Upon his sudden death in 1999, Stanley Kubrick was finishing up his erotic mystery Eyes Wide Shut and had a few projects in line to do after. In between the large gaps in his projects, especially the twelve years in between Eyes Wide Shut and Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick had other large pictures he wanted to do. However, it seemed to be too large as budget problems and movies with similar subject matter were released earlier, forcing Kubrick to put his own work into turnaround or completely shelve them. One of those movies was A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, which his friend, director Steven Spielberg, personally made using Kubrick’s own notes and storyboards and was released in 2001. Yet, there were other major scripts Kubrick wanted to do and, sadly, never got to make.
Napoleon
Kubrick sought to make this movie after 2001: A Space Odyssey and was already immersed in many books to create every detail possible on the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France. He wrote a draft, scouted locations, and had in his mind Jack Nicholson in the titular role with Aubrey Hepburn as Napoleon’s wife. However, Russian director Sergei Bondarchuk released the massively successful Napoleon-era adaptation of War And Peace followed by Waterloo (which was not a success) and forced Kubrick to back off, although this allowed him to look at Barry Lyndon for his historical timepiece drama. Steven Spielberg has an interest in revitalizing the project; it was announced in 2016 that it would become a miniseries for HBO which Cary Joji Fukunaga would direct, but there is no news of that project since.
Aryan Papers
In the 1970s, Kubrick, who was Jewish, had a desire to make a movie about the Holocaust. Initially, he tried to get renowned author Isaac Singer to write a script, but he turned Kubrick down and the project would not be returned until Kubrick finished with Full Metal Jacket. He would option the book “Wartime Lies” as the basis for his screenplay and, like Napoleon, Kubrick traveled East for possible locations to shoot the film. His desire ended when he saw Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and went back to A.I. and Eyes Wide Shut. But this isn’t the end of the project, as different directors have been attached to the project with Luca Guadagnino most recently considering the project if it ever gets off the ground.
Novels And Other Fanciful Ideas
Kubrick could have collaborated with Kirk Douglas again through an original script he wrote called I Stole 16 Million Dollars, about a pastor-turned-robber, but Douglas didn’t like the script. After collaborating with Terry Southern on Dr. Strangelove, an idea was pushed by Southern to do a high-budget porno that made it an art; this was the 1960s and the sexual revolution was on the way. Kubrick turned it down because he didn’t feel he could make such a film and Southern converted his idea into a novel, Blue Movie. Prior to Tom Twyker’s adaptation of Perfume: Story Of A Murderer, the novel was looked at by Kubrick first. And, long before Peter Jackson took hold of The Lord Of The Rings when the story was being considered as a Beatles vehicle, Kubrick was considered but he turned it down because Kubrick thought the project was unadaptable and J.R.R. Tolkien was opposed to having The Beatles involved in it anyway.
Besides Aryan Papers, there were several other World War IImovies Kubrick considered to make. Staying close to his family, he was interested in doing a film surrounding German director Veit Harlan, who made numerous Nazi-era films; Harlan was the uncle of Kubrick’s wife, Christine. Another story was set around the Battle of Monte Cassino, in which he asked his personal chauffeur, an Italian emigrant, to help with the research. Kubrick even was offered to adapt a memoir by Nazi figure Albert Speer but was turned away because Kubrick, who was Jewish, wanted Speer to recognize the extermination camps, but he always maintained that he never knew what was happening.
Stanley Kubrick had a mountain of various projects he could have done and what he would have done had he only had more time is only something we can only dream of. All of his movies remain a permanent fixture in our consciousness and we can only wonder what could have been if some of these projects went ahead.
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