One movie that has been trapped in Development Hell for years and years is Splinter Cell.
Based on the much-loved video games, the series follows Sam Fisher, a highly trained agent of a fictional black-ops sub-division within the NSA, dubbed “Third Echelon”. The outline for the games was created by famous espionage and military technology author Tom Clancy. The games were created by Ubisoft.
The plots invariably involved terrorists planning attacks, usually via information warfare, which Fisher must prevent. The missions range from gathering intelligence to capturing or eliminating terrorists.
A movie adaptation has been planned for years. As far back as 2012 it was confirmed that Tom Hardy had signed on to play Fisher in a Splinter Cell adaption. Director Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow, The Bourne Identity) was set to helm the project.
Then it stalled. For years there were small rumors of re-writes and reworking. Now, in an interview with The Direct, high-profile producer Basil Iwanyk says it is dead:
“Just couldn’t get it right, script-wise, budget-wise. But it was going to be great. We had a million different versions of it, but it was going to be hardcore and awesome. That’s one of the ones that got away, which is really sad.”
Netflix is instead developing an animated series based on Splinter Cell, plus a remake of the original game is on the way for new platforms.