Shelved

In politics, the term can be used for policy drafts, that have never been officially brought into legislation.

In the film industry, a film is considered shelved if it is not released for public viewing after filming has started, or even completed.

A film can be shelved for a number of reasons:

• A film may receive poor reaction from test audiences and other critics, prompting film producers to choose to never release the film, instead of spending additional money to print and promote it.
• A film may also go over budget and not find funders, causing the film's producer to abandon the film instead of completing it.
• In other cases, a film may be considered too controversial for a release, and is unable to find a distributor.
• One of the main actors dies or resigns while the film is in production (e.g. Dark Blood with River Phoenix).
• A film may become embroiled in legal battles, such as illegal funding means.
• A film may have been produced only to fulfil a legal obligation, such as to fulfil a contract or keep an intellectual property alive.
• The director simply quits on the project right in the middle of filming for financial or personal reasons.
• The movie producer is not able to complete the project for financial reasons

The term "shelved" may refer to other entertainment media, such as music albums (e.g. Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine), video games (e.g. Sonic X-Treme), and novels.

Famous shelved films

• The Prophecy of the Lake (1925), one of the first ever Bolivian feature films, was censored and cancelled after completion, due to its social critique, and to its portrayal of a white woman falling in love with an indigenous man.
• Arrive Alive was supposed to be a comedy film starring Willem Dafoe as a hotel manager mixed up in various scams and Joan Cusack as his girlfriend, but was cancelled after a week's filming when the producer Art Linson decided it wasn't as funny as he thought it would be.
• Being Human, a Robin Williams vehicle commissioned by David Puttnam when running Columbia Pictures. Completed in 1989 after Puttnam had been ousted, Columbia's new owners shelved the film until 1993. When the film was finally released, over 40 minutes of footage had been deleted from director Bill Forsyth's original cut.
• Big Bug Man, an animated film that started production in 2004 and features Marlon Brando's last acting work. It remains unreleased.
• Creation demonstrated the stop-motion effects of Willis O'Brien, who later went on to complete the effects for King Kong. This film was never completed, though some surviving tests still exist.
• Dark Blood was canceled halfway through filming due to the death of its star River Phoenix.
• The Day the Clown Cried, a 1972 film about a circus clown entertaining Nazi concentration camps directed by and starring Jerry Lewis. Some bits of behind-the-scenes-footage have been found, as well as production stills. This film has never been released in any form, although Lewis claims he has a finished print of the film in his personal film library.
• The Devil and Daniel Webster (2003) was eventually screened at film festivals, then scheduled for release in 2007 under the changed title Shortcut to Happiness.
• The Other Side of the Wind, Orson Welles's epic about an eccentric Hollywood director keeping up with the times which is "96% complete", mostly due to footage filmed by Welles in 1972, but remains unfinished. Peter Bogdanovich has stated many times that he has tried to screen footage from this film, but has been unsuccessful due in part to the uncooperation of Welles' estate.
• The Plot Against Harry was shot in 1968/1969 but was not released until twenty years later in 1989.
• Fantastic Four, a 1994 film produced by Roger Corman that was never intended to be commercially released. Bootlegs of the film, however, leaked onto the internet and are available on VHS and on YouTube.
• I Love Lucy, a feature film version of the popular sitcom which combined three episodes with new scenes added. MGM demanded the film be shelved because they felt it would diminish interest in The Long, Long Trailer. After one test screening, the film was shelved until 2001 where it was screened to fans for the first time in nearly 50 years. The film was released as a bonus disk with the series boxset in 2007 and alone in 2010.
• The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was a film which commenced filming in 2000 but was shelved after 2 weeks. It was going to be directed by Terry Gilliam but was canceled when star Jean Rochefort was injured. The "behind the scenes" featurette for the DVD became the basis for the documentary Lost in La Mancha.
• Ernest the Pirate, a film left unfinished by the death of Jim Varney.
• Robotech the Movie: The Untold Story, a film that splices together footage from the OAV Megazone 23 and the Southern Cross segment of the Robotech TV series, was intended as a side story in the Robotech Universe. Producer Carl Macek initially intended to create a straight adaptation of Megazone 23, which would have been slightly re-written to take place in the Robotech Universe. He was reportedly pressured by Cannon Films into including more action scenes, thus the decision to splice Southern Cross battle footage into the final product. This movie showed only for two weeks in Mesquite, Texas and was shelved. The film did get a general release in South America, however.
• Something's Got to Give, a 1962 film left unfinished by the death of Marilyn Monroe. It remained shelved (after countless bootlegs were made of unedited outtakes) until 2001, when AMC edited together the outtakes for a documentary on Monroe.
• The Thief and the Cobbler, an animated epic by Richard Williams in progress in the late 1960s, but shelved due to production of his other films. Warner Bros. intended to release the film in 1991, but when Williams couldn't finish it in time and Disney's Aladdin was in post-production, Warner Bros. dropped the deal and Williams was forced out of the project. The film was completed faster and finally released in the US in 1995, where it was critically panned by reviewers as derivative of Aladdin. Remastered editions of the unfinished versions are available on bootlegged DVDs or video-streaming websites, such as YouTube.
• Foodfight!, a computer animated film planned for release in 2006, but was left unreleased on and off due to production complications.
• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was shelved after Heath Ledger died during production of the film in January 2008. It was re-started some months later, however, when Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell agreed to complete Ledger's role.
• Revenge of the Nerds, a remake of the original, which was shelved and canceled due to the negative reaction during filming and due to the 2007-2008 WGA Strike.
• Kids in America was filmed in 2007, but wasn't released until 2011 due to problems with the use of cocaine which caused Universal to turn down distribution of the film. It was re-titled "Take Me Home Tonight" and released by Rogue Pictures.
• Margaret was filmed in 2005, and supposed to be released in 2007 by Fox Searchlight Pictures, but was repeatedly delayed while Lonergan struggled to create a final cut he was satisfied with, resulting in multiple lawsuits. The film was finally released in 2011.

See also

• Post-production hell