro Gunsou]]'':
38** Creator/ADVFilms announced their license of the series in early 2006, then went completely silent about it for two years and never released so much as a cast list, let alone a DVD or anything close (all we got were trailers for the show appearing on some of ADV's releases from 2007, and some of the actors mentioning it in commentaries and convention appearances). Then ADV lost the rights to ''Frog'' — along with nearly 3 dozen other titles — in July 2008. Creator/FUNimation picked up the distribution rights and released a "test episode" on their Website/YouTube channel seeking feedback in late 2008. The response was less than stellar, so [=FUNimation=] went back to the drawing board to tweak the scripts and casting. The first batch of episodes was eventually released on DVD in September 2009, and some of the episodes of the final version are up on their video portal. Six months later all of Season 1 (split into two "seasons" due to its length) had been released.
39** The series then went through this ''again''. [=FUNimation=] had originally announced the acquisition of the first 102 episodes, but stopped halfway through. It took another year for Funimation to announce 26 more episodes, which were released in quick succession in July and August 2011.
40* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'': Due to Tokyopop losing the license, the U.S. release was stalled after two volumes. Yen Press acquired the rights in 2013, and are releasing all five volumes in two omnibus editions. Similarly, they've released all three volumes of the ''Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix'' manga in two volumes.
41* An anime adaption of Kizumonogatari, the prequel to ''Literature/{{Bakemonogatari}}'', was announced back in 2011 after the first installment's conclusion. Shortly afterward it was instead announced as a theatrical release delayed to March 2012. And then it was delayed again... And then again. The one time the movie ''did'' have a release date, it was rescinded the same day and never mentioned again. Since the announcement of Kizumonogatari, Creator/StudioSHAFT has released five more instalments to the Monogatari series and over a dozen other projects with no sign of Kizu seeing the light of day. It finally released in 2016 in the form of a three-part movie series.
42* To celebrate the show's [[MilestoneCelebration 20th anniversary]], the long-delayed ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' movie, ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDFreedom'', was finally announced as part of 2021-2022's ''Gundam SEED Project Ignited'' multimedia project. Contributing to the long delay was the illness, and [[DiedDuringProduction eventual death]], of head writer Chiaki Morosawa, wife of director Mitsuo Fukuda, from an aortic dissection in February 2016.
43* After two years, Maikaze finally released a trailer for the second episode of their ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' {{fanime}} ''Anime/MusouKakyouASummerDaysDream'', which had been rumored to have been scrapped over criticism, both from the series' original creator ZUN and from fans.
44* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'':
45** The original series' infamous GainaxEnding was the product of severe budget cuts that left many loose threads hanging. It wasn't until later that Studio Gainax was able to secure the funding for a movie that became ''The End of Evangelion'', which serves as the proper, intended ending to the series.
46** ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'': The third movie, ''You Can (Not) Redo'', took a really, ''really'' long time. It was released on November 17, 2012, more than ''three years'' after the previous movie. The end product [[NeverTrustATrailer had nothing to do with the material from the trailer at the end of 2.22]] because the original script was scrapped mid-production, having already reached storyboarding.
47*** The fourth and final movie, ''Thrice Upon a Time'', took even longer due to a CreatorBreakdown after the third, with the first teaser being released ''six years'' after the third movie's debut with a tentative 2020 release. After ''that'' was [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic inevitably delayed]], it was then announced the film would have a March 8th, 2021 release date, [[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2021-03-09/final-evangelion-film-1st-day-sells-539623-tickets-for-over-802774200-yen/.170411 which actually stuck this time]].
48* ''Anime/NeppuKairikuBushiRoad'' was first announced in 2003 and was to be released in 2005. Then various complications happened (e.g. the staff members all left). It was later announced to become a 3-hour special on New Year's Eve of 2013. That's '''10 YEARS''' it's been stuck.
49* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
50** It has had a crazy situation with this in America, especially if you're talking uncut episodes. Creator/FourKidsEntertainment got the anime in 2004 and it was aired on Toonami severely edited, even by 4Kids standards. 4Kids originally said they would make uncut releases of this and other shows, then that idea suddenly died. Then in 2007, they lost the license altogether. Then [=FUNimation=] picked up the show and started putting their version on Toonami... which was canceled after just 25 episodes (they had dubbed over 40 at the time). They started releasing [=DVD=] uncut from the first episode, but certain actors told fans at cons that it was [=FUNimation=]'s worst-performing series (studio reps denied it), leaving doubt as to whether they would even bother releasing the season they aired on Toonami, to say nothing of any episodes after. The time between original licensing of the show and a proper uncut release: over 3 years.
51** It gets crazier once you get to the streaming. The online simulcast was announced and was hacked on the very first night, canceling the event and leaving [=FUNimation=] and Toei talking for months, leaving fans wondering if they'd ever get caught up to Japan (or keep getting [=DVDs=] at all). Then finally, months later, the simulcast came back and is still going strong.
52** After over a year of no information whatsoever -— and a general consensus that they had dropped the show -— [=FUNimation=] announced Season 4 (the first to get no U.S. TV airing at all) for a Summer 2012 release, and Season 5 a few months later for 2013.
53* While writing ''Manga/{{Orange}}'', the author Takano Ichigo became extremely ill and had to paralyze the publication of her work for more than a year. She's resumed publishing by now (even moved to another magazine from a different publisher), but she still has sequels, meaning the series doesn't get published monthly if the author couldn't make it to the deadline. The series has been completed as of late 2015, however.
54* ''Pantheon High'', an American manga, was published by Creator/{{Tokyopop}}. Unfortunately, Tokyopop stopped publishing -- but didn't go bankrupt -- in 2011, right before the third and final volume was to be released. Since Tokyopop wasn't publishing, they didn't release the volume, but since the company still existed, the authors couldn't get the rights back to have it published somewhere else. Comixology finally picked it up in May 2014 and is now selling all three volumes.
55* Despite having been teased since 2011, ''Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt'''s second season has been stuck in a state of limbo due to the people involved with the show leaving Creator/StudioGainax to form Creator/StudioTrigger and legal issues preventing the latter from continuing it. Finally though, after twelve years, the second season would finally be announced in 2022 during Anime Expo 2022, by none other than TRIGGER themselves.
56* ''Anime/SailorMoonCrystal'' was announced in June 2012 with a tentative premiere scheduled for Summer 2013. The year went by with no updates on the project, and it missed its announced premiere window. Then producers suggested it was pushed back to Winter 2013, and then it failed to make ''that'' window. Then updates finally started happening, the first promo image was revealed in March 2014, and the series finally premiered in July 2014, a year behind schedule.
57* ''Manga/ShamanKing'' was canceled around the last chapters due to very low ratings and it was finished with a 'Not concluded' note at the end of it, in 2004. It was until 2008 that Shueisha announced that they were releasing a perfect edition of the manga, giving the chance to the author to finish exactly where and how he wanted it to be. The last volume of ''Shaman King: Kang Zeng Bang'' was eventually released in 2010.
58* Due to the manga centering heavily on ableism in Japan, ''Manga/ASilentVoice'' took several years to become a series due to its controversial nature. There was even an attempted lawsuit against it. It was originally a one-shot in 2008 but was remade in 2011, where it finally got mainstream attention, and later was adapted into a several volume manga in 2013.
59* ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'' missed out on a direct fourth season in 1998 due to production issues and Music/MegumiHayashibara having schedule conflicts, and while there were more [=OVAs=], a movie (''Slayers Premium'') and other media, it took ''eleven years'' for a fourth season to finally appear. A fifth then occurred the following year.
60* ''Anime/{{Steamboy}}'' was in production for 16 years, which definitely shows in all the SceneryPorn.
61[[/folder]]
62
63[[folder:Architecture]]
64* Cologne Cathedral began construction on 15 August 1248 with the foundation stone being laid. Construction stalled in 1473, though intermittent work continued until the early-to-mid-1500s; this was typical for most medieval cathedrals, which operated on an "ad-hoc" funding basis from donations. However, in the case of Cologne Cathedral, the original plans were rediscovered in the 19th century, in the social context of a German Romanticist movement to which the grand vision behind the massive Gothic structure appealed. Funding was provided by donations as well as the Lutheran royal court of the Kingdom of Prussia, which saw the cathedral's completion as a way to demonstrate its beneficence to its newly-annexed Catholic subjects. Construction finally resumed in 1842; the cathedral's completion was celebrated on 14 August 1880, '''''632 years''''' after construction began and four centuries since [[DevelopmentHell it originally stalled]].
65* The Second Avenue line of the UsefulNotes/NewYorkCitySubway, which was originally proposed in 1920. The first phase opened to passengers ''97 years later''. It was on the city's to-do list for many years and became more pressing when the 2nd and 3rd Avenue els that served the East Side of Manhattan were demolished in 1942 and 1956. With the els removed, this put additional pressure on the nearby Lexington Avenue line, which was already overcrowded even before they were torn down. City bond issues for the line were approved by voters twice (1951 and 1967) and construction finally began in 1972. But a myriad of issues such as changing demographics, the city nearly going bankrupt in 1975, and [=NIMBY=]ism stalled the project for decades. The idea was finally put back on track in 2005 with another voter-approved bond issue, and construction restarted in 2007. The first segment from Lexington Avenue–63rd Street to 96th Street finally opened on January 1, 2017, as an extension of the '''Q''' train from the Broadway Line, with some rush-hour '''N''' and '''R''' put-ins. Originally designed to be a 4-track subway, it is now a 2-track line due to rising construction costs.
66* I-95 is the major highway along the East Coast of the United States, going from Miami all the way up through Maine to the Canadian border. Despite being one of the first routes of the Interstate Highway System planned and started when it was first proposed in the 1950s, it was still not one continuous route long after most of the nationwide system was built by the 1980s. The original plan was to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_95_in_New_Jersey#Routing_through_Central_New_Jersey:_Somerset_Freeway build a new highway through New Jersey]] to connect Philadelphia and New York City, but thanks to freeway revolts (locals feared that the highway would bring unwanted development to area farmland) and opposition by the New Jersey Turnpike (what would you rather travel, a tolled road or a free one?[[note]]the Turnpike itself eventually got routed as I-95[[/note]]), the proposed Somerset Freeway got canned. In 1995, due to increasing traffic along US 206 and New Jersey Route 31, this motivated officials in Mercer County to have New Jersey reconsider building the Somerset Freeway as a way to reduce congestion on local roads, but it was ruled out because of a hefty $700 million price tag. Also around this time, I-95 was extended east along I-295 between the site of the Somerset Freeway interchange and US 1 in Lawrence Township, while being extended down the New Jersey Turnpike (until Exit 6) and then west along the Pearl Harbor Memorial Extension to known as the Pennsylvania Turnpike Connector via the Delaware River–Turnpike Toll Bridge. The gap was ''finally'' closed [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Turnpike/Interstate_95_Interchange_Project by a new project in Pennsylvania]] which opened in 2018.
67* The San Francisco 49ers were trying to get a stadium built for many years under multiple plans to replace Candlestick Park, which was built for baseball and had to be retrofitted to accommodate them. The new stadium in Santa Clara finally broke ground in 2012; Levi's Stadium opened in time for the 2014 NFL season.
68* Plans for Mall at Bay Plaza in the Bronx (an enclosed mall adjacent to the existing Bay Plaza strip mall) were first announced in 1997. A J.C. Penney store was built on the mall site in 1999, but nothing else ever happened until the mall itself finally broke ground in mid-2012. When completed in 2014, it was one of only two enclosed shopping malls in the U.S. to be built since 2006, with Macy's as the other anchor store.
69* Since 2007, plans have been proposed for the redevelopment of the Landsdowne Park area in Ottawa, Ontario, since the announcement of a [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball CFL]] franchise for the city to play in 2010. The date was pushed back to 2013 after it became a necessity to replace the entire stadium and pushed another year back after a lawsuit from a group of residents in the area. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed in 2012 and construction began.
70* The Washington Monument[[note]]The famous obelisk in Washington, D.C.; there are also monuments in Baltimore and elsewhere.[[/note]] sat one-third completed from 1854 to 1879, with the stoppage mostly due to a lack of donations. Congress finally stepped in to fund its completion.
71* One World Trade Center, the single tower that stands to replace the Twin Towers which fell on 9/11, went through several designs and concepts, and its progress was slowed nearly to a halt by politics and [[ExecutiveMeddling incompetent administration]]. A plan was finally settled, construction was resumed, and the building finally topped out in 2012 -- 11 years after the attacks leveled its predecessor.
72* [[UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC Washington National Cathedral]] took 70 years to be completed.
73* The "Big Dig", Boston's famous plan to reroute I-93, a.k.a. the Central Artery, into a tunnel below the city. 15 years of leaks, fatal collapses, and other mishaps gave it an estimated price tag of nearly $22 billion. It finally completed and the tunnel opened in 2007...but with numerous problems that they're ''still'' trying to fix.
74* The Louisiana[[note]]now Caesars, formerly Mercedes-Benz[[/note]] Superdome was another example of its construction. It was originally supposed to break ground in 1968 and be ready to open in time for the 1972 NFL season (with Super Bowl VI that January serving as the final event for Tulane Stadium, which was serving as a temporary home for the New Orleans Saints at the time) and cost $46 million[[note]]in 1968 dollars; now over $312 million[[/note]]. Instead, political wrangling between the developers and Louisiana politicians delayed the groundbreaking until August 11, 1971, and ultimately cost $165 million factorings in inflation, the 1973 Oil Crisis, and construction delays. The Superdome would open for the 1975 season, after more construction delays that forced Super Bowl IX (which was intended to serve as the stadium's grand opening) being moved at the last moment to the aging Tulane Stadium, where that game would be played in cold, windy and rainy conditions.
75* North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel, which started construction in Pyongyang in 1987, was built with the intent of creating the world's tallest hotel and to attract foreign customers to the North Korean market. Standing at 105 stories, construction stalled in 1992 as a result of an economic depression, and the tower stood dormant for sixteen years with no exterior or interior work conducted as the building essentially stood as an empty shell. In 2008, Egyptian into vestors restarted construction, and the building's exterior was finally completed, with an intended opening date set for 2012, which was then pushed back to 2013; to date, the progress of the interior and the next likely opening date remain unclear.
76* There is a proverb in the Finnish language, ''rakentaa kuin Iisakin kirkkoa'' ("to construct like te Church of Isaac"), meaning a meticulous, lengthy and never-ending project. The proverb refers to the Church of St. Isaac the Dalmatian in St. Petersburg, Russia. Its construction lasted for forty years, from 1818 to 1858.
77* UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} Brandenburg Airport was supposed to replace Berlin's older international airports Tegel and Schönefeld) when construction began in 2006. In 2011 the airport was nearing completion and plans were in place to complete the overnight transfer of operations from the old airports to the new, but less than a month before it was supposed to open a test run of the airport's fire suppression system found it to be ''severely'' lacking and forced it to delay its opening. And delay it more as they couldn't figure out how to fix it in a satisfactory manner. Then it was deemed too dangerous for construction workers to enter out of fear the roof might collapse. The opening was delayed for a total of ''nine years'', and all the while costs overruns began to mount as the S-Bahn station had to open even without any passengers in order to prevent mold from growing and the LCD screens showing departure and arrival information had to be replaced because they had been left on the whole time and had reached the end of their operational lives. Cargo flights did eventually start to come in, and the airport finally opened for passenger traffic on October 31, 2020.
78[[/folder]]
79
80[[folder:Automobiles]]
81* Volkswagen Beetle. The pre-production series was ready before the WWII, but the development was shelved and only military models (Kübelwagen and Schwimmwagen) were produced in the KdF-Werke in the town of Stadt der KdF-Wagens, near Fallersleben, Germany. After the war, Fallersleben belonged to the British sector of occupation, and the British then re-booted the design and eventual production of the car, now re-named Volkswagen (People's Car) to provide the locals jobs and income, and also to provide those German families who had saved for years for a new car, their car after a decade of wait. The British also renamed the town of Stadt der KdF-Wagens as Wolfsburg after a nearby castle. Sufficient to say both [[GoneHorriblyRight went horribly right]].
82* Nissan's GT-R has gone through this way as part of its ContinuityReboot: The first concept car was unveiled in 2001, but the [[SuperPrototype rounder second concept]] was shown in 2005, two years before the production model went on sale in Japan.
83* Fiat (now ''Fiat Chrysler Automobiles'')[[note]]Now Stellantis after FCA was bought out by Peugot/Citroën[[/note]] at one time, teased the return of their [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Romeo Alfa Romeo]] brand to the United States and Canada by 2007. It returned in North America in 2008, after a 15-year absence from the market, by initially offering the limited production [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Romeo_8C_Competizione 8C Competizione]] sports car. Now Alfa Romeo sells the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Romeo_4C 4C]], a small mid-engine sports car, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Romeo_Giulia_(952) Giulia]], a luxury sport sedan, and the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Romeo_Stelvio Stelvio]], a luxury compact crossover SUV, in both the United States and Canadian markets. What other models will come to North America remains to be seen, most likely to be an SUV slotting above the Stelvio and two sports cars, both of which resurrect the ''GTV'' and the ''8C'' nameplates.
84* Prototypes of a mid-engined Chevrolet Corvette have been shown by General Motors since 1960 CERV 1 (Chevrolet Engineering Research Vehicle) which was designed to compete with Ford [=GT40=]. However both it and the later projects were always axed by GM since classic, front engined Vettes were selling like hotcakes and the prototypes were seen as needlessly complex and pushing Corvette from relatively affordable sportscar into supercar territory (1970s Aerovette prototype featured a 4 rotor Wankel engine, while 1990s CERV 3 had twin turbo V8, four wheel drive and four wheel steering). In 2010s the C7 generation received so much praise from performance enthusiasts, that Chevrolet finally saw an opportunity to market the next generation as a supercar, resulting in mid-engined C8 hitting the showrooms in 2020.
85[[/folder]]
86
87[[folder:Comic Books]]
88* Creator/PaulDini's ''ComicBook/BlackCanary / ComicBook/{{Zatanna}}: Bloodspell'' graphic novel was first announced in 2006 and was finally released in 2014.
89* ''[[ComicBook/LukeCage CAGE]]!'', a comic book mini-series by Creator/GenndyTartakovsky was originally announced in 2007. It didn't get released until 2016, nine years later.
90* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' -- "A Shepherd's Tale". Announced in 2007, finally released in November 2010.
91* ''ComicBook/FredHembeckDestroysTheMarvelUniverse'', greenlighted by Creator/JimShooter in 1983 as a way to poke fun at recent leaks about upcoming shake-ups to the status quo of several Marvel books, was delayed several times, due to Shooter being so closely tied to the original concept for the book, people in Creator/FredHembeck's life passing away or having close calls with death as he was trying to write the original story (thus souring him on the idea of [[BlackComedy writing about humorous deaths]] for a while), editor Creator/LarryHama letting it languish while Shooter was focusing on ''[[ComicBook/SecretWars1984 Secret Wars]]'', worsening relations between Marvel and DC rendering the original FramingDevice unusable[[note]]it involved Shooter being {{Brainwashed}} by his former boss at DC into destroying Marvel from within[[/note]], and Shooter's firing from Marvel rendering the revised framing story[[note]]involving Shooter's EvilTwin being responsible for ordering the story[[/note]] unusable as well. When it was finally released in 1989, it had a much shorter framing story involving ComicBook/ThePunisher and depicting Hembeck as a DarthWiki/FallenCreator whose career had been wrecked by the unpublished book.
92* [[https://indyplanet.com/?s=Gemini+Storm Gemini Storm]] was created in 2008, but had massive delays since everyone on the project was new to ongoing comics and weren't used to deadlines, especially the colorist. Finally released in March 2010. And then the second issue was on hold until December 2010. According to the notes though, Wood has stopped inking the pages, which has sped up the process and the new colorists are much more reliable.
93* ''ComicBook/GhostRider'' vol. 2 (1990-1998) was discontinued after 93 issues, mostly because Marvel Comics was facing financial problems and was forced to cancel several of its ongoing series. A number of long-running plotlines and in-series mysteries were supposed to be resolved in issue #94, but that issue was not allowed to be published. After several years of inaction, Marvel published the missing issue as ''Ghost Rider Finale'' in 2007.
94* Creator/GrantMorrison's ''ComicBook/TheMultiversity'' was notoriously in the works ever since the end of ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'', scheduled for 2010, then 2012, then 2013, until finally being solicited in 2014.
95* Creator/ArchaiaEntertainment announced a prequel to ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'', an origin story for [[Music/DavidBowie Jareth the Goblin King]], in early 2012. It was supposed to be in stores by year's end, and the one-shot story "Hoggle and the Worm" was published in the company's Free Comic Book Day compilation to hype it. Then the date was pushed back to April 2013...but at the end of February it was pushed back ''again'' and its Amazon preorder page was taken down entirely. The 2013 and 2014 Free Comic Book Day compilations each included an additional one-shot story, while the official explanation for the delay on the main book was that the company didn't want it to go out until it was ''perfect''. It finally began release in 2018 as the 12-issue miniseries ''Labyrinth: Coronation''.
96* ''ComicBook/{{NYX}}'' by Creator/JoeQuesada started out as a mini-series in 2003 but repeatedly faced delays in production and release of new issues. It went on hiatus following the 5th issue (September 2004) and was thought discontinued. The final two issues were published in September-October, 2005, completing at least the introduction of the main characters. Some unresolved subplots were covered in a sequel mini-series in 2008-2009.
97* The third mini-series of ''ComicBook/{{Phonogram}}'', concentrating on Emily Aster and titled ''The Immaterial Girl'', was teased by Creator/KieronGillen and Creator/JamieMcKelvie for years and initially scheduled to be released in 2012. Gillen's afterword to ''ComicBook/TheWickedAndTheDivine'' #5 strongly hinted that they'd given up on the story because they'd both changed too much over the years to want to write/draw in that world anymore. It finally got SavedFromDevelopmentHell in 2015, when its release was announced at the Image Expo, and it finally began in August of that year.
98* ''Creator/SergioAragones Funnies'' had an 18-month gap between issues 7 (January 2012) and 8 (June 2013). This was due to Sergio Aragones needing an operation, which set everything back.
99** Speaking of which, the ''[[ComicBook/GrooTheWanderer Groo]] vs. [[Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian Conan]]'' crossover was originally announced in 2007, but got delayed several times for various reasons, the aforementioned operation being one of them. It finally came out in 2014, seven years later.
100* ''ComicBook/SkyDoll'' is a Franco-Italian sci-fi comic started in 2000, whose very complex art style needs long preparation time. Issue 3 came out in 2006, and after some (admittedly gorgeous) preparatory sketches from 2012 or so, issue 4 finally saw the light of the day in 2016, a full decade later.
101* Creator/KevinSmith's ''ComicBook/SpiderManBlackCatTheEvilThatMenDo'' mini-series. A 6-issue mini-series started in 2002 but went into hiatus after the 3rd issue. Issues #4-6 were published in 2006.
102* Issue #8 of Creator/MarvelComics' ''ComicBook/TheTwelve'', a 12-issue limited series, came out in January 2009. Issue #9 came out over three years later, in February 2012.
103* [[ComicBook/UltimateMarvel Ultimate]] [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk Hulk]] Versus ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} (Issue 3). Originally solicited for April 19th, 2006. Finally released in March 2009. Frankly, it's amazing Marvel finally remembered.
104* ''ComicBook/WhiteSand'' was languishing on Brandon Sanderson's shelf as a piece of literature for ten-odd years, always awaiting a rewrite, before Dynamite came along and asked if there's something Sanderson has that they could turn into a graphic novel.
105* ''ComicBook/Hound2014'': Since the [=1990s=], Paul J. Bolger tried multiple times to adapt the [[Myth/CelticMythology Irish myth of Cú Chulainn]] into a movie for over two decades to no avail. He eventually came back to comics--which he had first tried for the project--and created the graphic novel based on the screenplay he had written with Barry Devlin. Breakthru Productions in association with Cúchulainn Entertainment published it in three limited volumes between 2014 and 2018 before Creator/DarkHorseComics reprinted it in a single volume in 2022.
106[[/folder]]
107
108[[folder:Comic Strips]]
109* ''ComicStrip/PhoebeAndHerUnicorn'' probably counts. Originally, Dana Simpson submitted a strip called ''Girl'' to Amazon's Comic Strip Superstar contest in 2009. Even though the strip won, Dana later admitted that the strip was bare-bones and needed further work; a runner-up strip was syndicated instead. On a whim, she added a unicorn in one strip, which she felt changed everything. After some back-and-forth between Simpson and the syndicate editors, ''Heavenly Nostrils'' debuted online in 2012. In 2015, the strip (re-titled to ''Phoebe and Her Unicorn'' since then) finally debuted in newspapers, nearly six years after the original contest.
110[[/folder]]
111
112[[folder:Fan Works]]
113* ''[[VideoGame/AtelierSeries Atelier Marie and Elie]]'' had various FanTranslation programs going on for both the original games and the [=PS2=] compilation for well over a decade, before a French team finally delivered the game in English in March 2018, roughly 20 years after the games first hit shelves in Japan.
114* ''[=BioCraft=]: Chronicles'', a spoof-style ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' fan film made using ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' was set to come out at the end of 2011. After being scrapped and started over, it was put on indefinite hiatus in '14. The project and its status became a kind of running joke in the community, and after final release date of April 1, 2019, was announced, it surprised many when it ''did'' come out.
115* For a long time, Season 5 of ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries'' updated bi-''yearly'', if at all, all throughout the serial "Nocturnals". Eventually, on September 1 2, 2013, Creator/{{garfieldodie}} uploaded Part 2 of Season 5 and revealed that it would update on a semi-regular basis and that the absence was caused by real life getting in the way.
116* The conclusion of the second "Starship Exeter" fan episode was originally promised to be released around Christmas 2007. For several years, there was no word on when or even if the final segment would be seen beyond "a few months from now" (though the person doing the editing released some screenshots on [=TrekBBS=]). The complete episode was finally released on [=YouTube=] in May 2014.
117* Aeon Genesis's FanTranslation of ''VideoGame/{{Ys}} V: Lost Sand City of Kefin'' was stuck in development hell for nearly a decade, but was finally completed in time for the release of ''VideoGame/YsMemoriesOfCelceta'', the [[RemadeForTheExport remake]] of ''Ys IV''.
118[[/folder]]
119
120[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
121* ''WesternAnimation/AliceInWonderland'' (1951) spent almost 20 years in development hell. Creator/WaltDisney reportedly conceived of the idea of making his first animated feature film in 1932, and that film was supposed to be Alice. He purchased the rights to John Tenniel's illustrations of the story and even had an actress in mind to hire. But then he found out that Creator/{{Paramount}} was working on an Alice film and discontinued the project. Alice was replaced in the production schedule with a feature film about [[WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs Snow White]]. Disney revived the Alice project in 1938 and discontinued it again in 1939, this time over concerns with the budget. Disney revived the Alice project again in 1945, but delays in the scriptwriting process, redesigns of the characters and animations, and the studio's focus on higher-priority films kept it unfinished until 1951.
122* The ''WesternAnimation/AstroBoy'' movie was rumored for the longest time before finally getting made, with one version being [[WhatCouldHaveBeen a live-action/CGI mix directed by]] Creator/GenndyTartakovsky.
123* ''WesternAnimation/TheCroods'' was in development for around a decade. It was originally set to be a Creator/AardmanAnimations film animated in stop-motion and written by Creator/JohnCleese titled "Crood Awakening" but it ended up falling through. When Creator/DreamWorksAnimation broke off their deal with Aardman, they retained the rights and different directors tried working with it until it was given to Chris Sanders and gained its current form, released in 2013.
124* ''WesternAnimation/{{Delgo}}''. Development was begun in 1999 by Marc Adler, who wanted to make a big-budget, computer-animated film independent of titans like Disney and [=DreamWorks=]. Alder and his small animation studio, Fathom Studios, spent $40 million making the film, cast the likes of Burt Reynolds, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Val Kilmer, and took so long to finish it that by the time it was released, two of the actors (Anne Bancroft and John Vernon) had been dead for three years. When they couldn't get any major studio interested in the film, Fathom instead had a distributor-for-hire give the film a wide release, which it received on December 12, 2008. It is now famous for having [[http://web.archive.org/web/20081227205014/http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/delgo-worst-opening-ever.html the worst opening weekend of any wide-release film ever]] until it was dethroned by ''Film/TheOogielovesInTheBigBalloonAdventure'' in 2012. The fact that the film itself is a ClicheStorm of epic proportions certainly didn't help.
125* ''Destino'', the unlikely collaboration between Creator/WaltDisney and Creator/SalvadorDali, was first conceived back in 1946 but didn't reach screens until 57 years later. The home video release also counts; a ''Walt Disney Treasures'' set was announced for 2008 but dropped, the short and a making-of documentary eventually appearing as extras on the ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}''/''WesternAnimation/Fantasia2000'' Blu-ray release in 2010.
126* For a better part of the 1990s, Disney had been struggling to make ''Kingdom of the Sun'', a typical animation renaissance-era musical based on ''The Prince and The Pauper'', but after hitting numerous walls in story development, the creators scrapped 90% of what they had drastically re-tooled it into the comedy classic now known as ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewGroove''.
127* In 2004, the CGI film ''WesternAnimation/{{Foodfight}}'' was announced (it had been in development since the '90s, but production was halted in 2002 when the files containing the animation were stolen from a hard drive and the animators had to start over from scratch). Best described as "''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1'' in a supermarket", the film promised to bring together over 80 famous [[ProductPlacement beloved advertising characters]] (the process of licensing that many food mascots took YEARS, and even then, they couldn't license all 80 they wanted, so the characters they couldn't license were replaced with rather unintelligent {{Expies}}) with voice talent including Creator/CharlieSheen, Creator/{{Hilary|Duff}} and Haylie Duff, Creator/WayneBrady, and Creator/EvaLongoria. The creators expected it to be a real commercial hit, merchandise for the movie started appearing on store shelves before the movie even had a release date... unfortunately the film ran into countless problems as detailed [[http://www.cartoonbrew.com/cgi/whatever-happened-to-foodfight-19787.html here]], or perhaps [[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/movies/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-computer-animated-foodfight.html in this New York Times article]]. After many years, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9r4pfoT1As a trailer]] was finally shown at AHM in 2011, and [[http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/foodfight-coming-to-dvd.html a company has the bought the DVD rights for this film in Europe]], and a quiet American release though Video-On-Demand came in 2013, at which point it was quickly destroyed by internet critics.
128* ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'': An animated Disney adaptation of ''Literature/TheSnowQueen'' had been in development since the early 1940s when Creator/WaltDisney himself was interested in adapting it, before ultimately concluding that the story itself was [[RandomEventsPlot too long and episodic]] to work as a straight adaption. He shelved the project with the intent of revisiting it later on but died before he had the chance. The concept was resurrected at Disney in the 1990s as a hand-drawn animated film but was again put on hold when the animators ran into the same story problems that Walt Disney did. They tried again in 2002... but then stopped ''again'' when Disney's management changed a couple of years later. After a few serious retoolings the film was officially greenlit again in 2011, and then ''finally'' released in 2013.
129* ''WesternAnimation/TheHauntedWorldOfElSuperbeasto'' was supposed to come out in May 2007 but it was released only two years later when Music/RobZombie completed his other commitments.
130* Since 2003, there had been talks of doing another ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' film known tentatively as "''The Jungle Movie''" which would be the GrandFinale of the series. It would have had Arnold discovering what really happened to his parents and resolving things with Helga. After the box office failure of ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheMovie'', this was put on the back burner. In 2016, it was announced that the movie will finally be made (as a MadeForTVMovie) with Creator/CraigBartlett at the helm and [[WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheJungleMovie was released in 2017]].
131* ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Hoodwinked}} Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil]]'' was supposed to be released in January 2010. However, it was stuck in development hell.[[note]]Burger King apparently didn't get the memo and released kid's meal toys around the time the movie was supposed to be released.[[/note]] [[http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/whatever-happened-to-hoodwinked-too.html The creator himself wasn't sure when it was going to be released]], if ever. It finally came out in April 2011. Bizarrely, this meant Creator/HaydenPanettiere had two movies SavedFromDevelopmentHell in 2011, as ''Fireflies in the Garden'' (filmed in 2008 and released in Europe) had a long wait before U.S. release due to mixed reactions in Europe and distributor difficulties (the original distributor Senator Entertainment went under); it was eventually released in October of that year.
132* Creator/{{Filmation}} started working on ''WesternAnimation/JourneyBackToOz'' around 1964, but due to the funding running out they were forced to put it aside, with the studio becoming busy producing Saturday Morning shows. Eventually, in the early 1970s, they finally received enough funds to finish the film. It premiered in 1974, a whole decade after it entered production.
133* The French animated film ''WesternAnimation/TheKingAndTheMockingbird'', which started production in [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation 1948]], and wasn't finished until ''1980''.
134* ''WesternAnimation/LadyAndTheTramp'' (1955) spend more than a decade in development hell. The film concept was conceived by Disney story man Joe Grant in 1937. Grant used his own pet dog called "Lady" as an inspiration. Grant and several other Disney artists worked on various proposed scripts for the film for the rest of the 1930s and 1940s, but all versions were rejected by Walt Disney himself (who thought their stories lacked in action and their protagonist was too sweet). After 12 years of working on a never-finished script, Grant left the Disney studio in 1949. Other storymen continued where Grant left off, and the script was completed in 1953. The animation department worked on the film for two years (1953-1955), and production again faced unexpected delays. Among other things animator, Frank Thomas insisted that a romantic scene he put much effort in (with Lady and the Tramp eating spaghetti) had to be kept, and repeatedly argued with Walt Disney who wanted the scene cut. And the film's initial background artist Mary Blair quit early in production, in order to start a new career as a book illustrator. A replacement had to be found and backgrounds remade in a new style.
135* ''WesternAnimation/TheLastDaysOfConeyIsland'' from Creator/RalphBakshi was announced in 2005, but due to multiple distributors and production problems, it was eventually out in Development Hell. However, in 2013, Bakshi managed a successful Kickstarter for the film to be made as a short anthology film. It was eventually released to Platform/{{Vimeo}} on his 77th birthday on October 27th, 2015.
136* A ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'' sequel had been conceived in the mid-2000s, as a direct-to-video release by Circle 7 Animation. Circle 7 closed down before they could even complete it (or any of their other Pixar sequels that were in production at that time), and so Michael Eisner concluded that all Pixar sequels should be handled by Pixar themselves. Then in the late 2000s, it was announced that Pixar would be making a ''Monsters Inc.'' sequel sometime in the near future, but they later changed their minds about making it a sequel and thought that it would be more interesting and entertaining to make it a prequel instead. Said prequel, ''WesternAnimation/MonstersUniversity'', was released in 2013.
137* ''WesternAnimation/MrPeabodyAndSherman'' was originally to be made by Universal Pictures for release in 2001 as a live-action/CGI combo film starring Creator/RowanAtkinson.[[note]]He ended up appearing in the ''Film/ScoobyDoo'' movie instead.[[/note]] It was scrapped upon the failures of the film versions of fellow Jay Ward properties ''WesternAnimation/DudleyDoRight'' and ''Film/TheAdventuresOfRockyAndBullwinkle'', but it was revived by [=DreamWorks=] Animation as an all-animated film with a different plot, which was released in March 2014,[[note]]in February in the UK[[/note]] becoming a modest success.[[note]]Grossing over $225 million (3rd highest-grossing movie of 2014 not based in a popular property), it was, however, DW's second lowest-earning CG film.[[/note]]
138* ''WesternAnimation/PawsOfFuryTheLegendOfHank'' was announced in 2015 for a 2017 release under the name ''Blazing Samurai''. Sometime during that, its two animation studios, Mass Animation and Arc Productions, after TroubledProduction were both shut down along with the film's main distributor Open Road. The movie was nowhere to be seen despite various companies announcing their work on it and actors stating it was still happening (with the film secured funding by 2020, with production completing in 2021) until Creator/{{Paramount}} (under the Paramount Animation brand before switching it last minute to Creator/NickelodeonMovies) finally announced it as ''Paws of Fury''. It finally released on July 15, 2022.
139* ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'':
140** ''WesternAnimation/{{Puss in Boots|2011}}'' was in development as early as 2004, and was initially slated for a DirectToDVD release in 2008. In 2006, however, the executives at [=DreamWorks=] thought that Puss deserved to be seen in theaters, therefore completely changing their plans. It was finally released in 2011.
141** Creator/GuillermoDelToro revealed that there were plans to create a sequel to ''Puss in Boots'' a year after the film was released, and Creator/AntonioBanderas claimed that work on the film had begun in 2014. The sequel did not start production proper until 2018, did not receive its final title (''WesternAnimation/PussInBootsTheLastWish'') until 2020, and to top it off, there was a director change in 2021. The film was eventually released in 2022.
142* ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'' was originally announced in 2006 as a CGI FracturedFairytale named "''Rapunzel Unbraided''" about a girl and a pizza delivery boy who was transported into the world of ''Literature/{{Rapunzel}}'', where the actual Rapunzel and her prince had been [[ForcedTransformation transformed into animals]]. This concept was abandoned rather quickly and it was turned into a more faithful adaptation. Originally it was meant to look like a watercolor painting, but pulling off such a look was too expensive and difficult at the time, thus it was swapped for a more traditional AllCGICartoon. The plot at this point was a DarkerAndEdgier GenreThrowback to early ''Franchise/DisneyPrincess'' films starring Rapunzel alongside a GentleGiant thief named Bastion. However, it was lightened up considerably when directors changed. Due to how tasking animating Rapunzel's hair was, and the multiple story changes, the movie didn't end up coming out until 2010. Take into account Creator/WaltDisney's own aborted attempts at adapting ''Rapunzel'', and the road to the premiere seems even longer.
143* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansTheJudasContract'' was announced in 2006, originally one of three films to kick off the WesternAnimation/DCUniverseAnimatedOriginalMovies line alongside ''WesternAnimation/SupermanDoomsday'' and ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheNewFrontier'' but was postponed various times before being canceled, due to DC feeling that people wouldn't like that sort of story. However, after the success of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueVsTeenTitans'', the project was brought back, {{retool}}ed to be part of the New 52-based DC Animated Movies Universe.
144** Another film part of the same line is a curious case where the initial attempts weren't meant to be animated films, but it's worth mentioning that there were a few attempts at adapting ''ComicBook/BatmanYearOne'' into a film that never got off the ground, with Creator/JoelSchumacher writing a script with Creator/FrankMiller's help, only fort the studio to demand the former to make ''Film/BatmanForever'', and then another separate attempt by Frank Miller and Creator/DarrenAronofsky that also never got made. Ultimately [[WesternAnimation/BatmanYearOne an animated film]] was made, and released in 2011, long after the previous attempts fell through.
145* One of the ultimate examples: in the '60s, Creator/RichardWilliams began work on ''WesternAnimation/TheThiefAndTheCobbler'', an Arabian nights-esque tale featuring a silent Creator/BusterKeaton style protagonist and a big name star in Creator/VincentPrice. The film languished in production for decades, with Williams steadfastly refusing to give up on it. In fact, pretty much every job he took in the interim was done purely for the money so he could continue working on his [[DoingItForTheArt labor of love]] (which certainly explains the likes of ''WesternAnimation/RaggedyAnnAndAndyAMusicalAdventure''). By the time the film was finally released in a severely compromised form in 1995, the hero had several lines and Price had been dead for two years. Fortunately, there now exists a fan-created version of the film, which uses both footages from the compromised release as well as the animators' own rough animation tests to better suit the original vision of the story.
146* Creator/MarcellJankovics's AnimatedAdaptation of the Hungarian play ''Animation/TheTragedyOfMan'' had its script written way back in 1983, alongside a ''[[Literature/TheBible Bible]]'' series that was co-financed by an American backer. Said backer disappeared some years later, prompting the studio to greenlight ''The Tragedy of Man'' instead. Production began in '88, only for state funding to cease a year or two later. Jankovics and various animation teams kept working on the film for the following decades, trying to raise interest by screening completed scenes at festivals. With the help of an aborted gig at Disney (see ''Kingdom of the Sun'' above) and a GM advertising deal, the animation was finally done by 2009, though with many shortcuts like LimitedAnimation and an over-reliance on crossfaded still frames. The finished film, with updated vocal work, was released in late 2011.
147** The work that had gone into the unmade 80s ''Bible'' adaptation would also be partially salvaged and made into a 2015 illustrated book, alongside a 26 minute long cartoon episode, the only one to be completed.
148* ''WesternAnimation/{{Uglydolls}}'' was announced in 2011 as a planned film based on the [[Toys/{{Uglydolls}} toys of the same name]] for Creator/IlluminationEntertainment. After nothing for four years, in 2015, it was announced as STX Entertainment's first animated movie, yet still kept dark. Later, in March 2017, Creator/RobertRodriguez was announced as director for the film, only to later be replaced by Kelly Asbury. The movie eventually was solidified with an official May 2019 release date, eight years after its announcement.
149* ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph''. Disney came up with an idea for a movie about video games back in the late '80s, under the working title ''High Score''. This incarnation of the movie never got off the ground. Then they revived the concept during the late '90s, this time under the title ''Joe Jump'', but this one didn't get very far either. The concept was revived yet again in the mid-2000s as ''Reboot Ralph'', and production finally started around 2010 or 2011, now with the title ''Wreck-It Ralph''. The movie was slated for a March 2013 release, but due to the film being finished quicker than expected, it was moved to a November 2012 release (with the DVD and Blu-Ray coming in March, funnily enough), going on to be a critical and commercial success, while Pixar's ''WesternAnimation/MonstersUniversity'', which was slated for that time frame, was moved to Summer 2013.
150[[/folder]]
151
152[[folder:Literature]]
153* ''[[Literature/AndLadiesOfTheClub ...And Ladies of the Club]]'' took Helen Santmyer ''fifty years'' to write.
154* Margaret Mitchell spent nearly ten years writing ''Literature/GoneWithTheWind'', and she had previously written several other hundred plus page stories which never made it to publication.
155* Harper Lee's ''Literature/GoSetAWatchman'' is an unusual example in that it is not technically a sequel, but the original first draft of ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird'' itself, written back in the 1950s and gathering dust for six decades. Since the original eventually was reset to the 1930s after the idea of setting it in the then-contemporary '50s was scrapped, this now makes ''Go Set a Watchman'' a sequel.
156* Mark Danielewski spent ten years working on ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves''.
157* The third book in the ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'' took around three years to finish. Then Creator/ChristopherPaolini said the book was too long so he split it in two and still took more time before releasing it. In the acknowledgments for ''Brisingr'', he thanked one person in particular for "giving me a much-needed kick-in-the-pants early on" and mentions that without which, he would probably still be working on the book.
158* Alex Gino started writing ''Literature/{{Melissa}}'' in 2003, but due to the ValuesDissonance society had with LGBT+ children's books back then, it wasn't published until 2015.
159* Creator/StephenieMeyer worked on ''Literature/{{Midnight Sun|2020}}'', a POVSequel of ''[[Literature/Twilight2005 Twilight]]'' in conjunction with the original tetralogy. However, when excerpts of it were leaked, she put the project on hold indefinitely, stating that she wanted to finish it "when everyone's forgotten about it". She fulfilled the promise: it got released in 2020, over a decade later and well after the ''Twilight'' fad had died down.
160* The manuscript to ''Literature/Olivia1949'' was written in 1934. Bussy put it on ice for 15 years after a friend found the story unappealing.
161* Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's esteemed series ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' did this with its fifth book. While writing the fourth novel in the series, Martin realized that the manuscript had gotten too large to publish ([[{{Doorstopper}} 1600 pages]], not even including the lengthy House indexes in the back), so it was decided to split it in half. The first half was published as the fourth book, ''Literature/AFeastForCrows'', in 2005, with the second half titled ''Literature/ADanceWithDragons'' and set for release in 2006, since so much of it had (theoretically) already been written. But Martin took until April 2011, and it was rushed to store shelves three months later. Indeed, Martin's slowing pace was so precipitous that there was concern that the series would be [[OvertookTheManga overtaken by its TV adaptation]] ''Series/GameOfThrones'', to the point that Martin had to disclose several major plot points to the producers in case [[DiedDuringProduction something happened to him before he could finish]]. A large reason he ever got the book out at all was the pressure to ensure that the show could keep going. His pace improved ''somewhat'' since then, but not enough to outpace the show, which aired its final season in 2019.[[note]]As an aside, ''A Feast for Crows'' was the original title of the ''second'' book, and indeed the first editions of the first book list a book with that title as the next installment -- so that makes it even longer that readers have been waiting for a book with that title to come out.[[/note]]
162* Creator/LilithSaintcrow published one book of a planned ''Literature/{{Steelflower}}'' trilogy in 2007, but [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil piracy of the ebook led her to cancel the other two]]. She changed her mind ten years later and published ''Steelflower at Sea'' in 2017 and ''Steelflower in Snow'' the year after.
163* It took Ricardo Pinto eight years to write the third book in ''Literature/TheStoneDanceOfTheChameleon'' trilogy, due to real life getting in the way. (His house burning down, for instance.) His British publisher picked up the book and reprinted the older two books, his American publisher did neither.
164* ''Literature/TolkiensLegendarium'':
165** ''Literature/TheSilmarillion''. Creator/JRRTolkien worked on it ''from WWI to his death'' - over fifty years! - and it was published posthumously by his son Christopher.
166** ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' could count as well. The skeleton of the story was ready already in 1936, but the book was published nearly twenty years later 1954-1955.
167[[/folder]]
168
169[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
170* There was talk of a movie adaptation of ''Literature/ThirteenReasonsWhy'' for years before it finally became a [[Series/ThirteenReasonsWhy Netflix series]]. Creator/SelenaGomez was in talks to play Hannah when development first started in 2011, but by the time it actually entered production, she was way too old to play a high school student convincingly. She is a producer on the Netflix series, however.
171* ''Series/AllInTheFamily'': Norman Lear bought the rights to adapt the BritCom ''Series/TillDeathUsDoPart'' in 1966. It wouldn't be until 1968 when a pilot (titled ''Justice For All'') was taped, but ABC dropped it after the ''Turn-On'' fiasco[[note]]The infamous ''Series/LaughIn'' rip-off was cancelled ''during'' its only episode[[/note]]. Another pilot was made the following year (''Those Were the Days'') but it went unnoticed. Then a final pilot was taped in 1970, CBS picked it up, and the show premiered in 1971.
172* Music/TheAquabats tried for most of the band's existence to get their own TV show. And boy, did they try. And every time they tried, something shot the show down before it could go to air. Once the network got new executives and canceled the previously-greenlit show. Once the network just stopped talking to them. Once, admittedly, they themselves hated one of the pilots they made. But they just kept trying. It took three pilots, a few networks, numerous network executives, and ''a different band lineup every time'', but finally, after years and years of fighting, ''Series/TheAquabatsSuperShow'' got its time on TV on Creator/TheHub in early 2012.
173* ''Blonde Charity Mafia'', a docusoap about three charity organizers in Washington, D.C., was originally developed at Creator/{{Lifetime}} before ending up on Creator/TheCW. It was originally scheduled to air in summer 2009, but delayed to early 2010 before being shelved. However, the full series aired on MTV channels in Australia and New Zealand.
174* The ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'' prequel ''Series/{{Caprica}}'' was announced in 2007, in July 2008 it was picked up as a 2-hour pilot and in December of that year finally chosen to become a series. It wasn't until April 2009 that the pilot was released as a DVD and the series itself aired in January 2010.
175* A ''Series/CloakAndDagger2018'' series was announced alongside ''Jessica Jones'' (as well as unproduced ''[[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk Hulk]]'' and ''ComicBook/{{Mockingbird|MarvelComics}}'' shows) back in 2011. Like the aforementioned series, it spent a significant time in Development Hell before it was officially picked up by Creator/{{Freeform}} in 2016, and began airing in 2018.
176* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
177** In 1989, the show was canceled pending a revamp...which was attempted in 1996, but rights issues and low US ratings of a [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie TV movie]] (it was co-produced by Fox) pushed it right back into development hell until 2005.
178** The 7-year gap between the original show and the TV movie ''also'' ended up being a case of development hell. Actually, two cases; after the BBC cancelled the show, they were approached by a film company in the UK who wanted to do a theatrical feature, so when Philip Segal approached the BBC about restarting the show as a joint BBC/20th Century Fox venture, the BBC kept putting him off until it became clear that the film company they'd already given the go-ahead to never was going to produce the property. By the time Segal got the BBC on board, the people he'd dealt with at the Fox TV network were no longer there, and the new guys had no enthusiasm for the project, so he had to take it to the network's movie-of-the-week division (which operated separately from the series-production division) to get it made as a one-shot, in hopes of getting it picked up as a series if it did well enough. (Its failure to do so, on the other hand, was just a classic case of ScrewedByTheNetwork, when Fox decided to schedule it to air in the same time slot as the penultimate, and crucial to the plot, episode of ''Roseanne''.)
179** The Fourth Doctor story "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E6Shada Shada]]" was originally going to air in 1980. Due to strike action preventing multiple studio recording sessions from happening, the story was put on the shelf, with the intention to complete and air it later on. With both Tom Baker and Lalla Ward leaving the show the following season, this became an impossibility, and the only footage from that story seen for over a decade was used as stock footage in "[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]". In 1992, the completed footage was released on VHS, with Tom Baker narrating the unfilmed parts in-character as the Doctor. In 2003, a modified version of the story was used as the basis of an audio drama starring the Eighth Doctor. In 2012, an official novelization of the script was released. Finally, the original story was completed as originally intended in 2017, thirty-seven years after the intended broadcast date, with the unfilmed parts animated and all the surviving actors reprising their roles.
180* Creator/NewLineCinema had spent $1.5 million dollars to develop a film {{Trilogy}} for ''{{Franchise/Foundation}}'' in 1998. Their failure to complete the project lead to Creator/PeterJackson's production of ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' trilogy. In 2008, the company [[http://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLNewsreel/wordpress/2008/07/29/foundation-heading-to-big-screen/ announced]] that Creator/BobShaye and Creator/MichealLynne would be co-producers. Creator/ColumbiaPictures purchased the right to produce a movie from an auction in 2009, and contracted Creator/RolandEmmerich as director and co-producer. The other producer chosen at the time was Creator/MichealWimer. Two years later, Creator/DanteHarper was hired on to the project. After that lapsed, in 2014, HBO purchased the rights for a planned TV adaptation with Creator/JonathanNolan attached. In 2017, Skydance Television and Creator/DavidSGoyer announced that they would develop a TV series based on ''Foundation.'' In 2018, the series was purchaced by Apple and will be released on their streaming service in September 2021, nearly a quarter century after the project was first proposed.
181* An adaptation of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' was first confirmed in January 2007, but was delayed a couple of times. HBO took its own sweet time to greenlight the project, then rejected the pilot because of poor test screenings, requiring a 90% reshoot. [[Creator/TamzinMerchant The actress]] who portrayed Daenerys Targaryen dropped out, requiring all of her scenes to be reshot with [[Creator/EmiliaClarke a new one]]. ''Series/GameOfThrones'' wouldn't see airing until April 2011. Fortunately, it ended up being a hit, and then some.
182* The first script for a ''Literature/GoodOmens'' screen adaptation was written in 1992, it was a movie, and nobody liked it. Terry and Neil were asked repeatedly over the next few years whether there'd ever be a movie. It finally came out in 2019, several years after Terry's death, as [[Series/GoodOmens a very popular miniseries]].
183* A live-action film or TV adaptation of the video game series ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' had been rumored since 2002 and was in various stages of development since then. Though two live-action webseries (''Film/Halo4ForwardUntoDawn'' and ''Film/HaloNightfall'') set in the ''Halo'' universe were released in 2012 and 2014 respectively, an official adaptation of the "main" story wouldn't come out until Creator/ParamountPlus finally released their ''[[Series/Halo2022 Halo]]'' TV show in 2022.
184* When the final season of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' was airing at that time, CBS announced in the fall of 2013 that there will be a spinoff entitled ''How I Met Your Dad'' which would be aired in 2014. By that time, various news sites revealed the new characters unrelated to HIMYM cast and the new lead to be played by Creator/GretaGerwig with Creator/MegRyan as the lead's voiceover and the pilot was already made. But after the mixed reception of the HIMYM finale, interest slowly dwindled, the pilot wasn't picked up by CBS, [[https://twitter.com/CarterBays/statuses/487538367492395008 Carter Bays called it quits]] due to disagreements with CBS and the contracts of the actors expired at the end of the year. In December 2016, there was an attempt to produce the spinoff which is renamed ''How I Met Your Father'' with ''Series/ThisIsUs'' producers, Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger. However after the success of ''This Is Us'' which promoted the two producers as co-showrunners, the spinoff is on hold again. In August 2017, there was another attempt to revive the spinoff with Alison Benett as the writer. Then on April 2021, Creator/{{Hulu}} ordered the series with Aptaker and Berger as the creators, writers, and executive producers along with the three original staff of ''How I Met Your Mother'' (original creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas and producer Pamela Fryman) as executive producers. The spinoff was eventually released on January 18, 2022.
185* As early as 2011, ''Awkward Black Girl'' creator Issa Rae met with network executives to bring the web series to television. However, Rae faced ExecutiveMeddling from the network execs, who wanted to RaceLift the main character to white. Eventually in 2013 it was announced that Issa Rae would be teaming up with Larry Wilmore to create a pilot for HBO and the show premiered in 2016 as ''Series/{{Insecure}}''.
186* Writer Melissa Rosenberg had been trying to pitch an adaptation of ''ComicBook/{{Alias}}'' (no relation to [[Series/{{Alias}} the ABC show]]) called ''A.K.A. Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' as far back as 2010, but had no luck. The project was finally revived by {{Creator/Netflix}} for a 2015 debut (with a slight name change) as part of its collaboration with the [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]].
187* ''Series/{{K9}}'' was first announced in 1997. It eventually premiered in the UK in 2009, airing its full season in Scandinavia in 2010.
188* Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures snapped up the rights to make a film of ''The Screaming Staircase'', the first book of ''Literature/LockwoodAndCo'', before the novel was even published and become Illumination's very first live-action film. This did not end up happening. Meanwhile, [[Creator/AdamAndJoe Joe Cornish]], who serves at the showrunner for the ''Series/LockwoodAndCo2023'' TV series, was interested from the start, but got in too late. He waited patiently and ultimately snapped up the rights after they reverted back to Stroud, Illumination and Universal never getting anywhere with the project.
189* More specifically a DVD release of a classic TV show: The DVD box set of ''Series/TheManFromUncle'' lingered in DevelopmentHell for years due, among other reasons, to these factors:
190##There were legal issues surrounding the 3rd-season episode "The Pieces of Fate Affair", scripted by Creator/HarlanEllison, who, in true Ellison fashion, had filled the script with {{Take That}}s at numerous thinly disguised people. (This episode was notorious for many years as being one of the few episodes of the show that almost never got shown in syndication.)
191##It was very difficult to find top-quality masters of many of the first-season episodes; for quite some time, in fact, it was feared that they had been lost.
192##There were disputes over who was entitled to release the show on DVD.
193** Eventually, however, the arguments and legal disputes were settled, masters were found, and Warner Brothers, which owns the copyright on the series, finally put the DVD boxset of the series out, first as a limited release through Time-Life Video in late 2007, and then under its own imprint the following year. It all ended happily; the boxset was received with delight by fans and, for the most part, highly positive reviews by critics.
194* Before its cancellation, the second season of ''Series/BladeTheSeries'' was going to introduce ComicBook/MoonKnight in order to set up a SpinOff. In 2006, it was announced that Marvel was developing a solo ''Moon Knight'' TV series, but other than writer Jon Cooksey being brought onboard to develop the show in 2008, nothing more was ever heard about it. Then, in 2019, a ''Series/MoonKnight2022'' series was officially ordered for the Creator/DisneyPlus streaming service, with Creator/OscarIsaac later signing on to star as the title character.
195* A live-action adaptation of ''Literature/NancyDrew'' had been swirling for more than a decade, dating back to the early 2000s and involving multiple different networks. Each one passed on and the project was reworked numerous times, before The CW finally gave it [[Series/NancyDrew2019 a series order in 2019]].
196* The British miniseries ''Series/OurFriendsInTheNorth'' was based on a play Peter Flannery wrote in 1979. Plans to adapt it for television in the 1980s were stalled for legal reasons, due to at least two characters being based on real people. It finally made it to screens in 1996, by which point a lot more history happened, thus causing the story, (which originally ended with UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher being elected Prime Minister) to be expanded to the (then) present.
197* ''Film/TheRoom2003'' director Tommy Wiseau shot a pilot for a new TV series called ''The Neighbors'' in 2007. Wiseau spent several years pitching the show to various networks until it finally premiered on Hulu in March 2015.
198* The unaired episode of ''Series/NotTheNineOClockNews'' available on Website/YouTube was ''not'' a pilot, but instead the first episode of a regular series. The show was shelved because of the 1979 general election, and only premiered after the political content was greatly toned down.
199* ''Series/OddSquad'':
200** The show itself was in development for at least two years, since 2012, before officially being announced at the 2014 Creator/{{PBS}} Annual Meeting and premiering in November of that year.
201** The ''Odd Squadcast'', a {{Podcast}} based on the show, was first announced in January 2020 alongside a new season of the show (which would premiere a month later). It was initially slated for a release sometime in the summer, but was pushed back to November 25, 2020, likely due to the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, and the second season of WebVideo/{{OddTube}} premiered in the summer instead. It was then pushed back further to December 2, 2020, where it finally premiered.
202* [[Creator/SabanEntertainment Haim Saban]] started trying to get a network to pick up an Americanized version of ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' in 1986 (making a pilot based on ''Series/ChoudenshiBioman''), but no one had faith in the idea. He finally got his lucky break in 1993 (changing the footage source to ''Series/KyoryuSentaiZyuranger''), as the then president of Fox Kids had previously had tried to do the same thing before but failed. Thus ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' was created, and the rest is history.
203* An adaptation of ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'' has been talked about for as long as the comic book existed. It first started as a version of the "Gone to Texas" story arc with [[Film/FreddysDeadTheFinalNightmare Rachel]] [[Film/TankGirl Talalay]] directing, but it was canned due to budget issues and the dark subject matter. Then it was going to be on HBO with [[Film/Daredevil2003 Mark]] [[Film/GhostRider2007 Steven]] [[Film/FridayThe13th2009 Johnson]] wanting to do every episode issue by issue, but again the dark subject matter got it canned. Then Creator/SamMendes was attached to do it, before the rights we’re sold to AMC in 2013. The pilot episode was finally filmed in May 2015, with Creator/SethRogen and Evan Goldberg directing and Creator/DominicCooper starring. It debuted summer 2016.
204* Between 1996 and 2002, several pilots were shot for a revival of ''Series/{{Pyramid}}''. The show eventually built up a two-season revival with Donny Osmond as host, although this individual version didn't seem to have its own pilot. After that, several ''more'' pilots were shot over the next decade — one was almost picked up by CBS (''The $1,000,000 Pyramid'') but axed. ''Finally'', the show got greenlit for Creator/{{GSN}} to start in September 2012 as just ''The Pyramid'', but fizzled out only a couple months later. Then over the summer of 2016, ABC decided to pick up a primetime version as ''The $100,000 Pyramid'' as a companion to ''[[Series/FamilyFeud Celebrity Family Feud]]'' and its revival of ''Series/MatchGame''; this version was better-received than the GSN run, and was renewed for a second season.
205* A LiveActionAdaptation of ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' was announced around 2013 but no news was given until 2015. The casting was finally specified in 2016, when it was revealed to be the DarkerAndEdgier ''Series/{{Riverdale}}''.
206* A live-action adaptation of Creator/NeilGaiman's ''ComicBook/{{The Sandman|1989}}'' languished in development for over two decades. Every attempt at a film adaptation was stymied by ExecutiveMeddling, and Eric Heisserer (who at one time was attached to write) stated his belief that it would be a better fit to adapt the comics for TV. Netflix eventually greenlit [[Series/TheSandman2022 an adaptation]] in 2019, which finally saw release in 2022.
207* ''Series/TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'' was shopped around from network to network for about ten years before getting picked up by ABC Family in 2008.
208* ''Series/SquidGame'' creator and director Hwang Dong-hyuk made the first draft for the show as early as 2008. However, his pitch had been rejected countless times for being "too grotesque and too unrealistic", and he believes that classist issues becoming more forefront as time went on is what eventually led to Netflix greenlighting the show in 2019, with the final product eventually releasing in 2021 to massive success. Prior to the show being picked up, Hwang had been a StarvingArtist and at one point had to sell his $675 laptop to make ends meet.
209* In 2014, Creator/{{TNT}} ordered a pilot for a live-action ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' series called either ''Titans'' [[WorkingTitle or]] ''Blackbirds'', with a script by Akiva Goldsman. The series would focus on Dick Grayson as he moved out of Batman's shadow and became ComicBook/{{Nightwing}}, with the show's team of Titans including ComicBook/{{Starfire}}, ComicBook/{{Raven}}, ComicBook/{{Oracle}}, and ComicBook/HawkAndDove. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the project, but the network eventually stated that the series had been put on hold over issues with the script and worries about the over saturation of the superhero genre. However, it was later announced that the project had been picked up [[http://screenrant.com/dc-titans-tv-show-filming-start/ and would begin filming on Fall 2017]] with Creator/GeoffJohns and Creator/GregBerlanti onboard as executive producers. ''Series/{{Titans|2018}}'' was ultimately released on Creator/DCUniverse in 2018, before [[ChannelHop moving to]] Creator/HBOMax beginning in Season 3.
210* The [[Series/TopGearUS U.S. version]] of ''Series/{{Top Gear|UK}}'' went through three different pilots before finally being picked up. It lasted 6 seasons.
211* Creator/TerryPratchett started talking about a TV series based on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' City Watch subseries in 2011. ''Series/TheWatch2021'' came out ten years later, and six years after his death, although it was very much not the show he'd intended.
212* ''Theatre/TheWiz'' almost received a TV special adaptation in 1998, courtesy of the producers and director of ''Film/Cinderella1997''. However, rights issues with Creator/{{Universal}}, the studio that distributed the movie version of ''Film/TheWiz'', prevented Disney from getting very far with their take. After the ''Cinderella'' producers started airing musicals on Creator/{{NBC}}, they finally got to release a TV special of ''The Wiz'' in 2015 - albeit with a different cast and crew than they had originally lined up for Disney.
213[[/folder]]
214
215[[folder:Music]]
216* ''Wildflower,'' the follow up to Australian plunderphonics collective Music/TheAvalanches' debut album ''Music/SinceILeftYou'', was released in July 2016, nearly ''sixteen years'' after their critically lauded debut. Every so often, a member of the band claimed it was done and they were just clearing the samples (this being important, since they're a plunderphonics group that means almost ''all'' of their music is samples), but then nothing was heard for a few years. Up to the release of ''Music/{{Wildflower}}'', the group even {{lampshade|hanging}}d the album's perpetual development with a trailer for a (pseudo) documentary entitled ''Since They Left Us'' that featured several artists that [[SpecialGuest would end up being featured]] on ''Wildflower'', including Music/DannyBrown, Ariel Pink, and Father John Misty. Fans and critics generally agree that ''Wildflower'' was worth the wait.
217* Music/TheBeachBoys' ''Music/{{Smile|TheBeachBoys}}'' served as an UrExample for the concept of 'musical development hell'; created as a follow-up to ''Music/PetSounds'' and intended to release in 1967, the project was aborted when band leader Music/BrianWilson suffered a CreatorBreakdown of epic proportions and sank into a fog of mental illness for years. Wilson eventually re-recorded and released it in 2004, 37 years later, as a solo project. Later, a persistent rumor that Wilson deleted the original masters during his breakdown was debunked when ''The Smile Sessions'' finally came out on November 1, 2011. A recreation of ''Smile'' using all the material recorded back in the '60s, it was released in many formats, including a two disc set and a five disc box set, [[LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition among other things.]] The box set features ''over five hours of session material'', most of which was previously unreleased.
218* Music/TheBeatles on iTunes.
219** It was supposed to happen at the end of 2008, but it just fell through. Trying to compensate for the inability of Apple Corps (the Fab Four's recording company) to make a deal with Apple, Inc. (the iTunes computer company), the former made [[http://www.thebeatles.com/#/news/APPLE_AND_EMI_TO_RELEASE/ a limited release of the entire discography on MP3.]] It finally happened in November 2010, a year after a deal had supposedly finally been made.
220*** The long-standing animosity between the similarly named companies — Apple Corps sued Apple, Inc. several times between 1978 and 2006 over trademark issues — was most likely a contributing factor in the delay. The two sides reached a final settlement in 2007.
221** ''Music/LetItBe'' was supposed to have been an early 1969 "back to basics" album called ''Get Back'' (and accompanying [[Film/LetItBe "making of" film]]), with an album cover in which the 1969 Beatles recreated their ''Please Please Me'' album cover in the original setting. With the Troubled Production and band squabbles delaying the album, the cover was scrapped (it was used later in 1973 on the [[GreatestHitsAlbum compilation]] ''1967–1970'') and the album abandoned while the band recorded ''Abbey Road''. With production work (and overdubbed orchestral accompaniment of several songs) by Music/PhilSpector it was finally released a month after the band broke up under the new name.
222* [[Music/OutKast Big Boi's]] solo debut, ''Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty''. He originally released a single with Andre 3000 to promote it in 2008... then [[ExecutiveMeddling the label]] got involved. Unlike Lil Jon, though, Big Boi was able to take his previously recorded material to another company and get the album a 2010 release: fans agree it was worth the wait.
223* The Music/BigStar [[CoverAlbum tribute album]] ''Big Star, Small World'' was completed and scheduled for a Spring 1998 release by Ignition Records. Ignition went under before it could be released though, and the compilation didn't see the light of day until 2006, when Koch Records bought the rights. As a result, the album ended up an UnintentionalPeriodPiece of sorts: Most of the contributing artists were at their height of popularity in the mid-nineties, and three bands who appeared on the album were long broken up when it came out [[note]] Afghan Whigs, Whiskeytown, and Idle Wilds[[/note]], while two others had managed to break up ''and'' reunite [[note]] Music/GinBlossoms and The Posies[[/note]] during the eight-year interim. At the time one of the big draws was to be a new song from Big Star themselves, but the song in question, "Hot Thing", showed up on the compilation ''Big Star Story'' to generally lackluster reception.
224* Big Star's album ''Third/Sister Lovers'' was released three years after they broke up.
225* Music/{{Chicago}}'s ''Stone of Sisyphus'' was originally slated to be ''Chicago XXII'' in 1994, but Reprise rejected the album. They responded by leaving the label and making a big band-styled album as their 22nd. ''Stone'' would eventually be released in 2008 as ''Chicago XXXII'' on another label (Rhino) mostly intact.
226* Corelia's second album, ''New Wilderness'', spent five years in development. For about four of those years, the band was completely silent. Since the album was crowdfunded via Website/{{Indiegogo}}, where it raised over $30,000, this led some of their fans to question whether or not the album was even being made, or if it was all just a scam. The silence was finally broken in April 2020, when the band was forced to address the issue of an unrelated producer impersonating a member of the band and claiming that he would be releasing the album soon. In response, the real band members issued an apology, explaining that the album had been worked on, but mental health issues and the departure of one of their members resulted in its release being massively delayed. Finally, in May of the same year, their album ''New Wilderness'' was released, albeit in a rough, unmixed state.
227* Music/DanielAmos finished recording their third album ''Horrendous Disc'' in 1978. Many factors--two record label changes, mistakes in the initial pressing of the album, and some other behind-the-scenes shenanigans that, to this day, no one really understands--conspired to delay its release. It didn't hit shelves until 1981... one week before Daniel Amos' fourth album came out.
228* While Music/DavidBowie's 1987 album ''Music/NeverLetMeDown'' was put out and released on-schedule, the CreatorBacklash-induced GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion ''Never Let Me Down 2018'' took over 30 years to get off the ground. Bowie first proposed a do-over of the album shortly after its release, only for Reeves Gabrels to talk him out of it on the grounds that it was too soon to do so. Bowie next brought it up shortly before starting work on ''Music/{{Earthling}}'', but this also fell through. Finally, Bowie managed to recruit a team of session musicians to record new backing parts for the album, based on a 2008 remix of "Time Will Crawl" that he had approved of. While Bowie died before recording sessions for ''Never Let Me Down 2018'' began, it eventually saw release two years later on the BoxedSet ''Loving the Alien (1983-1988)''.
229* Music/DecrepitBirth released ''Polarity'' in 2010, but it took ''seven years'' for ''Axis Mundi'' to follow. Why? It was a mix of things. Matt Sotelo had to focus on his family, numerous lineup changes occurred (Dan Eggers and Joel Horner left basically right after ''Polarity'' was released, they had a revolving door of bassists that only finally ended after Sean Martinez left Rings of Saturn, and Chase Fraser was fired in 2014 after a lengthy history of being a dick), Samus Paulicelli went back to school and moved to Canada, the actual writing process was rather slow (and didn't even really begin until 2013) and involved at least one massive overhaul of the material after Samus told Matt that he didn't think it was up to par, the recording process was similarly drawn-out, and, once the album was actually ''done'', the label sat on it for months before giving them a release date. While it wasn't quite up to Necrophagist levels, people had given up hope that there actually would be a fourth album for a while.
230* ''Hysteria'' by Music/DefLeppard. Production for the followup to 1983's ''Pyromania'' was to begin in 1984, but their producer Creator/RobertJohnMuttLange was busy producing Music/TheCars' ''Heartbeat City'' album, so Leppard worked with Music/JimSteinman, the composer of Music/MeatLoaf's classic albums. Unfortunately, Steinman's method of producing was far looser than Lange's style. On top of that, on New Year's Eve 1985, their drummer Rick Allen lost an arm in a car accident. An undaunted Allen was determined to re-learn how to play the drums, using his one remaining arm and his feet. The rest of the band supported Allen fully and tried to boost his confidence (and their own) by having a special electronic drum kit made for him and scheduling a number of comeback concerts. Def Leppard reconvened with Mutt Lange in 1986, and were subject to his usual meticulous taskmaster production style, finally releasing ''Hysteria'' in late 1987.
231* Deltron 3030's (Del the Funky Homosapien, Kid Koala and Dan the Automator, all contributors to the Music/{{Gorillaz}}) second album was announced around 2006, and Automator started working on instrumentals as early as 2004. The album, titled ''Event 2'', officially saw release in 2013 - seven years after being announced, and a full thirteen years after their first, SelfTitledAlbum.
232* After 1997's ''Medazzaland'', Music/DuranDuran began work in earnest on their next album. In the meantime, Music/{{Blondie|Band}} reunited and Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo were assigned the task of writing some songs for their upcoming album. These songs were never used for some reason and the Blondie reunion album, 1999's ''No Exit'', included only Blondie's songs. Nick and Warren decided to use them for the upcoming Duran Duran album instead. Another complicating factor was the fact that EMI (Duran Duran's record company) dropped them from the label and the band had to find a new record company. Finally in 2000, ''Pop Trash'', whose title is taken from one of the album's songs that were originally written for Blondie ("Pop Trash Movie"), was released on the Creator/{{Disney}}-owned Creator/HollywoodRecords.
233* Dystopia had released two full-length albums (''Human = Garbage'' and ''The Aftermath'') based off tracks from various splits they did with other bands, but their first full album with new material had been in the working process for many years. Tracks were recorded in 2004, but due to label issues they didn't get released at the time. It wasn't until 2008, nine years after ''The Aftermath'' and several years after the band broke up, that ''Dystopia'' was finally released.
234* Flavor Flav's solo album, ''Lifestyles of the Rich And Flavor'', had been touted (mostly by Flav himself) since the mid-90s. It finally saw release (sort of) as ''Flavor Flav'' in 2006. Most rap fans are completely unaware of the album's existence.
235* Forest For The Trees' [[SelfTitledAlbum self-titled]] (and so far only) album was being worked on as early as 1993, but didn't see release until 1997 -- [[IAmTheBand chief member]] Carl Stephenson suffered a nervous breakdown that prevented him from working on the album for years. Music/{{Beck|Musician}} appeared on a couple of songs, and his vocal ad-libs at the end of "Infinite Cow" are the biggest audible hint of how long the album had been gestating -- due to Beck's VocalEvolution it's easy to surmise that his contributions were most likely recorded around 1993. Also, Carl had coined the term "trip hop" to describe the album's psychedelic hip hop sound, and the phrase appeared in the lyrics to the songs "Dream" and "Paint". By the time the album came out, TripHop was more widely known as a totally different genre. Reportedly, an unnamed second album was completed but remains on [[TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment The Shelf of Album Languishment]] -- the label it was recorded for, [=DreamWorks=] Records, technically no longer exists.
236* The Music/GunsNRoses album ''Music/ChineseDemocracy'' was a famous example, being released [[http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Guns_N%27_Roses%27_%27Chinese_Democracy%27_released_after_15_years in 2008]], after 14 years in development (one of the signs it would come out was the song "Shackler's Revenge" being featured in ''VideoGame/RockBand 2'', [[EarlyBirdCameo about two months before the album itself was released]]), subverting the long-standing joke that China itself would become democratic before ''Chinese Democracy'' was released. And yes, it's BannedInChina. Showing that Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad, the album received mixed but generally positive reviews.
237* La Toya Jackson's ''Startin' Over'' began its production on November 2001, and had some singles released, but ultimately never saw a physical release. It ended up being released in June 2011 as a digital-only EP, with the slightly modified title of ''Starting Over''.
238* Music/LupeFiasco's third album, ''Lasers'', was shelved in 2008 by his label because they thought it wasn't "pop" enough. A combination of Lupe caving to pressure and rewriting some songs (something he has said will forever taint his own opinion of the album) and general fan outrage led to the album finally being released in 2011.
239* Music/MassiveAttack's next album. For a while, at the end of 2006, it had a confirmed release date, which was spring 2007, but it did not come out. Since then, it has no release date at all, the band even dropped the title, ''Weather Underground''. Ultimately it took until February 2010 for the album, which was retitled ''Heligoland'', to come out.
240* Although Music/MeatLoaf has been fairly prolific over his nearly 40-year career, the ''Bat Out of Hell'' series of albums are notorious for their stints in Development Hell. The first, released in 1977, is still considered one of the greatest albums of all time. ''Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell'' wasn't released until 1992, however, due to ongoing conflicts between Meat Loaf and songwriter/producer Jim Steinman. And finally, after an almost as long gap, ''Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose'' was released in 2006, which ran into problems including Meat Loaf and Steinman fighting over who owns the rights to the title "Bat Out of Hell" (they were ultimately awarded to Meat Loaf) and only half of the tracks being written by Steinman, and those tracks not being original works, but rather recycled from his work with other musicians and solo projects. When asked to comment on his relationship with Steinman, Meat Loaf once said "Jim and I love each other. We're best friends. It's just our managers and lawyers that can't stand each other, and they're the ones that keep starting all this shit."
241* ''Static Age'' was technically the first album by Music/TheMisfits, recorded in 1978, but was their fourth studio album to be released. This is largely in part due being unable to find a label interested in releasing it, followed by their guitarist and drummer quitting after an early tour, leading chief songwriter Glenn Danzig to write new material for the newer members. Many of the tracks were released on compilations of rarities, such as 1985's ''Legacy of Brutality,'' but it took until 1997 for the album to be heard in its full, original form.
242* Music/MissionOfBurma released the EP ''Signals, Calls and Marches'' in 1981 and the studio album ''Vs.'' in 1982. Then singer Roger Miller lost his hearing. Sophomore effort ''[=ONoffON=]'' appeared in 2004.
243* Music/MyBloodyValentine fans spent ''twenty-two years'' wishing for a follow-up to ''Loveless'' to be released, being tantalised for much of that time by the knowledge that Kevin Shields was in fact working on a new album, but it was in DevelopmentHell. They finally got their wish on February 2, 2013, when the band's third full-length album, ''mbv'', was released.
244* Slightly odd example as it didn't involve newly recorded material: Music/NeilYoung's ''Archives'' self-curated best-of compilation. First discussed in the late 1980s, and announced several times since. There were rumors that Young had convinced himself that actually releasing them would send him into a terminal writer's block. First massive installment finally came out in 2009.
245* Nelly's album ''Brass Knuckles'', which was intended to be released in 2006, spent two years in delays due to having a large number of producers having different ideas on how to produce the record. The final album, with many guests and credited writers and producers, was released in 2008 to negative reviews and very weak sales (selling only 1/24th of what Nelly's previous album, the double album ''Sweat/Suit'' sold). Nelly hasn't recovered from its failure.
246* Most of ''Music/{{Northward}}'' was written all the way back in 2008 following a propitious jam session between then-Music/AfterForever singer Floor Jansen and Pagan's Mind guitarist Jørn Viggo Lofstad at [=ProgPower USA=] in '07. They planned to record while AF was on what was supposed to just be a hiatus due to [[CreatorBreakdown guitarist Sander Gommans suffering a burnout]]. Then AF broke up altogether, which [[ScrewedByTheNetwork scuttled the recording deal with their label]]. This led Floor Jansen to form Music/{{ReVamp}} as her new full-time band, putting ''Northward'' on hold again. ''Then'' she went through a burnout herself in 2011, after which she was called in to replace Music/AnetteOlzon in Music/{{Nightwish|Band}} on ''very'' short notice (the band later released a documentary about it called ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Please Learn the Setlist in 48 Hours]]''). Nightwish finally took a year off in 2017, during which Floor and her husband [[Music/{{Sabaton}} Hannes Van Dahl]] had a daughter and only ''then'' managed to block out time with Lofstad to record ''Northward''. It finally came out, to rave reviews, on 19 October 2018, ''ten years'' after it had originally been envisioned.
247* Music/{{Obituary}}'s ninth album landed in DevelopmentHell for a couple years after the band was booted from Candlelight Records and couldn't find a new label. They eventually resorted to Kickstarter to raise funds for an independent release, which went better than they expected - the minimum level for the album's recording and release was $10,000, with $20,000 enabling the filming of a series of documentary-style short films during the recording sessions at Morrisound Studios. They got ''$60,000'' by the time the campaign closed, and the publicity later got them a distribution deal with Relapse Records for the album, named ''Inked in Blood'' and released in 2014, about two years after the original projected date.
248* Ohgr (Nivek Ogre of Music/SkinnyPuppy)'s ''Welt'' album was originally recorded in 1995, but got stuck in legal limbo until 2001.
249* Orchestral Manœuvres in the Dark's 11th studio album was announced in late 2002 and finally released, after several release dates were announced and retracted, in late 2010, under the title ''History of Modern''. Since Paul Humphreys rejoined the band during that time, a whole new album was recorded with him, and only one of the songs was retained (in re-recorded form). So technically the album that was announced in 2002 is ''still'' unreleased.
250* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Pena Paul Pena]] recorded his second album ''New Train'' in 1973, but it got caught in a tug-of-war between his management and his label and never got released. Oddly enough, Pena still made a fair amount of money from the project when Steve Miller had a huge hit covering one of the album's songs, "Jet Airliner". (Miller heard the song because his associate Ben Sidran produced the album and gave him a tape of it.) After 27 years, a deal was finally worked out and ''New Train'' was released in 2000.
251* Music/PeterGabriel was working on the album ''Music/{{Up|PeterGabrielAlbum}}'' for about 7 years-- he started working on it in 1995, it was supposed to be "near completion" in 1998, and yet it took four more years to finally see release. Then there's the debut album by the side project Big Blue Ball, which was in production for ''eighteen'' years. His album ''I/O'' started development at the same time as ''Up'', yet languished in DevelopmentHell itself until its release in late 2023, after almost three decades.
252* Music/SimpleMinds' ''Our Secrets Are the Same'' was recorded and intended for release in 1999. However it wasn't released that year because of a number of record company mergers, followed by their record company deciding they couldn't do anything with it and releasing the band from their contract in 2000. However, during this time an unmastered promo CD-R arrived in the hands of a Spanish radio host who proceeded to play all the tracks from the album over a few weeks. Fans recorded these and these recordings were subsequently bootlegged. Because of the bootlegs, an attempt to release the album in early 2003 fell through as it was considered unmarketable on its own. Eventually it was released officially as the last disc of the BoxedSet ''Silver Box'' in late 2003.
253* Music/TearsForFears:
254** ''The Tipping Point'' was initially announced in 2013, and after numerous delays and re-recordings, it was planned for release in 2017, with two songs being included on the GreatestHitsAlbum ''Rule the World'' that year to drum up publicity. However, Curt Smith's dissatisfaction with the product nearly drove him out of the band again, having previously left from 1991 to 2000 due to CreativeDifferences with Roland Orzabal. Combined with the death of Orzabal's wife, this led to the album being completely rewritten and re-recorded from the ground up (barring the closing track, previously one of the two teaser songs on ''Rule the World''). Eventually, the album was completed in a way that both Orzabal and Smith liked, finally seeing release in February 2022.
255** The protracted development of ''The Tipping Point'' had the knock-on effect of delaying the completed Super Deluxe Edition for ''Music/TheSeedsOfLove'', which was initially planned as a 25 year anniversary edition. It eventually came out in 2020, just barely missing the 30th anniversary mark. Appropriately, the original release of ''The Seeds Of Love'' was originally announced in 1986, but due to the group deciding to completely change their production style, it took until 1989 to come out.
256* Music/UncleKracker's ''Happy Hour'' album spent nearly five years in development hell before it was finally released in 2009.
257* Shortly after releasing ''Music/{{Tommy}}'', Music/TheWho began working on an epic followup to be entitled ''Lifehouse'', which would have been accompanied by a film and a series of experimental concerts involving using the vital statistics of audience members to produce synthesizer tracks. The project fell apart and most of the songs were released on the ''Music/WhosNext'' and ''Who Are You'' albums. Pete Townshend ultimately released ''Lifehouse'' in 2000 as a six-disc solo album and a radio play for the BBC, and the synthesizer concept found its way onto the web in 2007.
258** The album that became The Who's ''Endless Wire'' was announced in 1999 and hit the shelves in 2006, its release having been delayed by touring, Townshend's putting the finishing touches on ''Lifehouse'', and the death of John Entwistle. Two "preview" tracks were released on a compilation album in 2003 - neither made it onto the final album.
259* Music/{{Wintersun}}'s second album, ''Time''.
260** The first half of the album spent multiple years in development that left an eight-year gap since the SelfTitledAlbum. The album was originally announced in 2006, but didn't see the light of day until 2012.
261** ''Time II'' was talked about after the release of part 1, and then nothing happened, with the band ultimately releasing the NatureMetal ConceptAlbum ''The Forest Seasons'' in 2017 instead. In February 2023 the band stated in a Facebook post that they had moved on to other projects and ''Time II'' was no longer in active development. However, the announcement and the subsequent single "Warning" were met with derision from fans on social media (compounded by the fact the band had earlier crowdfunded a new recording studio, leading to some fraud accusations), which evidently was the kick in the pants that principal songwriter Jari Mäenpää needed: the band announced in January 2024 that they had finally finished the album after a SequelGap of twelve years.
262* Recording for Music/{{Yes}}'s ''Big Generator'' album began in 1985, with former vocalist Music/TrevorHorn producing (having previously produced the band's comeback album ''Music/NineOhOneTwoFive''). Due to CreativeDifferences between Horn and guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist/co-writer Trevor Rabin, work resumed on the album with Rabin as producer until its release in 1987.
263* The follow up to Music/SlaughterToPrevail's 2017 album ''Misery Sermon'' was stuck in the oven for quite some time due to various issues. They started work on the album sometime during 2017-18 but due to heavy touring it got put on the back burner. The decentralized nature of the band (Alex, Evgeny, and Mike are in Russia and Jack Simmons is in Britain) made it hard to get everyone on the same page. They did release two new singles ("Agony" in 2019 and "Demolisher" in 2020) and had other songs in the works, but [[Main/ScrewedByTheNetwork Sumerian thought that the band wasn't writing their best material.]] After sorting out their issues with Sumerian, COVID-19 hit, making it hard to hit the studio (and in general slowing down music releases). According to drummer Evgeny, the instrumentals were all done as of September 2020, so the new album just needed mixing/mastering before it drops. ''KOSTOLOM'' finally saw the light of day in August 2021.
264[[/folder]]
265
266[[folder:Pinball]]
267* Creator/{{Capcom}}'s ''Pinball/BigBangBar'' got players buzzing with excitement as soon as the first machines hit test locations, with many calling it a BreakthroughHit. Unfortunately, Capcom closed their pinball division before full manufacturing could begin, leaving only 14 prototypes. Fortunately, Gene Cunningham of Illinois Pinball Inc. bought the rights from Capcom, and eventually released a "remake" in 2006 of 191 tables.
268[[/folder]]
269
270[[folder:Theatre]]
271* Work on a sequel to ''Theatre/{{Annie}}'', called ''Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge'', started in 1989. After a disastrous out-of-town tryout, two name changes, several rewrites, and going through three different actresses for Annie, it opened off-Broadway as ''Annie Warbucks'' in 1993.
272* The Broadway revival of ''{{Theatre/Godspell}}'' was scheduled to open at the end of 2008; it lost a producer and thus didn't open until the fall of 2011.
273* Creator/AndrewLloydWebber announced plans for a sequel to ''Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'' in the late 1990s; ''Theatre/LoveNeverDies'' didn't open until 2010.
274* ''Theatre/SpiderManTurnOffTheDark'' may be the ultimate theater example. After being batted around since 2007, it was finally supposed to open in February 2010. As of November 2010, it has had precisely one preview (in which the [[WeAreExperiencingTechnicalDifficulties technical difficulties]] that had caused the production to be so delayed in the first place still occurred and [[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/theater/29spiderman.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2 delayed the performance by over thirty minutes at one point]]). It has an announced opening on March 2011, which the producers said was "the final postponement". [[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/theater/spider-man-a-superlative-for-all-the-wrong-reasons.html?src=dayp Nobody bought it]], and was postponed for summer. Considering how [[http://www.avclub.com/articles/spiderman-turn-off-the-dark-terrible-or-make-it-st,51518/ the first reviews]] went, well...The show finally opened in [[http://www.playbill.com/news/article/151764-Believe-It-or-Not-Spider-Man-Turn-Off-the-Dark-Opens-on-Broadway-June-14 June 2011]], after some major rewriting of the story, and ran until January 2014.
275* The original 1927 production of ''Strike Up the Band'' closed during its Philadelphia tryout, inspiring its librettist George S. Kaufman's famous quip that "satire is what closes on Saturday night." The producer revived the musical three years later to considerably more success with a reworked score and a revised book by Morrie Ryskind that changed the PretextForWar from Swiss cheese to Swiss chocolate and substituted an AllJustADream happy ending for the original's HereWeGoAgain.
276[[/folder]]
277
278[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
279* ''TabletopGame/{{Krosmaster}}'' had a few ones:
280** The original concept for the first Duel Pack was Missiz Freez versus Merkator. The former was replaced with Captain Amakna in the final release, but the instruction booklet found in the box still had a picture of Missiz Freez's datacard. She finally came out as part of Series 5, with a fully reworked stat card.
281** The earliest prototype for the game was promoted by the [[NoExportForYou French-only]] ''Wakfu Mag'' magazine with the release of two promotional miniatures as a freebie with the magazine, Remington Smisse and Maskemane. While the former was released in the first wave of miniatures, the latter's mold was released, but recolored as a generic Masqueraider. It took 4 years for Maskemane to finally get his own miniature as part of a special pack themed around the ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'' [=OVAs=].
282** A Chafer King miniature was presented in the first teasers for Series 4 but was not featured in the final release. He was finally released as part of the ''Krosmaster Blast'' spinoff game.
283** While only two Duel Packs were released, two more were planned but never released: Duel Pack 3 was going to feature Anathar and Justice Knight, while Duel Pack 4 would have presented Adult Ogrest and the God reincarnation form of Tristepin from the ''Wakfu'' [=OVAs=]. The four miniatures were finally released as stretch goal additions for the ''Krosmaster Blast'' Kickstarter campaign.
284* The Warriors of Chaos army book from the 7th edition of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' was released in late 2008 and featured images of a new model for the Daemon Prince. The model itself was released only in August 2010, with a ''Magazine/WhiteDwarf'' article explaining that they wanted to release it as part of a wave of new Chaos Daemons models and so it was postponed until more new models for that range were ready.
285[[/folder]]
286
287[[folder:Theme Parks]]
288* The Ark Encounter, a $149.5 million park sponsored by the Christian creationist organization Answers in Genesis, was drowning in controversy and development hell. Its centerpiece is a full-size replica of Noah's Ark, while later phases called for the addition of models of the Tower of Babel and a first-century middle-eastern village, an aviary, and a motion theater. Announced in 2010 with construction scheduled to start in 2011 and an opening date of 2014, despite funding issues (the project had to be scaled down to $70 million), it was still heavily hyped and promoted by [=AiG=] since the announcement. Construction didn't break ground [[http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/08/13/excavation-is-well-under-way-at-the-ark-encounter-site/ until August 2014]] when earth-moving machines arrived to begin excavating what will be the parking lot, even though in November 2014 they claimed to be still $15 million short of funding.\
289\
290Not helping matters was a controversy over [=AiG=]'s hiring policy, which requires employees to sign a statement of faith signifying their agreement with its strict Young Earth creationism views. Americans United tipped off the government of Kentucky under the implication that it could apply to the park itself as well. In turn, they refused to grant the park over $15 million in tax incentives. However, [=AiG=] sued, citing religious discrimination and First Amendment violations. The district court ruled in favor of [=AiG=], allowing the park to become eligible for the incentives. The first stage of the park officially opened on July 7, 2016.
291* Ride/DisneyThemeParks:
292** Ride/TheHauntedMansion at Ride/DisneyThemeParks was delayed several times, due to the sheer number of [[WhatCouldHaveBeen unused ideas]] that were thought up. The facade was completed in 1963, but it didn't actually open until 1969. The ride itself has an example of it. In the beginning, one of the planned characters/gags in the ride was going to be the "Hatbox Ghost", the groom to the Attic's bride, whose head would disappear from his shoulders and reappear in his hatbox in time with the bride's heartbeat. The figure was produced, and the lighting implemented to create the disappearing trick, but the figure was taken out very shortly thereafter once it was clear that the distance between the riders and the figure was too short to allow the effect to work. Because it was taken out so early and so few people had seen it, the Hatbox Ghost achieved legendary status within the fanbase. His presence endured in the franchise, and in 2015, with decades of technological advancement, the Hatbox Ghost was made again with a more complex digitally-aided head-transfer effect and more animation, finally placing him in the ride like he was always supposed to be.
293** A ride based on ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'' began planning in the early [=1990s=]. The plans went on hold due to the sluggish business of [=EuroDisney=]. During the following decade, a project to renovate California Adventure prompted production on a ''Little Mermaid'' ride to resume. It finally opened in the summer of 2011.
294[[/folder]]
295
296[[folder:Toys]]
297* Rumors of a new [[Toys/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girl]] doll, Rebecca, began to surface in the adult collector community as far back as 1998 when Mattel trademarked the name of the character. Eventually, details leaked that she'd be the first Jewish history, and after that, she seemed abandoned, with dolls such as Native American Kaya and '70s girl Julie (and the entire Best Friends line) appearing instead. Rumors of prototypes of Rebecca being seen by company insiders floated the entire time, with various descriptions given of her appearance, but most of the collecting world has given her up as an idea dumped on the drawing room floor. Following the retirement of Samantha in 2008, American Girl finally confirmed they were producing Rebecca, who was released in May of '09.
298* ''Marvel Legends'':
299** Each figure in the ComicBook/{{Onslaught}} wave by [=ToyBiz=] was originally supposed to include a henchman character as a special bonus, such as a ComicBook/{{HYDRA}} agent, a [[ActuallyADoombot Doombot]], a Hand ninja, a Hellfire Club guard, and so on. Rising production costs forced [=ToyBiz=] to abandon the bonus figure idea, but the Skrull soldier and Brood drone designed for the wave were later released as part of Diamond's Marvel Select line.
300** In 2013, Creator/{{Hasbro}} showed off promotional photos for a Mandarin figure that was intended to be part of the ''Film/IronMan3'' wave. Despite a prototype being shown off at conventions, the figure wouldn't be released until 2018, when it was included as part of a box set celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse.
301[[/folder]]
302
303[[folder:Visual Novels]]
304* Type-Moon announced in 2008 that ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}'' (2000) would be remade, with updated art, character designs and other details. Very little happened for the next half-decade, and then ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'' seemed to consume the entire company, making fans lose hope and turning "''Tsukihime'' remake when?!" into a sarcastic meme. The remake was rather unexpectedly announced to be in test play in 2019, and the first half was finally released in 2021. It not only features updated art, but also new characters and in some places a pretty divergent story. Fans are still waiting on the second half, but at least they're reasonably confident now that it's not too far in the future. The developers explained that progress had stalled five years in by 2013 because of focus on the aforementioned ''Grand Order'' and other projects but they had enough free time by 2017 to properly finish development for the game that would release in 2021.
305[[/folder]]
306
307[[folder:Web Original]]
308* ''WebVideo/AwesomeComics'' was promised by Website/ChannelAwesome in 2013, but was saved in 2016 by their intern hosting it along with three new people.
309* Bite Me - The Gamer's Zombie Apocalypse Series, a web original from machinima who went into hell after the first season, uploaded on 2010, and was saved almost 2 years later with the second season.
310* Creator/RoosterTeeth's ''Series/Day5'' has been mentioned to have begun development in podcasts from early 2012. It finally came out in June, 2016.
311* The ''Doctor Puppet'' stop-motion shorts inspired by ''Series/DoctorWho'' are a combination of standalone stories and a multi-part storyline, "The Adventures of Doctor Puppet", which aired its first two parts in March 2013 and features the Eleventh Doctor trying to rescue his previous selves. The time involved in making each individual short combined with the creators having to acknowledge new developments in ''Who'' with the standalones meant that the eighth and final short wasn't posted until October 2018, just days before the debut of the '''Thirteenth''' Doctor. TheStinger of the final part humorously acknowledges the biggest change to continuity that they couldn't incorporate into the story: [[spoiler: the War Doctor is kicking back on a beach in a spoof of the ending of ''Avengers: Infinity War'', as by the time "The Day of the Doctor" aired the puppet storyline had already moved past the point where he would have appeared had its creators known that yes, he ''was'' an actual incarnation of the Doctor]].
312* ''WebVideo/FranceFive'' is a French parody/homage to ''Franchise/SuperSentai''. The four first episodes were released from 2000 to 2004. The fourth episode ended with a {{cliffhanger}}, and the fifth (and last) episode was scheduled for 2005, then 2006 or 2007, then no schedule was given. Finally, after 7 years, it was released on 05/05/2012. [[spoiler: it is not the last episode. The sixth (and last) episode is scheduled for the end of 2012.]]
313* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' (in-universe) had Dangeresque 3 finally released in movie form, four years later than Strong Bad originally announced. In real life, it was the basis of the fourth episode of ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople''.
314* ''Pottermore,'' an esoteric and unexplained online supplement to the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' book series. Originally opened for limited beta testing in July 2011 and scheduled for public release that August, release dates were continually pushed back…and back…and back… until finally, it opened to the public on April 14, 2012.
315[[/folder]]
316
317[[folder:Western Animation]]
318* Italian series ''WesternAnimation/{{Adrian}}'' is a vanity project by the famous singer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriano_Celentano Adriano Celentano]]: it was announced for a 2009 release, but the concept dates to around 10 years before that. It was picked up multiple times, but every time it was plagued by tons of problems, mismanagement, and went overbudget several times; finally, around 10 years after the initial announcement, it was released on Mediaset's Canale 5 in January 2019, in prime time and with great fanfare... and it was a humongous flop.
319* A ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'' reboot [[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/mipcom-barney-friends-set-relaunch-829728/ was announced in 2015]] for a 2017 release, but nothing came of it [[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/barney-the-dinosaur-reboot-1235322332/ until 2023,]] when it was announced that there would be an AllCGICartoon reboot of the series.
320* The pilot for ''WesternAnimation/BenAndHollysLittleKingdom'' was made shortly after Season 1 of ''WesternAnimation/PeppaPig'' finished production, but the series didn't premiere until shortly before the third season of Peppa Pig was started on TV, because Season 2 of Peppa Pig put Little Kingdom in development hell. The character of Nanny Plum was almost scrapped before the series entered development hell, but revived while the series was in development hell.
321* Back in the early 80s, there were plans of a French-Hungarian co-produced AnimatedAdaptation of Creator/{{Voltaire}}'s ''Literature/{{Candide}}'', which were halted when the director's [[Animation/FoamBath feature film debut]] bombed, followed shortly by him passing away. Fast-forward to the 2010s, when the project got reimagined as a mini series, taking guidance from the creator's original notes and adapting his excessive DerangedAnimation to modern media. A completed episode was released in 2014, and the rest of the show, titled simply ''Candide'' (or alternatively ''The Adventures of Candide''), followed in late 2018, albeit censored and almost banned by the Hungarian state. The full, uncensored series was released on Vimeo's on-demand platform some time later.
322* Around 2007, Creator/WarrenEllis planned to make an animated movie based on ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIIIDraculasCurse''. In 2017, ''WesternAnimation/{{Castlevania 2017}}'' was finally released on Netflix with Ellis as the head writer.
323* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'' was supposed to come out around early 2001 but didn't start until late 2002.
324* The ''Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood'' spin-off ''WesternAnimation/DanielTigersNeighborhood'' was in development for six years before finally arriving.
325* Getting ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'' on official DVD was DevelopmentHell for many years. To the point where fans all but gave up on seeing an official DVD at all. It was finally Saved from Development Hell. Sort of. There is the small issue of damn near the entire original soundtrack being ripped away and replaced by generic musical scores or silence, but MTV figures the fans will take what they can get. And for the most part, that's true.
326* In 2012, Jeff Kinney announced an animated TV special based on ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKidCabinFever'' that was set to premiere in 2013. A year later, he was asked about it again and confirmed that it was pushed back to a 2014 release that ultimately never happened. Absolutely nothing else about it was said since then, and many assumed it had been cancelled, especially following the critically-reviled ''Film/DiaryOfAWimpyKidTheLongHaul'' movie. However, with the first two books getting {{Animated Adaptation}}s in 2021 and 2022 respectively, ''Cabin Fever'' was announced in January 2023 to also be getting an adaptation. It eventually came out in December of that year as ''WesternAnimation/DiaryOfAWimpyKidChristmasCabinFever''.
327* ''WesternAnimation/DoraAndFriendsIntoTheCity'' aired its ''Explorer Girls'' special in 2011 and was due to air future episodes not soon after. Years passed and nothing ever appeared so many assumed it was canceled, probably due to the controversy involving the time skip. In 2014 it finally aired, having added a male character to the line-up.
328* Two cases with the Chinese-Spanish series ''WesternAnimation/FillyFuntasia'':
329** The show itself was announced in 2012 but its release kept on being pushed back, as a cause of [[TroubledProduction many production issues]]. It was initially due for a 2014 release, although slowly throughout the years, it was revealed that the show was still in production. Not so shortly after it was announced that it would come out in 2019, the show would finally premiere March 11 on an Italian channel, Frisbee. This would result in the episodes being infamously OutOfOrder in both seasons of the show.
330** That being said, despite many trailers steadily being released in English (which is technically the original language), and some other-language versions airing on TV prior[[note]]Italian, Ukrainian, Mandarin Chinese, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovene, and Hebrew; most of them specifically using an English master as their footage[[/note]], the finalized English version would not see an official release until March 3, 2022, in Singapore, with an [[AuthorsSavingThrow organized episode order]] to boot. Although fans were unexpectedly treated to three sporadic English episodes being released on apps in the US in early 2021, it was a different, placeholder dub, and [[HongKongDub not many were satisfied with the results]].
331* In the early 1990s, an animated series based on ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'' called ''Gizmo and the Gremlins'' was going to debut. Due to ''Film/Gremlins2TheNewBatch'' flopping against the heavily-promoted ''Film/DickTracy'', production was cancelled. Almost thirty years after the original show was cancelled, a new Gremlins animated series, ''WesternAnimation/GremlinsSecretsOfTheMogwai'', premiered on the streaming service Max in 2023.
332* ''WesternAnimation/HighGuardianSpice'' was supposed to come out in early 2019 via Crunchyroll as the first entry in their Crunchyroll Originals line of shows; however, after the initial announcement trailer, little was heard from the series and it missed its scheduled release date despite many of the crew stating it was completely finished. It was abruptly released in late October of 2021 with little fanfare.
333* The 2015 ''WesternAnimation/{{Inspector Gadget|2015}}'' revival series has been in development since at least 2012, but series co-creator Andy Heyward has been hyping it up since at least 2009.
334* ''WesternAnimation/MakingFiends'' was in the planning stage for years and there were promos for it A YEAR before it aired on tv. It eventually came out only for Nickelodeon to [[ScrewedByTheNetwork cancel it after six episodes]] despite good ratings.
335* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' was supposed to come out around August of 2013 but was pushed back to September of 2015. In the process, they changed the art-style from a 2D {{animesque}} style to an AllCGICartoon and changed a lot of plot details (including replacing the male lead and making the series more kid-friendly).
336* The show ''WesternAnimation/NiHaoKaiLan'' was originally announced for Spring 2007, but didn't materialize until February 2008, though the characters from the show were featured for months in the now-defunct Nick Jr. Magazine.
337* The ''Lakewood Plaza Turbo'' pilot came out in 2013. This lead to the ''OK K.O.! Lakewood Plaza Turbo'' mobile game and accompanying short series in 2016, 3 years later. The full series, ''WesternAnimation/OKKOLetsBeHeroes'', would premiere the following year.
338* ''WesternAnimation/PacManAndTheGhostlyAdventures'' was first announced in 2011 or 2012. There was no news for quite some time so people assumed it had quietly been canceled due to poor reception. It was eventually released in June 2013.
339* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' was first pitched around 1990 with a pilot made for Nickelodeon in 1992, but lack of faith in the project and [[WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife additional commitments]] [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons from the]] [[WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants show's creators]] (hoping to get their big break that way), delayed the show for more than 15 years, finally premiering in 2007 on Disney Channel instead of Nickelodeon.
340* The ''Dance Pantsed'' special of ''WesternAnimation/{{The Powerpuff Girls|1998}}'' was originally slated for a 2013 release but was pushed back to January of 2014 instead.
341* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' originally ran on Creator/CartoonNetwork from 2001 to 2004, ending abruptly without a conclusion to the story. Creator Creator/GenndyTartakovsky tried for several years to finish the show, even having confirmed the development of a finale film in 2006. With sparse details being provided of this film over the following few years, it eventually fizzled out. The show finally ended up seeing a conclusion in the form of a fifth season airing in 2017, this time on Cartoon Network's Creator/AdultSwim block.
342* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' was supposed to premiere in Fall 1989, but the initial version of the pilot episode, "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E13SomeEnchantedEvening Some Enchanted Evening]]", was deemed atrocious by the executives and staff and had to be redone. The show premiered with the [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E1SimpsonsRoastingOnAnOpenFire Christmas special]] first (December 1989), and the first official episode aired was "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS1E2BartTheGenius Bart the Genius]]" on January 14, 1990, with the redone pilot being aired as the season finale.
343* An AllCGICartoon {{reboot}} of ''WesternAnimation/StrawberryShortcake'' was being produced by DHX Media, and was announced in 2017. [[https://twitter.com/bovinebonita/status/1214289263040315392 Some previews]] and [[https://playbackonline.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/The-new-Strawberry-Shortcake-Friends-courtesy-DHX-Media.jpg a picture of the main girls]] were provided, but fans were not pleased with how it looked. On September 9, 2021, a trailer unexpectedly dropped of a new ''Strawberry Shortcake'' cartoon called ''Berry in the Big City'', which shares some design cues but otherwise looks completely different, most notably that it's an ArtShift into a [=2D=] series. Later, it was announced that there would be [=3D=] specials of this incarnation to be released on Creator/{{Netflix}}.
344* The original short for ''WesternAnimation/UncleGrandpa'' was produced in 2008/2009 as a part of The Cartoonstitute. The short lost out to fellow Cartoonstitute short ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' for being picked up as a full series, but the pilot lingered online for years. After years of fan demand, and the failure of another series by UG's creator (''WesternAnimation/SecretMountainFortAwesome''), Uncle Grandpa was finally picked up in early 2013 and started airing on Cartoon Network later that same year.
345[[/folder]]
346
347[[folder:Other]]
348* The site of the old Filene's building in UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} was like this for years, after the original developer stopped construction abruptly after they ran out of money and left a huge, unsightly hole in the ground right in the middle of downtown for years until the city revoked their permit and sold it to Millennium Partners, who are now building the Millennium Tower and completed it by 2016, and the end result of a mix of retail and residences that were more or less what the original plan was, but given how long it was in limbo Bostonians are happy to just have ''something'' in the space.
349* The [[UsefulNotes/SwedesWithCoolPlanes Swedish Saab JAS 39 Gripen]] airplane. Intended to be a jack-of-all-trades, as the name implies ([=JAS=] = Jakt, Attack, Spaning or Fighter, Attack, Reconnaissance) the project was initiated in 1977. The design was initiated in 1979, and the first prototype rolled out in 1987. It appeared the prototype was, although promising, seriously flawed, and two prototypes were lost (1988 and 1993). Gripen was seriously immature in 1993 on its first contract competition (Finland chose [[CoolPlane F/A-18 Hornets]] instead). It finally entered service in 1997, twenty years after the original concept. It has been developed and improved ever since, and in 2017 it has become fully mature and one of the best all-around light fighters in the world, and Saab has actually earned revenues on Gripen exports. It is now (2017) one of the candidates to supersede the F/A-18 Hornets in the Finnish Air Force - ''25 years after'' the initial competition.
350* Similar to Sweden, in 1985 [[UsefulNotes/CanucksWithChinooks Canada]]'s government under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was set to replace its then over 20-year-old Sikorsky Sea King helicopters with a new model. By the time a replacement model, the Westland EH-101 was decided on, it emerged that the Labrador search-and-rescue helicopters also needed replacement. The replacement was tacked onto the Sea King replacement order, ballooning the contract price to nearly $6 billion. With Canada entering a recession in 1993, new Prime Minister Kim Campbell announced that the order would be shrunk, bringing the price down to $4.4 billion. However, it wasn't enough to salvage an already unpopular government, and a new government under Jean Chretien was elected later that year. The order was swiftly cancelled (costing about $500 million in cancellation fees), but as the decade progressed it became more apparent that the Sea Kings were still growing older and becoming even more obsolete - [[TheAllegedCar requiring over 30 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight]]. By 2003, Chretien and his successor Paul Martin made the replacement of the Sea King a priority. The Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone was chosen in 2004, with deliveries scheduled to begin in 2008. Problems with Sikorsky, which nearly led to yet another cancellation, delayed the first arrivals until 2015 - ''thirty years'' after the first selection process began.
351* More recently, in 2010 the Canadian government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced an intention to purchase the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II to replace its aging fleet of CF-18 Hornet fighter jets. Unlike the Sea King replacement, no official order was placed, but the decision to pick the model in a sole-sourced contract instead of opening the project up to bidding from multiple aircraft makers quickly proved controversial. Concerns over price and operational suitability were deciding factors in the new government under Justin Trudeau, elected in 2015, cancelling the project and deciding to start over again with an open replacement process. The process is still ongoing in mid-2018, with a winner scheduled to be announced in 2019 and deliveries in 2025. Evidently learning from the Chretien government, the Trudeau government decided to purchase used F-18s from Australia in the interim. However, with an election scheduled for 2019, it's hard to think history isn't about to repeat.
352* The Hubble Space Telescope was originally planned to launch in 1983. Delays in construction pushed that back to 1986, when it was indefinitely delayed by the Challenger disaster. The completed telescope had to be stored in a clean room, powered up and purged with nitrogen(to the tune of $6 million a month), until space shuttle flights resumed. It was finally launched in 1990.
353* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda_Wisnu_Kencana_statue Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue]] in UsefulNotes/{{Indonesia}} took nearly three decades to finish. It was envisioned back in the 1990s as a pet project of the government of dictator Suharto. Five presidents and a financial crisis later, it was finally completed in 2018. In interim twenty eight years, generations of schoolchildren were baited to visit "the most magnificent statue in the country", only to find that the attraction consisted of nothing more than incomplete busts of Vishnu and Garuda placed separately throughout the area.
354* UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows 1 had a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqt94b8bNVc difficult and protracted development]], from 1981 to 1985. Its multiple delays and the commercial failure of similar products[[note]][=VisiCorp=]'s [=VisiOn=], Apple's Lisa, and IBM's [=TopView=][[/note]] made many doubt that it would ever come out, or even that [=GUIs=] were viable at all. It ultimately did come out, and it was a flop. But they kept polishing it, and in 1990 the much improved Windows 3.0 became a massive success.
355[[/folder]]

Top