The dream sequence and the idea of opening on a Show Within a Show version of Buzz Lightyear were scenes that had originally been planned from the first film.
Bo Peep was supposed to be part of the party sent to rescue Woody, but was kept behind as she's made of porcelain and fragile. In Toy Story 4 she's a deuteragonist who's right in the center of the action and adventure.
Beautyandthe Beast was originally going to end with Gaston surviving his fall after the final battle against the Beast, only to get eaten alive by the same wolves who tried to kill first Maurice and later Belle upon landing, but was changed into a true Disney Villain Death due to his original death scene being too dark. This would eventually inspire Scar's death by being eaten by hyenas at the end of The Lion King (1994), speaking of which...
There is one scene deleted from the final cut where Timon refused to go help Simba and Pumbaa tries to encourage him. A storyboard version of it can be found on Youtube. The Lion King 1 ½ features a similar scene that relates to Timon's overall "dream home" subplot.
Concept Art for "Warthog Rhapsody", which was replaced by "Hakuna Matata", uses a waterfall scene that looks like one used in 1 1/2. The tune for the song was reused for "That's All I Need".
The Lion King (1994) was originally going to explain how Timon was kicked out of his colony during an earlier version of "Hakuna Matata", but it was cut for time. Timon's backstory was explored in far greater depth in the prequel/midquel, The Lion King 1 ½.
Finn McMissile was originally going to appear in the first Cars film as a character in a movie Lightning McQueen and Sally Carrera were watching in at a drive-in movie theater, but that scene was cut. He would be used as one of the central characters in the first sequel instead.
Aladdin: The original movie only features one version of "Arabian Nights". The others which lyricist Howard Ashman had written ended up on both sequels (with Aladdin: The Return of Jafar one also being Aladdin: The Series theme).
In a case of What Could Have Been, Disney was planning on making a sequel featurette for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that would have incorporated two scenes that made it to the pencil-test stage before being dropped from the film.
Fun and Fancy Free opens with Jiminy Cricket singing "I'm a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow", which was originally written for him to sing in Pinocchio.
A few planned segments for Fantasia made it into some of the other package movies. One segment that was in fact fully animated and complete but omitted from the film (an egret dance scene to "Clair De Lune") was recycled for Make Mine Music, but edited to the piece "Blue Bayou".
In the first movie, Jonathan was originally going to be a descendant of Dracula's enemy, Abraham Van Helsing, which would have given Drac even more reason to distrust him. This idea was reworked for the third movie, in which Drac falls in love with Van Helsing's great-granddaughter.
The scene in the second movie where Drac discovers Mavis is pregnant was originally planned for the first movie as a flashback with Drac and his wife Martha.
In Finding Dory, the title character, Dory, has multiple flashbacks over the course of movie telling her backstory, which was originally intended for the first movie, as Marlin's backstory would've originally been told over the course of the movie in flashbacks.
An adaptational case occurs in Bambi II, which refits a scene from the novel not used in the first film where Bambi is almost caught by a hunter utilising a deer call. Since this was a midquel it actually regresses the timeline instead, Bambi is still a fawn and recognises the call as his mother's voice, while in the novel he was an adult who recognised it as Faline's.
An interesting variant for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Peter B. Parker's story arc in this film reuses ideas from the unmade Spider-Man 4, specifically him divorcing Mary Jane. The original script for that movie had it come as a result of him cheating on her and ended with him abandoning her and their child; Sam Raimi felt that this made Peter come across as an unlikable jerk, contributing to the problems that ultimately got that film scrapped. Spider-Verse has the reason for the divorce be Peter simply undergoing a mid-life crisis that went From Bad to Worse after Aunt May died, causing him to act in an impulsive and self-destructive manner that ruined his marriage. It also ends on a much happier note, with him regaining his resolve and trying to patch things up with MJ; successfully, as the sequel shows.
The Mythology Gag line "The power of the multiverse, in the palm of my hand..." spoken by Spot in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was originally said by Liv Octavius in the first movie before she jumps into the supercollider, but that scene was cut from the final movie.
An early cut scene from Frozen, back when Elsa was still a villain who froze Arendelle on purpose, is Anna saying "That's no blizzard—that's my sister!". The line "That's my sister!" was reused in Frozen II.
Part of the melody from the Cut Song "Life's Too Short" was reused in the short Frozen Fever.
The original idea of Elsa being the sympathetic Big Bad of the film early in development could be considered as an inversion of the trope, as the idea of the Big Bad being the biological older sibling of the protagonist who opposes said protagonist for most of the movie and being portrayed in a sympathetic manner was already previously visited before in Brother Bear.
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies was originally going to contain a song called "The Poop Song" during the scene with the prop toilet, but it was scrapped. It would later be used in the episode "The Chaff" as a That Reminds Me of a Song moment.
The Bohrok were the first character models made for Mask of Light, where they only landed a short cameo as frozen statues. The Bohrok body, sans head, was recycled into Vakama's small Fire Drones in the prequel, Legends of Metru Nui, where they appear in motion.
The obscure Lohrak beast was also modeled and a swarm of them were set to appear in a major deleted action scene in Legends of Metru Nui. In another case of reusing animation-ready models, a couple of them make a one second cameo in Web of Shadows.
Incredibles 2: The scene where Jack-Jack fights the raccoon in his backyard was originally pitched for the first film but was cut as they couldn't fit it into the story. However, director Brad Bird liked the idea so well that he included it in the second film.
The song "Chin Up" from Charlotte's Web was originally written for an unproduced Disney adaptation of Hansel and Gretel, and was meant to be sung by a group of forest animals.
Wreck-It Ralph originally had another game named Extreme E-Z Livin' 2 (a mix between Grand Theft Auto and The Sims). The game was renamed to Slaughter Race for the second film
Much of the original sword fight that would have been between Indy and the swordsman he shot instead made it into the sword fight at the end of Temple of Doom (where Indy tries the same thing, but his gun is missing).
The minecart chase was originally planned for Raiders (and even storyboarded) but had to be cut for pacing reasons.
Indy was originally to find the headpiece to the Staff of Ra in Shanghai, but the scene was cut before shooting. Elements of it (like Indy covering from gunfire behind a rolling gong) are in the opening of Temple.
The villain buying the pilots in Indy's plane, who parachute and leave him to crash, but he saves himself by using an inflatable raft to soften the impact. This was going to happen before Indy arrived in Egypt in Raiders.
Queenie Goldstein's name probably came from the draft list of 40 characters in Harry's year which had a Queenie Greengrass. She was renamed Daphne.
The Jurassic Park films love to do this, adapting scenes from the original books to different films as well as recycling ideas dropped from the film productions themselves
A swarm of a small dinosaurs, Procompsognathus in the book and Compsognathus in the film, killed a villain after they fell down a hill: John Hammond in the book and Dieter Stark in the film.
The Tyrannosaurus waterfall encounter in The Lost World, where it peeks through the water and extend its tongue to lick at the humans trapped there and attempt to grab one. In the book, Lex and Tim were there and the Tyrannosaurus would've eaten Tim if it wasn't for a tranquilizer dart fired by Robert Muldoon knocking it out; in the film, it corners Sarah, Kelly, Nick, and Robert Burke, and actually succeeds in taking Burke (though it does briefly lick Sarah in the same way the tongue was used on Tim in the book before Burke runs in front of the dinosaur).
The Velociraptor pack sneaking onto a ship bound for the continent in The Lost World, though scenes with raptors aboard or on the mainland were cut, leaving the crew's deaths in the film unexplained). The real driving force of the plot in the second half of the book is realizing that young raptors have stowed away on a ship bound for the mainland and only Grant and the kids know this, and need to get back to the Visitor Center not only for their own safety as the park descends into chaos but also to call the boat and stop it before it docks and the raptors can escape onto the mainland.
Peter Ludlow's death is taken from how the literary version of Lewis Dodgson met his end, cornered by the adult Tyrannosaurus and used to teach its baby how to hunt, even breaking his leg when he tries to escape so that the baby can finish him off. (Dodgson himself eventually got a very different death scene in Dominion.)
A baby Triceratops that was built for a Deleted Scene in the first film also got to appear in the sequel, though its original purpose was never retrofitted to a later film.
The appearance of the Stegosaurus herd in The Lost World is technically a role inversion. In the Jurassic Park novel, the main characters see a Triceratops herd and then find a sick Stegosaurus. The first movie combined both by making them find a sick Triceratops instead (outside of a "Stegasaurus" embryo being among the ones Dennis Nedry steals). In the second film, we recover the presence of Stegosaurus but in the role Triceratops had in the first novel. And we even get the main female character interacting with a baby Stegosaurus instead of the baby Triceratops mentioned above.
Some scenes in Jurassic Park III are from the books that inspired the previous two movies: The river chase (although replacing the Tyrannosaurus with a Spinosaurus) and aviary (although replacing the Cearadactylus with Pteranodon) from the first novel and the cloning lab from The Lost World (1995).
The book's aviary inspired a scripted Pteranodon flock attack in the abandoned worker compound of TLW. CGI models and at least one animatronic were made, but the scene was too much of a challenge and was abandoned, the CGI models having just a cameo in the end. JP3's aviary is thus refitted from both the first film and its sequel. The scene would've started the same way, with a character finding white, chalky guano, and not realizing what it was until the pterosaurs suddenly appeared. TLW was also originally intended to end with a shot of the Pteranodon flock leaving the island; this was the ending shot of JP3.
One concept art for Jurassic Park III depicted a design for a mosasaur tank. Mosasaurus would be introduced in the following film (although the original concept art for JP3 depicted only baby mosasaurs).
Jurassic World refits the Pteranodon attack once again, but aside from the addition of a second pterosaur species known as Dimorphodon joining the attack, is closer to how it went in the TLW script (Pteranodon attacking a large mass of people in the ground and a helicopter in the air at the same time, throwing a member of the crew out and impaling another through the front window, before making it crash, with the JW version of the crash having Simon Masrani as the main pilot in the copter as it crashes). It also rescues a scene from the original book where Wu reminds Hammond that the park's dinosaurs cannot be considered real dinosaurs because of how much foreign DNA was inserted in them to complete the sequence, but this time it is an older Wu saying it to Hammond's replacement, Masrani (though the film gives the conversation a more sinister bent to reflect Wu's Adaptational Villainy, whereas Masrani is more sympathetic than the novel's Hammond).
Other previously discarded elements in Jurassic World include a Velociraptor, in this case Charlie, being killed by a rocket launcher (from the Jurassic Park novel), a motorbike chase with Velociraptor (though in the movie the Velociraptor pack and the bikers are on the same team since these were under Owen Grady's command), the Indominus rex's ability to camouflage itself (which was a natural ability of the Carnotaurus in the The Lost World novel, an animal whose genes are confirmed to be in the Indominus), the appearance of Apatosaurus (also from the first book, changed to Brachiosaurus in the first film because it was taller), and baby Triceratops rides as a children's attraction (Lex was going to ride a baby Triceratops in the first film but it was cut for pacing).
The inversion of a Stegosaurus and a ceratopsian happens a second time for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. A scene from the second novel where a Stegosaurus licks Sarah's face to wake her up after she became unconscious from the actions of the villains was reworked to fit in the film, albeit respectively with a Sinoceratops and Owen instead after he is sedated by the villains.
A short scene that was filmed, but cut, from the first movie was Hammond telling the other guests that he brought Tim and Lex to the park early because their parents were going through a divorce and he wanted to cheer them up. It can be speculated this was cut because the information didn't contribute anything to the story. This storyline was reused in Jurassic World with Zach and Gray, although it's just as irrelevant to the story there as it would've been then.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom had a scene conceptualized with the Mosasaurus, now loose in the open ocean, hunting a pod of whales, only for a whale to be captured by a Japanese whaling vessel. The mosasaur would then attack and destroy the ship instead. The situation was reused in Jurassic World Dominion, although the whaling vessel is changed to a crab boat, and the Mosasaurus is shown peacefully coexisting with whales at the end instead of hunting them.
Several pieces of concept art for Fallen Kingdom depicts a Giganotosaurus on the island as the volcano is erupting. It was not seriously considered beyond that, but it wound out becoming the Monster of the Week for the following movie.
The second novel featured the antagonist Lewis Dodgson from the first book take on a much more direct antagonistic role, and is killed and eaten by a group of small carnivorous dinosaurs at the end. The second film, which only loosely adapted from the second novel, dropped Dodgson entirely, and replaced him with less villainous expy. It wouldn't be until Jurassic World: Dominion, three films later, where Dodgson would play a direct antagonist role and meet the same grisly fate that befell him in the novels (although the infant Tyrannosaurus that killed him are swapped out with Dilophosaurus).
The opening to The Karate Kid Part II was originally intended as the ending of The Karate Kid (1984). It was dropped from the original movie's script for pacing reasons and, contrary to popular belief, was not actually filmed until the sequel.
Considering the immensity of the Star Wars universe, a lot of ideas get recycled.
The original draft of A New Hope had scenes and concepts which were reused in the sequels.
Cloud City in Empire was based on concept art for the Imperial capital city. A later draft repurposed the floating city as a Penal Colony, and the finished film moved those scenes onto the Death Star itself.
A ground battle at the Rebel base on Yavin was later adapted to the Battle of Endor (a similar forested planetoid) in Return of the Jedi. And while Jedi turned the Wookiee planet into the Ewok one, Revenge of the Sith actually went to Wookiee homeworld Kashyyyk.
In the original script, Tatooine would have been named Utapau. When The Phantom Menace rolled around, Lucas tried to use the name with the planet that ultimately became Naboo. He was finally able to use the name in Revenge of the Sith for the planet where Obi-Wan Kenobi fights General Grevious.
The TIE Bombers featured prominently during the asteroid scenes were based on concept drawings for an Imperial boarding craft that was supposed to be shown boarding Princess Leia's ship at the beginning of A New Hope. Rogue One finally featured the TIE Bomber boarding craft.
The planet which would become Coruscant was first planned for Jedi, but realizing a planetwide city onscreen was technically impossible at the time, a second Death Star was used instead. A shot of Coruscant was later added to the Special Edition.
In early drafts of Jedi the final showdown with the Emperor was supposed to take place on a volcanic lava-covered planet called Had Abbadon. The lava planet idea was revisited as Mustafar in Sith, while the name "Had Abbadon" made it into the Star Wars: Legacy comic as a planet name.
Legendary designer Ralph McQuarrie came up with designs for a lava-planet castle that Darth Vader lived in as far back as Empire Strikes Back before it finally appeared in Rogue One. Before that, McQuarrie's design was used for Bast Castle in Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.
In a deleted scene in The Phantom Menace, R2-D2 was supposed to fall off a walkway in Coruscant and levitate back by activating rocket boosters. The rocket boosters make their official appearance in Attack of the Clones/Revenge of the Sith.
The Corporate Alliance tank droid was to appear in Attack of the Clones running over clone troopers during the Battle of Geonosis. It was cut but showed up during the Battle of Kashyyyk in Revenge of the Sith.
An early idea for The Force Awakens was to going to involve the partially submerged remains of the second Death Star. That plot point would eventually be used in The Rise of Skywalker.
Some unused footage of Leia in The Force Awakens was reused for The Rise of Skywalker, as Carrie Fisher's untimely death forced a change of plans.
Palpatine's Sith throne in The Rise of Skywalker is based on a sketch by Ralph McQuarrie for the Emperor's throne in Return of the Jedi.
George Lucas wanted to include an amphibian frog-like alien among the main cast as far as the original A New Hope script, where Han Solo was it. This became a reality with Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace.note Made evident by the script saying Jar Jar has a "frog face", though his final design looks not much like one due to him incorporating a deliberate likeness to Goofy, which was present in many others of his species, the Gungans. Boss Nass on the other hand has the intended frog face. Jar Jar also inherited his "life debt" to Qui-Gon from Chewbacca's life debt to Han, which was mentioned in the A New Hope scripts but not in the final film (but is referenced in the Expanded Universe).
Vito's backstory in The Godfather Part II is taken from scenes in the original novel which were left out of the first film.
The bathroom set in X2: X-Men United was originally built for a flashback scene showing Cyclops discovering his powers, that was dropped before being shot. A scene similar to what they'd intended turns up in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and the first time Cyclops uses his powers in X-Men: Apocalypse is in a bathroom.
The entire adventure in the Old Forest with Tom Bombadil got Adapted Out from The Fellowship of the Ring. However, part of it (specifically, the hobbits getting attacked by a hostile tree) got worked into the Extended Edition of The Two Towers, taking place in Fangorn Forest with Treebeard playing Bombadil's role.
This comes up again with The Hobbit (especially in the Extended Editions), which recycles a number of scenes or moments from the Lord of the Rings books that couldn't make it into the movies. This kinda makes sense, considering that the Hobbit book is far too short to fill a trilogy.
Inverted in Superman: The Movie, where the "spin the Earth backwards-time travel" ending in the first film was actually planned to be used at the end of the second, but Richard Donner added it to the first film to create a more memorable climax. Spinning the Earth backward was used again in the Donner cut of Superman II.
Zod and co. were originally meant to come to Earth in the first movie but were saved for the sequel because it would make the movie too long.
An early draft had the Enterprise performing a saucer separation because of a Klingon attack damaging the engineering hull. A saucer separation later features prominently in Star Trek: Generations, where the Enterprise-D is badly damaged from an attack by a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and conducts a saucer separation. In turn, this specific sequence in Generations – of the Enterprise-D separating its saucer section, the drive section exploding and the saucer section crash-landing on a planet's surface – was originally conceived as a possible cliffhanger ending for a season finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation.note Behind the scenes this would have also been an opportunity to redesign the ship's drive section, as they found the Enterprise-D's top-heavy design difficult to photograph. Ultimately it was saved for the movie instead.
When Nicholas Meyer directed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, he planned to title it "The Undiscovered Country", a reference to Hamlet. Executive Meddling overrode him and titled the film "The Wrath of Khan" instead. When Meyer returned to direct Star Trek VI, he again pushed for the title "The Undiscovered Country", but this time he had enough clout to succeed, given that Klingons Love Shakespeare, and one of them was prone to spouting references.
Brent Spiner wanted Data to be killed off in Star Trek: Insurrection, feeling he was getting too old to play the character. This was overruled by Patrick Stewart. In fact, Brent's script came with a note saying "Better luck next time". He got his wish in the next film, Star Trek: Nemesis.
The designs and whatnot for the Klingons in Star Trek Into Darkness were originally created for scenes cut out of the 2009 film.
The Hogwarts song, which was sung following the Sorting ceremony in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is included in the film version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, with Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid briefly heard singing it right before Crouch's body is discovered. Goblet also had a deleted scene in which it was sung by the whole school, much as it had been in the book version of Stone.
In the book version of Philosopher's Stone, Dumbledore tells Harry during the hospital wing scene that, "fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself," but this line wasn't included in the film version. The line is used in the next film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, now spoken by Hermione during the confrontation with Lucius Malfoy in Flourish and Blotts.
In Part II, as Marty McFly tries to sneak by the car with his other self and Lorraine in the first film, he hears Lorraine say "When I have kids, I'm going to let them do anything they want. Anything at all!", to which his other self says "I'd like to have that in writing...", which was originally part of that scene before being cut for pacing.
In the first film, the producers considered using "Papa Loves Mambo" by Perry Como when Marty arrives in the 1955 Hill Valley, before deciding on "Mister Sandman" by The Four Aces, thereby making it the "Mister Sandman" Sequence. In Part II, the song is used as Biff drives to the Enchantment Under The Sea dance.
It's widely known that the time machine was originally conceived as a chamber (specifically a refrigerator), and in order to travel back to 1985, Doc and Marty would've sneaked into a nuclear testing site in the desert to get the necessary 1.21 gigawatts of electricity. In Back to the Future Part III, the 1955 Doc sends Marty to 1885 at a drive-in theater in the desert.
Part III features a "Made in Japan" gag, playing on the fact that the label signified cheap crap in 1955, but by 1985, it had come to instead signify high-quality electronics. A similar "Made in Japan" joke appears in earlier drafts for the first movie.
One of the concepts considered for the film sequels was a visit to Prohibition-era Hill Valley with Biff's relative as a bootlegger. This idea was later used in Back to the Future: The Game.
The plot of the second Dirty Harry film Magnum Force about the main villain killing criminals who escaped justice was taken from Terrence Malick's draft for the first film.
The death of the teacher and the factory finale in Child's Play 2 were both intended to be featured in the original.
The opening scene in Child's Play 3 was originally how Child's Play 2 would have ended (And, in fact, a different version of it is used in some TV versions). It was also how Child's Play was going to end back when the factory was the intended finale.
The evidence locker scene in Bride of Chucky was going to be the opening of Child's Play 2.
The electrocution of Tiffany in Bride of Chucky was how the babysitter died in an earlier draft of the first film's script.
The ending of Curse of Chucky with the court case and Chucky being among the evidence and Fiona being declared legally insane was intended for the beginning of Child's Play 2 with Karen Barclay's character.
Initially, there was supposed to be a shot in Curse of Chucky that revealed that Andy owned a gun store, illustrating just how ready he was for Chucky's return.
The scene where a woman gets attacked by her fur coat coming to life after she walks through a slime puddle was originally written for the first film.
Also, the part where Ray knocks out the whole city's power is a refit from the original screenplay: Egon's prototype Proton Pack, which needed to be plugged into a heavy-duty outlet (for safety reasons, he hadn't fitted the particle accelerator yet). Plug in, switch on, and...the power went back through and melted the cable, reached the outlet, and knocked out all of New York's power.
The commercial featuring Janine and Louis as a married couple comes from an early draft for the advertisement in the first film, with the lines "It's that darn ghost again" and "I guess we'll just have to move" lifted directly from it.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico contains several scenes that were leftover from El Mariachi and Desperado. The hotel escape was originally intended for the latter, and the escape from the compound (while guarded in a jail cell) was included in the original script for the former.
The latter portion of the scene featuring Harris and Proctor at the Blue Oyster Bar in Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol was originally written for Art Metrano and Lance Kinsey in Police Academy 3: Back in Training. However, the scene was removed from the final draft for the third film, and used in the fourth film instead, with Mauser's role being reassigned to Harris.
Plot elements in RoboCop 3 like OCP forcing people to move from their homes with Rehab-forces and the donut shop scene with all the cops pulling their guns out came from Frank Miller's original script forRoboCop 2.
In The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the concept of Jonathan as an owner of a casino being attacked by the bad guys was originally planned for The Mummy Returns, but was cut due to budget constraints and brought back for this film.
The backstory about Gracie's mother being a cop who died on duty in Miss Congeniality 2 was meant for the first film.
Doctor Octopus was going to be a villain in the first film alongside The Green Goblin, but Sam Raimi decided that one villain was enough, and saved him for Spider-Man 2.
Footage of Harry Osborn cradling his father's body after the final fight scene of the original film was shot, but left unused until it was repurposed for a flashback Harry has in Spider-Man 3.
Sam Raimi originally wanted The Vulture as the main villain for Spider-Man 3 alongside Sandman and New Goblin, but Avi Arad objected and insisted he instead use Venom, due to his popularity and viewing the symbiote story as far more compelling (and To Sell Toys), as Sam and and his Ivan's version of Vulture had no personal connection to Spider-Man, unlike the Green Goblin and Doc Ock prior. Vulture would've been the villain for the now cancelled Spider-Man 4, with Black Cat and Mysterio as secondary villains, but Raimi dropped out due to his dissatifaction with any script for the project and thus was cancelled. It was then attempted to set him up for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 in the subsequent reboot and a spin-off film featuring the Sinister Six, but this too fell through due to The Amazing Spider-Man 2's poor reception. Vulture wouldn't see his cinematic debut until Spider-Man: Homecoming, as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
A proposed plot was Vulture's motivation involving arms dealing and grand theft to provide care for his ailing wife and troubled stepdaughter, Felicia Hardy. This was partially fulfilled in Homecoming, except Toomes' wife is quite healthy, and his daughter is Liz Allan.
It's actually surprising how more of the Spider-Man films is a case of Refitted For Remake instead. The Amazing Spider-Man actually shares quite a bit in common with an unused script forSpider-Man 2 by David Koepp, also titled The Amazing Spider-Man. Both involve Peter's long-dead parents as quintessential in the backstory, with the main villain as an old friend of theirs, the MacGuffin being their life's work that was passed down to Peter, who eventually seeks out the main villain to gain answers and help in gaining closure, the villain obtaining their superpowers via the MacGuffin and attempting to utilize it to wreak havoc unconcerned of whoit will hurt. Albeit, in Marc Webb's finished film, it is the The Lizard instead of Doc Ock, the MacGuffin being Richard Parker's unfinished algorithm in the correct sequence for the Cross-Species Neogenics project rather than the Image Refractor, and Lizard being portrayed as Tragic Villain, much like Doc Ock would be in the finished Spider-Man 2 (whereas Koepp's depiction of Ock was fully despicable and only manipulated Peter to obtain the Image Refractor, with the express intention of selling it to terrorists who'd utilize it to wreak bloody havoc, almost expecting it).
Early drafts of Sex and the City: The Movie featured a subplot about Charlotte's fear that her husband was having an affair with their young, braless nanny. The idea was removed in subsequent script revisions, but ended up being used in the sequel, where the nanny in question was played by Alice Eve.
The plot of the unmade third movie would've seen Carrie struggling to adjust to life after Mr. Big suffered a fatal heart attack while in the shower. This would ultimately be used as the premise of the HBO Max revival series, And Just Like That....
The scene in Blade: Trinity where vampires keep humans in giant blood bags to feed on was an idea meant for the first film.
Blade Runner had a storyboarded, but unused, opening that involved Deckard shooting a Replicant on a farm, before tearing open his head to reveal its robot parts. This was eventually reworked and used as the opening of the sequel, Blade Runner 2049.
The War Machine armor was originally planned to appear in Iron Man, where Tony would've worn it during the final battle against Obadiah Stane. This idea was dropped about halfway through production, and the suit instead wound up debuting in Iron Man 2.
James Gunn originally intended to have Adam Warlock join the team in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, but had to remove him from the script outside of his creation by Ayesha during The Stinger due to concerns about there already being too many characters. Warlock would eventually appear as a major character in the third movie.
Thor: The Dark World was originally going to feature an appearance from Valkyrie, but the idea ended up being scrapped. Valkyrie would later be used as a major character in Thor: Ragnarok. Hela was also planned to be the villain in The Dark World at one point, but was likewise reused for Ragnarok.
Director Jon Watts wanted to use Nick Fury as Peter Parker's mentor figure in Spider-Man: Homecoming but Marvel Studios had him use Tony Stark instead due to the existing relationship between the two characters. Furynote Or rather, Talos the Skrull filling in for Fury would later be Parker's mentor throughout the sequel, Spider-Man: Far From Home.
The opening scene of Avengers: Endgame with the Barton family was originally planned for Avengers: Infinity War, but then Joe Russo decided to make it this film's first scene. The writers all felt that Hawkeye's character became more dramatically impactful after the snap whereas his arc in IW would have repeated beats from Captain America: Civil War, i.e. a hero coming out of a 10-Minute Retirement.
An early draft of Shock Treatment had Brad turning gay and leaving Janet then Janet giving birth to Frank's son. These were planned to be used in later sequels like Revenge of the Old Queen and Rocky Horror 2000 that never got made.
The fight in the glass factory in Moonraker was originally meant for The Spy Who Loved Me, where it was a fight in a museum.
Many production and story ideas and elements not used in Moonraker ended up being utilized for Octopussy. These included the knife throwing twins and the Acrostar Bede jet sequence. The backgammon game was originally intended to take place in Max Kalba's club in The Spy Who Loved Me.
The assassination via poisoned butterfly and leap from the Eiffel Tower from A View to a Kill appeared in early drafts for Moonraker.
Stamper from Tomorrow Never Dies was originally going to be unable to feel pain. The idea was reused for Renard in The World is Not Enough.
The scene in Spectre where Bond steals an un-equiped Aston Martin and escapes via ejector seat is a leftover from the unmade Property of a Lady (Timothy Dalton's planned third film before the franchise entered Development Hell in the early 1990s).
According to Word of God, in Godzilla (1998) there were going to be other kaiju, but they got held back to appear in the sequel. Perhaps if they had put them in the movie there would actually have been a sequel.
The Fly (1986) originally had a short scene in which, the morning after Seth's fateful teleportation, Veronica videotapes an interview with him about what the experience felt like; this was filmed but cut for pacing reasons. In The Fly II, their Spin-Offspring Martin watches the interview as he ponders whether to continue his father's work. The scene is edited to avoid showing Veronica as Geena Davis did not come back for this film due to her character suffering Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome in the opening scene; her offscreen questioning was rerecorded by Saffron Henderson, who took her place. The original version of the scene appears as a bonus feature on non-Vanilla Edition releases of the first film.
George A. Romero's Day of the Dead (1985) was originally going to be an Epic Movie that was much longer in length. However, budget cuts forced Romero to rewrite a more condensed script. Ideas that were scrapped from the film would later get reused in Land of the Dead.
. The Lion King 1 ½ features a similar scene that relates to Timon's overall "dream home" subplot.