Talk:Development hell/Archive 1

Why development hell (needs to) happen
Ok, in the media industries you have productions that the company will spend tens of millions of dollars on, if not millions of dollars. They want to make a reasonably good decision and invest in good projects. In TV, Pilots are good way of knowing what will work and what won't work. So for every US network show, they make several pilots and see what sticks. But each pilot is still expensive, costing around $1.5 million (and its arguably worth it). So for every pilot, a bunch of projects go into development and they cherry-pick the best projects out of that bunch.

So basically, the system is setup such that the cream rises to the top (which it mostly does). You can argue that it's wasteful. At the same time, they have so much money at stake for shows that do get produced. So they might as well cherry-pick what they think the best projects are, and try to make more informed decisions. i.e. if you have a $500 million blockbuster in the works (production and marketing costs)... you damn well have a pipeline of projects going through development hell.

We should some some information along these lines. :D Glennchan 07:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree. It's strategic yes, but for another reason than just making a good investment. They have enough money that it doesn't matter if half their investments (used as an expression, not as a factual amount) are bad ones. Dev hell just means that greedy corporates buy up all the rights they can so that other studios can't get them. It's similar to the concept of folks who "sit" on patents (apply for them but never actually make use of the things they cover.) 173.22.29.202 (talk) 00:06, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Another small reason for development hell
"Nobody knows anything" in the media business... it's hard to figure out what will succeed and what won't succeed (i.e. Power Rangers... 'nuff said). So in this highly subjective business, development executives get hired and fired constantly. That simply happens often. When new execs come in charge, they will immediately axe almost all their projects. Because if they greenlight the ex-execs' projects, it won't be "their" work and therefore not get credit for it. Glennchan 07:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen "development Hell", as opposed to the normal usage, "development hell".

I'm not sure that the way "development hell" is used here is correct- I work in this industry, and I've never heard anyone casually say that they were about to start development hell. It's usually used in terms of near-despair. It's an extremely bad thing, and not, as it seems to several times be used on Wiki, an inevitable facet of film and television production.


 * See my above reply http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Development_hell#Why_development_hell_.28needs_to.29_happen And lol @ subjective. 173.22.29.202 (talk) 00:09, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Splitting
Perhaps this article could be split into one about Development hell and a list of movies that are, or were in development hell. It looks a little messy now. Maybe it could be reformatted, into a style similar to the list of songs with backwards messages. Right now, I'll do anything to help with this article. 216.37.227.92 01:27, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I like that idea -- this article is really long, without much substance. And not everyone interested in one will be interested in the other.  Mdotley 15:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with the split. But do we actually need a list of movies and games; can't we achieve the same effect by establishing a category of Development Hell? (This would have the added advantage of providing a link to the Development Hell article from each movie that was so categorized.)

The Infobox?!
What happened to it? It's gone! Noone 03:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Suggested cleanup
I think this could be cleaned up quite a bit, and would be better as a description of what development hell is generally considered to be (and not be), rather than a massive list of times it's occurred. Probably an illustrative example or two out of each field (movies, video games, etc.), which can be well-sourced as having been horrible to develop (or got a lot of press for being in development but never coming to fruition?) Seraphimblade 03:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That would be far better. At the very least, using list headers and limited descriptions to one short paragraph... This page is a mess. - BanyanTree 20:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Agree as well, this article is a mess and far too "fanboy-esque." Way too many sci-fi and fantasy projects. Most of the film entries fail to rise above trivia for their lack of information. Perhaps many could be shifted to an article entitled List of Well Known Development Hell projects or some such. Someone needs to find some online sources so that a more general description can be written that also gets into how projects come to languish in Dev Hell. RoyBatty42 21:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Split and Lists of
Considering that this is part of the filmmaking project and that the article itself looks way too much like a messy list, I think it's time to start dividing things up. There should be more examples of novels and original scripts, as these are what makes up the bulk of "development hell" projects in the industry. Right now, this seems more like a runaway from Ain't It Cool News.
 * First, that "development hell" for film production should be a stand-alone article.
 * Second, that the examples be limited to just a few of the more well-known projects of mostly unfilmed scripts.
 * And third, the rest of the examples moved to their own lists: List of Development Hell Film projects and List of Development Hell Video Game projects

I would also question whether video game industry usage of the phrase "development hell" exactly mirrors that of the film business. Looking over the list of references, I cannot see one that shows this term used within it (the first example "Interactive Dev - the new Hell" is from the film industry newspaper, Variety). Their term for this seems to be vaporware (and in that article there is not a single mention of "development hell"). RoyBatty42 18:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

not hell
Hell means that it's good and dead. if it's possibly coming out, it's only in Purgatory.
 * I've been in Purgatory my whole life.

Terry Gilliam
Did Terry Gilliam write half of this page himself? His name appears FAR too frequently for it to be a coincedence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.188.39.209 (talk) 19:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC).

Changed my mind...
That's all, go ahead keep your cars.

Excess examples
Are the poorly written examples necessary? Just mention the whole DNF phenomenon and a few movies and that's it. Most of the "examples" are pure speculation from fans anyways and provide no substantial information. 83.245.170.154 11:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree completely. There are lots of films with speculated releases and many with far more stilted delays. A handful that come to mind are Star Wars Episode 1-3 (in Lucas' own way, they were in Dev Hell) and Indy 4 was for 13 years with various different incarnations. I think the more notable the film, the more appropriate to be listed, but films that are still in dev hell should be consolidated into their own section and the others should be segregated from films that eventually ended up being made from those that never made it (and never will). Another that comes to mind is Sweeney Todd (which has been about 15 years in the making, from what I understand, and that's going to be huge, as it's Depp and Burton's sixth collaboration together). Yeah, In short, this article needs a massive cleanup, fewer, far more profound examples and possibly could do with havign some images added. One thing I'd like to know is why there are cars listed in the article, when they're not addressed as being an item that get's stuck in dev hell according to the lead? Either the lead needs to be amended (with the appropriate references, or they need to go. I'm pretty sure there's a different term used for cars and that page would be the more appropriate for these listings. --linca linca 06:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Split
Seen this article for the first time - messy!!! OK, so as previously discussed here, here and here suggest the article is split as follows:

1. Development hell - explanation of the term, reasons behind it, industries affected

2. List of Development hell movies - film seems to be the most common usage of the term, and most likely to survive an AFD

3. List of Development hell projects - for all the games, automobiles, albums etc.

Suggest we give it a week or so to check consensus then get BOLD. Is anyone in favour of keeping it as one big (messy) article? Paulbrock (talk) 01:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * List of Development hell movies created - relevant discussion moved to Talk:List of Development hell movies Paulbrock (talk) 20:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * List of Development hell projects created - relevant discussion moved to Talk:List of Development hell projects Paulbrock (talk) 20:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Patterns
What do films in development hell have most in common? Take Atlas Shrugged and Stranger in a Strange Land as only two examples. Viriditas (talk) 07:34, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Examples
Perhaps it should be split between the ones which are in development hell now (and have not been produced) and the ones which used to be and have been made, it's confusing The snare (talk) 11:58, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Phineas and Ferb theatrical film
A feature film based on Phineas and Ferb was originally set to be released sometime in 2012, but has been delayed numerous times. Would this film qualify as one in development hell? Rowdy the Ant  talk to Rowdy  19:44, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Massive examples list
The size of the examples list here is terrifying, it is almost three times the size of the rest of the article and I can only guess at the word count. This seriously needs to be brought under control, so I'm cutting most of the unsourced ones. I'm not disputing the validity of any of the ones that I'm removing, they're just being removed because they're unsourced. This is an examples list, not an exhaustive list of all products in development hell - the important thing isn't to include every product we can, but to show a set of examples, which has been done. If people wish to include specific examples I've removed, can you please also be sure to cite them. Justin.Parallax (talk) 08:04, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I think that projects which have taken less than 10 years to see fruition don't belong on this article -- with maybe the odd exceptions. It would be easy to whittle it down that way.--Ilovetopaint (talk) 17:35, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Remove South Park the stick of truth from examples of development hell
The south park game example is not an example of development hell. It is a game that was supposed to have about an 18 month development cycle and ended up having about a 36 month development cycle. While it certainly took longer than predicted delays of 1-2 years are quite common in the computer games industry and certainly not indicitave of a project that languished in development hell. It also doesn't quite fit what I would term the correct definition of development hell which is when a project just ends up stalled repeatedly. In fact, that seems to be a bit of a problem with a lot of the examples, a project that is in continuous development (Duke Nukem Forever) isn't in development hell. It is just a long and drawn out project that over ran itself. The phrase is used when a project is stuck in development hell meaning it is paused or stalled awaiting funds, interest or some other thing to bring it back to life. In fact, I would say using that criteria would allow the list of projects to be trimmed quite a lot.

79.97.54.75 (talk) 07:54, 15 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: A quick search shows multiple reliable sources referring to Stick of Truth as being stuck in development hell. -- ferret (talk) 20:41, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Acura NSX?
I know that the phrase "development hell" generally refers to media, but I would say it would apply to the development of the second-generation Honda/Acura NSX quite well. Honda officially announced development of the car in 2005, and in 2007, announced it would be on the market by 2010 (admitting a delay from an original target of 2008 or 2009), yet the actual car won't begin production until 2015.

Frozen
Does Disney's Frozen deserve a mention here? — Arpose (talk) 17:51, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

What about including the cartoon movie "The Thief and the Cobbler"?
I found a cartoon movie called "The Thief and the Cobbler" that has been worked on by Richard Williams and was in development delay for 31 years before Fred Calvert, Warner Bros and Miramax company took over Richard Williams work around 1992 and released it as an alternative edited version in 1995 that's now available on VHS and DVD. So is it possible to include "The Thief and the Cobbler in Development hell article? Let me know because that movie was definitely in a development delay. CrosswalkX (talk) 23:54, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

daikatana should be on this list
3 year hell — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.241.144.43 (talk) 06:30, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Fan4tastic
Fox is intended making a sequel to the 2015 Fantastic Four film, but in November, it was cancelled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:C8:C001:8A3A:3942:BE3D:FC15:1B34 (talk) 22:45, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

John Carter Anyone?
Shouldn't John Carter be on the list of examples? First proposed as a feature-length animation in 1931, and finally debuted as a live-action film in 2012, for what is probably a record 81 years in development. -- Entrybreak (talk) 07:00, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

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"A video game or a computer program"
Is this sentence appropriate considering the fact that every video game is a computer program? There may be made an argument about condole games, but even consoles are computers.--Adûnâi (talk) 16:09, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Not every computer program is a video game. The articles context is not restricted to entertainment media forms. -- ferret (talk) 16:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)