Stanley Kubrick′s Napoleon and the top 10 greatest movies ′never made′ | Books | DW | 15.06.2018

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Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon and the top 10 greatest movies 'never made'

Stanley Kubrick's film project Napoleon has been dubbed "the greatest movie never made." DW revisits its story as well as other ambitious works that never or barely made it to the big screen.

  • Stanley Kubrick#s Napoleon (Taschen)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Never shot: Kubrick's Napoleon

    A Napoleon Bonaparte epic was going to be Stanley Kubrick's most elaborate movie to date, but the project failed, even though the screenplay and costumes were all ready. A dissuading factor for producers was the financial flop faced by Sergei Bondartschuk's mega production, Waterloo. Kubrick's preparations weren't entirely in vain: some material was used in his 1975 work, Barry Lyndon.

  • Film still Que Viva Mexiko (Icestorm)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Out of luck: Eisenstein's Mexico films

    In the early 1930s, famous director Sergei M. Eisenstein planned but failed to shoot a work titled Que viva Mexico! in Hollywood. A second venture, a film about Mexican history, failed as well. The material that was actually filmed has been used in various documentaries.

  • Orson Welles (picture-alliance/Mary Evans Picture Library)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Incomplete projects galore: Orson Welles

    Orson Welles is perhaps the master of incomplete films. His classic works are actually outnumbered by projects that were never finished, the most well-known being The Other Side of the Wind. Welles started shooting it in the 1980s but died before filming ended. Netflix has meanwhile restored and completed the unfinished film.

  • Filmstill - Something's got to give with Marylin Monroe (picture-alliance/Everett Colle/20thCentFox)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Neverending story: Marilyn Monroe's last movie

    When filming started in 1962, no one knew this was going to be Marilyn Monroe's last movie. Director George Cukor's Something's Got to Give was star-crossed from the start because Monroe repeatedly dropped out. Lee Remick was to replace her, only to be vetoed by lead actor Dean Martin. A later documentary shows 37 minutes of the unfinished film.

  • Romy Schneider (Kinowelt)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Experiment with colors: Hell

    Iconic German actress Romy Schneider was cast to star in another famous unfinished film, Henri-Georges Clouzot's L'Enfer (Hell, from 1964). The production turned into a hellish nightmare, including because Clouzot had a heart attack. The director later used some sensational color shots of Romy Schneider in his last movie, and a documentary exploring why Hell was never completed came out in 2009.

  • Film still two clowns (STF/AFP/Getty Images)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Crying clowns: Jerry Lewis

    Jerry Lewis' The Day the Clown Cried is one of the most mysterious film projects in history, aiming to tell a story from Nazi Germany using humoristic means. The American comedian directed and starred in the 1972 drama. It was completed, but never screened publicly due to legal problems and Lewis' displeasure with the outcome.

  • Francis Ford Coppola (picture-alliance/AP Photo/L. Rebours)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Megalomania: Francis Ford Coppola

    Francis Ford Coppola also worked on various projects that never progressed. Among them, he turned to Megalopolis in 1984, but the 200-page script about a quarrel between an architect and a mayor about the future of New York City was never turned into a movie.

  • Sergio Leone on set with actors (picture-alliance/dpa/Cinecitta Press Office)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    A dream not come true: Leone's Leningrad

    In the 1980s, Italian director Sergio Leone, himself no stranger to epic movies (above, on set filming Once upon a time in America), wanted to make a film about the grueling German siege of Leningrad in World War II. The film was never realized, as the director died in 1989 at the age of 60.

  • Alfred Hitchcock (Imago/Granata Images)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    More shattered dreams: Alfred Hitchcock

    Even the "master of suspense" Alfred Hitchcock couldn't realize all of his projects and ideas. In the late 1950s, he planned to film No Bail for the Judge, starring Audrey Hepburn, a film about a judge charged with murdering a prostitute. But there were problems, the lead actress withdrew — and Hitchcock moved on to other projects.

  • Film still The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Diego Lopez Calvin/Tornasol Films/Carisco Producciones)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Successful finale: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

    Filming on Terry Gilliam's legendary Don Quixote project started in 2000, only to be postponed and interrupted time and again for various reasons. Over the years, the actors and even the story changed. It finally premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018.

    Author: Jochen Kürten (db)


  • Stanley Kubrick#s Napoleon (Taschen)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Never shot: Kubrick's Napoleon

    A Napoleon Bonaparte epic was going to be Stanley Kubrick's most elaborate movie to date, but the project failed, even though the screenplay and costumes were all ready. A dissuading factor for producers was the financial flop faced by Sergei Bondartschuk's mega production, Waterloo. Kubrick's preparations weren't entirely in vain: some material was used in his 1975 work, Barry Lyndon.

  • Film still Que Viva Mexiko (Icestorm)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Out of luck: Eisenstein's Mexico films

    In the early 1930s, famous director Sergei M. Eisenstein planned but failed to shoot a work titled Que viva Mexico! in Hollywood. A second venture, a film about Mexican history, failed as well. The material that was actually filmed has been used in various documentaries.

  • Orson Welles (picture-alliance/Mary Evans Picture Library)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Incomplete projects galore: Orson Welles

    Orson Welles is perhaps the master of incomplete films. His classic works are actually outnumbered by projects that were never finished, the most well-known being The Other Side of the Wind. Welles started shooting it in the 1980s but died before filming ended. Netflix has meanwhile restored and completed the unfinished film.

  • Filmstill - Something's got to give with Marylin Monroe (picture-alliance/Everett Colle/20thCentFox)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Neverending story: Marilyn Monroe's last movie

    When filming started in 1962, no one knew this was going to be Marilyn Monroe's last movie. Director George Cukor's Something's Got to Give was star-crossed from the start because Monroe repeatedly dropped out. Lee Remick was to replace her, only to be vetoed by lead actor Dean Martin. A later documentary shows 37 minutes of the unfinished film.

  • Romy Schneider (Kinowelt)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Experiment with colors: Hell

    Iconic German actress Romy Schneider was cast to star in another famous unfinished film, Henri-Georges Clouzot's L'Enfer (Hell, from 1964). The production turned into a hellish nightmare, including because Clouzot had a heart attack. The director later used some sensational color shots of Romy Schneider in his last movie, and a documentary exploring why Hell was never completed came out in 2009.

  • Film still two clowns (STF/AFP/Getty Images)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Crying clowns: Jerry Lewis

    Jerry Lewis' The Day the Clown Cried is one of the most mysterious film projects in history, aiming to tell a story from Nazi Germany using humoristic means. The American comedian directed and starred in the 1972 drama. It was completed, but never screened publicly due to legal problems and Lewis' displeasure with the outcome.

  • Francis Ford Coppola (picture-alliance/AP Photo/L. Rebours)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Megalomania: Francis Ford Coppola

    Francis Ford Coppola also worked on various projects that never progressed. Among them, he turned to Megalopolis in 1984, but the 200-page script about a quarrel between an architect and a mayor about the future of New York City was never turned into a movie.

  • Sergio Leone on set with actors (picture-alliance/dpa/Cinecitta Press Office)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    A dream not come true: Leone's Leningrad

    In the 1980s, Italian director Sergio Leone, himself no stranger to epic movies (above, on set filming Once upon a time in America), wanted to make a film about the grueling German siege of Leningrad in World War II. The film was never realized, as the director died in 1989 at the age of 60.

  • Alfred Hitchcock (Imago/Granata Images)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    More shattered dreams: Alfred Hitchcock

    Even the "master of suspense" Alfred Hitchcock couldn't realize all of his projects and ideas. In the late 1950s, he planned to film No Bail for the Judge, starring Audrey Hepburn, a film about a judge charged with murdering a prostitute. But there were problems, the lead actress withdrew — and Hitchcock moved on to other projects.

  • Film still The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Diego Lopez Calvin/Tornasol Films/Carisco Producciones)

    The top ambitious film projects that remained unfinished

    Successful finale: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

    Filming on Terry Gilliam's legendary Don Quixote project started in 2000, only to be postponed and interrupted time and again for various reasons. Over the years, the actors and even the story changed. It finally premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018.

    Author: Jochen Kürten (db)


Stanley Kubrick had already acquired his reputation as a perfectionist by directing works such as Spartacus, Lolita and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. All possibilities appeared open to the filmmaker following the release of his 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Read more:Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: still cult after 50 years

The next film he planned to direct was on the legendary ruler Napoleon.

Kubrick didn't want to simply focus on a certain period of Napoleon's life, but rather portray his "entire" life, including ambitious battle scenes with thousands of extras — a definitely megalomaniac project.

The book Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon. The Greatest Movie Never Made, published by Taschen, details how much energy Kubrick had dedicated to researching and preparing his film.

While the book is about a film that was finally never made, there is certainly more pre-production material documenting it than most movies that were actually produced.  

Publisher Alison Castle started researching the book in 2002, and was surprised to discover the rich Napoleon pre-production archives available at the Kubrick estate.

Pages of a book with photos of men dressed as historical soldiers (Taschen)

Costumes had already been planned in detail: a page from the Taschen book

The over 800-page-long book covers different aspects of the director's preparatory work in various sections — Script, Reference, Notes, Correspondence, Chronology, Production, Text, Costumes, Location Scouting and Picture File.

Kubrick wanted to shoot most of his film in Romania, with thousands of actual Romanian soldiers. Since the director knew that Napoleon would be a difficult project to finance, he avoided casting top stars. Among the people he was in touch with for the lead role were solid actors, including Ian Holm and Oskar Werner, as well as Jack Nicholson, whose fame at the time was restricted to his anti-hero role in the counter-culture film Easy Rider.

Photo of Napoleon's last residence, the Château de Malmaison (Taschen)

Napoleon's last residence, the Château de Malmaison, was another planned film location

It would have been a film on human folly

Kubrick wanted to highlight Napoleon's megalomania, a trait in some ways shared by the director, and one that certainly fascinated him. Even though he had already touched a wide variety of topics and genres, all his films had one thing in common, pointed out Jan Harlan, Kubrick's executive producer on his last four films: Kubrick's "never-ending interest in observing human folly was the well-spring of nearly all his films," he wrote in the book.

The film was never produced. The two studios Kubrick had brought his project to, MGM and then United Artists, got cold feet. Historical epics were perceived as too much of a financial risk at the time.

Cover of book Kubrick's Napoleon (Taschen)

The book on Kubrick's Napoleon is a monumental work in itself

Stanley Kubrick was disappointed and depressed. That however didn't damage his career. His following project, A Clockwork Orange, was produced relatively quickly by his standards.

He also managed to direct a monumental historical film, Barry Lyndon, that came out in 1975. The special cinematography technology he famously had developed to capture candlelit scenes in this work had originally been planned for Napoleon.

  • Film still from 2001 A Space Odyssey (Imago/EntertainmentPictures)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    Philosophical science-fiction

    This is one of the films in cinema history that has been written about the most. Kubrick's masterpiece was analyzed by film critics, cultural scientists and philosophers. Fifty years after its premiere, the German Film Museum in Frankfurt is dedicating an exhibition to the film. "Kubrick's 2001. 50 Years A Space Odyssey" showcases many original exhibits from the Stanley Kubrick Archive.

  • Film still Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Imago/United Archives)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    Reflections on humanity

    What makes us human? This is just one of the many questions director Stanley Kubrick dealt with in his 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey." When a computer takes over the control of a spaceship, astronauts appear helpless, despite their protective helmets and spacesuits.

  • Film still 2001: A Space Odyssey (Imago/EntertainmentPictures)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    The unforgettable opening sequence

    Composed of three major segments, the epic science-fiction drama opens with the prologue "The Dawn of Man," set in an African desert millions of years ago. A tribe of hominids discover a mysterious black monolith. They then start using bones as weapons, accompanied by Richard Strauss' "Thus Spoke Zarathustra."

  • Film still Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (picture-alliance/Everett Collection)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    Film history's most famous match cut

    The sequence is followed by a cut that has become legendary among film experts and fans alike. The bone used by the ape to kill another one is thrown into the air; it switches to a similarly shaped satellite orbiting in space — four million years later.

  • Film still from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Imago/EntertainmentPictures)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    Destination Jupiter

    The main segment of the film, entitled "Jupiter Mission," depicts the mission of the spacecraft Discovery One. Two pilots and three scientists in suspended animation are on their way to Jupiter. The ship's computer, HAL, controls the spacecraft.

  • Film Still from 2001: A Space Odyssey (Imago/EntertainmentPictures)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    A classified mission

    The astronauts do not know much about the goals of their journey. HAL is the only one who's been informed of the mission's true objectives. They are headed to Jupiter, where the enigmatic monolith is based. It is believed to a be tool created by aliens.

  • Film still from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (Imago/EntertainmentPictures)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    Spectacular scenery

    The main segment of "2001: A Space Odyssey" showcased visuals unlike anything moviegoers had seen in 1968, and they would rarely be surpassed in later works. The outer space scenes were directed to appear extremely realistic; Kubrick worked with NASA and other companies to achieve this.

  • Still from 2001: A Space Odyssey (picture-alliance/United Archives)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    Humans and computer

    The two pilots, portrayed by Gary Lockwood and Keir Dullea, fatally confront the supercomputer HAL, which turns out to be the actual captain on board. The astronauts' every movement and conversation is followed by the computer. The power of artificial intelligence was a central and pioneering theme in "2001."

  • Film still from 2001: A Space Odyssey (imago)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    Breathtaking images

    "I tried to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content," Kubrick once said in a Playboy magazine interview. His aesthetic concept attracted viewers and critics alike.

  • Film still from 2001: A Space Odyssey (picture-alliance/Everett Collection)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    A visual trip

    In the third segment of the film, "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite," Kubrick ignited a psychedelic firework of images that some people in 1968 interpreted as an acid trip. The final scene is set in a mysterious white room, where death and birth meet — a symbol for the eternal cycle of life.

  • Director Stanley Kubrick filming 2001: A Space Odyssey (picture-alliance/Mary Evans Picture Library)

    Revisiting Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'

    The magician: Stanley Kubrick

    The filmmaker born in New York directed many of his most famous films in the UK. When his pioneering epic "2001: A Space Odyssey" came out in 1968, Kubrick was 40 years old. This masterpiece and many more ground-breaking works make him one of the most influential directors in cinematic history.

    Author: Jochen Kürten (eg)


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