u/burningexeter

I asked this because believe it or not, my friend on Twitter included it in a headcanon shared universe I asked him to come up with on his own.

His was a very short one but an interesting mindfuck. The theme was unconventional protagonists having to struggle in a world where the odds are against them and it consisted of the following — Excalibur, Kingdom Of Heaven (Director's Cut), Pinocchio ⬆️, Sinners, Street Trash, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, Project Hail Mary and Foundation (Apple TV+).

Now I'm the one asking all of you what movies or even TV shows could you see in the same universe as the original Pinocchio film and don't say "Other Disney films" cause that's a cheat and where's the fun in that. Yeah, you can go with another Disney film but only if it actually gels.

Now this I would love to know what everyone else feels about because just from the simple basic outline, it's already interesting.

How I see it since it's my idea is that it will be a hard R animated movie that follows Alexandra, after the events of WILDWOOD, stranded on the streets of New York City, specifically Manhattan, and comes into conflict with a criminal underworld led by a ruthless and power-hungry Russian mob boss. Think of it as LOGAN meets THE PUNISHER: ONE LAST KILL with an essence of magic.

Alexandra will be the only supernatural/fantastical aspect while everything else surrounding her is grounded, visceral and gritty which makes the contrast hit harder and haves her be more special.

The potential screenwriters I would consider for it since I would want new, fresh outside voices that aren't from LAIKA to helm it are:

TRAVIS BEACHAM

(Clash Of The Titans, Pacific Rim, Carnival Row)

ERIK OLESON

(Daredevil S3)

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REINALDO MARCUS GREEN

(Monsters & Men, King Richard, We Own This City, The Punisher: One Last Kill)

However, the potential directors I would consider for it on the other hand though are:

DAVE WILSON

(Sonnie's Edge from Love, Death & Robots)

ISTVAN ZORKOCZY

(The Secret War from Love, Death & Robots)

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LOUIS LETERRIER

(The Transporter, Transporter 2, The Incredible Hulk, Clash Of The Titans, The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance)

All six choices would be bringing their own distinctive and unique styles to the table that we've never seen before with LAIKA at all. Fingers crossed this ever actually sees the light of day in the future 🤞.

Of course, to any not just Jurassic Park fan but die-hard film lover, we all know about the leaked screenplay written by John Sayles that is still up no matter what. Nick Harris, the Barbasol Can, Grendel Corporation, the Raptor Squad that are dog hybrids. But like it says up top, what most don't know is that believe it or not (not really, it's a rough script), that was only the first draft that both Sayles and Spielberg disliked how it turned out so the former, like all screenwriters, went back to work. Three drafts later, they both had a script that was to their satisfaction with Sayles calling it "a million times better and more of an actual Jurassic Park movie than the one that for me is unfortunately online" and topping it off, it was 🤏 this close to actually getting made. The thing though is that the final draft, while it does still retain some elements for the leaked draft, is completely different with everything else.

According to Sayles who just flat-out revealed all of this in an interview following the release of JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH (which sucked by the way), here's all you need to know about the final version that was intended to be made:

• Elements that were to be kept were the little league baseball team opening sequence, the Barbasol can being retrieved, the dog-hybrid raptor squad created and trained by Grendel Corporation along with the Dilophosaurs and Ankylosaurus and yes, the entire climax of them taking down a drug lord. But several changes were made in response to both criticisms from Spielberg AND aspects Sayles wasn't happy with at the end of the day. For starters, the main protagonist Nick Harris was directly changed to Nick Van Owen from THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK with Vince Vaughn in mind to reprise his role now as the lead and because of that, Sayles wrote all his dialogue the way a Vince Vaughn character would, a main large predator dinosaur was added that would be the real leader of the squad that was a Carnotaurus although it would've been nothing like it was in THE LOST WORLD book and its cameo in JP III with Sayles admitting he took some influence from the animated Disney film DINOSAUR (no seriously) when writing for that specific creature, it would've had a larger main cast consisting of a team Nick Van Owen puts together in a very "Armageddon-type way" including a former marine, an expert paramilitary tracker and a black ops soldier, a solid chunk of the movie would've been set entirely on Isla Nublar with Grendel having made it their HQ and base even training facility, the dinosaur squad was far more fleshed out with Pternadons being added to the squad, Lewis Dodgson is the one who hires Van Owen to retrieve the Barbasol can however the latter of course finds out later that the Embryos are worthless and the last third went wildly off the rails but in a bigger, more large scale way as the dinosaurs take down a full-on kingpin fortress with the Grendel Corporation being more of a morally ambiguous organization.

• Sayles completed his final draft in late 2005 with Amblin Entertainment hoping to have it be made and released around 2008 or even 2009 with the now dreaded husband and wife duo of Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy praising the script as "something that succeeds in going in an entirely new direction while still staying true to what came before", Sayles joked that they probably said the same thing to Rian Johnson with THE LAST JEDI "and look how well THAT turned out, am I right?". The actors that were considered for the main cast outside of Vaughn were Ray Stevenson, Steve Buscemi, Hugo Weaving, Cillian Murphy, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Clarke Duncan and James Marsden, which characters were they to play? Were they considered for the same roles? I don't know and I have no idea. The closest is that Sayles implied the late great Duncan was considered for the former marine so there's that.

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• This is the most interesting one out of them all. First off, John Sayles revealed that Spielberg had approached other writers before landing on him for penning a new JURASSIC PARK film which consisted of David S. Goyer, David Hayter, JJ Abrams, Alfred Gough & Miles Millar and Jonathan Hensleigh but they turned it down for different reasons each. Spielberg went with Sayles because he was a fan of his work and had worked with him before on the script for NIGHT SKIES which would become E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. But that was all practically NOTHING compared to the directors that they considered, approached or both. Second of all, Sayles himself confirmed this, he ran down the entire list since he has "a damn good memory", all the directors that they approached to helm JURASSIC PARK IV (the final Sayles script) were the following — Alex Proyas, Bryan Singer (yikes!), Mark Steven Johnson, Rob Cohen (yikes!), David Fincher, Jan De Bont, Robert Zemeckis, Simon Wells, Simon West, Dominic Sena, Tony Scott, Paul W.S. Anderson, Sam Raimi, Gil Kenan, Ang Lee, Jon Favreau, Louis Leterrier, Gore Verbinski, Stephen Sommers, Chris Columbus, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Michael Bay, Doug Liman, Stephen Norrington, Danny Boyle, Zack Snyder, Roland Emmerich, Brett Ratner (yikes!), Jonathan Mostow, Brian De Palma, Jon Turteltaub and Mike Newell. They just went all out and again according to Sayles, Ang Lee (yes, THAT Ang Lee) was 🤏 this close to officially signing on to direct.

Ang Lee, again THAT Ang Lee, directing a JURASSIC PARK movie.

What could have been.

Oh, what could have been.

You may actually like him even more after reading what I've found:

• Even though he loved working on the project and doesn't think the end product is "terrible", he still isn't particularly satisfied with how CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010) turned out and called the final film "okay at best".

• Yes, he has not seen and has no interest in ever seeing the sequels to both movies he wrote, WRATH OF THE TITANS and PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING, saying they look absolutely atrocious, he's heard nothing but terrible things about them and the worst part for him is that from what he's heard as well, neither are interestingly or funny bad.

• His favorite movies in no particular order are THE GODFATHER PART II, THE GREEN MILE, PINOCCHIO, THE DARK KNIGHT, THE INCREDIBLES, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, FULL METAL JACKET, COCO, JACKIE BROWN, NIGHTCRAWLER, WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, CAST AWAY, HALLOWEEN (1978), CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER and THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY.

• His favorite TV shows however are STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (2003/2004), BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, TRANSFORMERS PRIME, BETTER CALL SAUL, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, TODD MCFARLANE'S SPAWN, AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D., DAREDEVIL, ANDOR, FOR ALL MANKIND, BLACK MIRROR, DEADWOOD and MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE.

• He said that working with Guillermo Del Toro on PACIFIC RIM was the "greatest filmmaking I've ever had so far in my life", saying that it was an amazing and refreshing collaborative experience and admired the love and respect Del Toro for every aspect of the actual care and craft put into making it.

• Believe it or not, he's actually been contemplating the idea of starting up what is both his own production company and writer collective which is something in the same veins as Man Of Action which he even directly name-dropped as a comparison. Let's see how that goes, he's calling it GENERATOR GUNN or something that is like that.

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• He revealed that he had indeed pitched a STAR WARS VR mini-series to Lucasfilm a la VADER IMMORTAL that this time would've been a Darth Maul-centric storyline but of course, he ended up getting rejected and if anyone thinks this was because of MAUL: SHADOW LORD, he corrected saying this was back in mid 2022 when he pitched it to them.

Hope you guys enjoy the read, I know I enjoyed writing it. 👍

I don't know the actual full storyline for it but I do know four certain details on it if I had to do it:

• It would be a hard TV-MA, more than the recent Punisher: One Last Kill, where absolutely nothing is held back and people are killed in the most brutal ways that are very much in the same veins as the first two Blade movies, the Deadpool Trilogy and Logan but is so wonderfully over the top and creative with its violence.

• I would have it retroactively establish a new more straight continuity in the MCU dubbed "the REAL Marvel Cinematic Universe" through subtle easter eggs as always. "Doesn't Mr. Green himself have a cousin whose a lawyer?" "That's just something people made up. They also said she and a friend twerked together".

• The directors that I'd consider for it are Neveldine/Taylor, Marcus Nispel, Stephen Norrington, Nimrod Antal, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Paris Barclay, J. Michael Muro and Gore Verbinski, each bringing their own distinctive styles to it.

• Now the screenwriters that I'd consider for it though on the other hand are Steven S. DeKnight, David S. Goyer, Gary Whitta, Erik Oleson, Travis Beacham, Tony Gilroy, Andy Weir and Kari Wahlgren, each having their own set of skills that can fit in different ways.

Now what about you guys?

This is gonna be quite the interesting question as let's give this criminally underrated series some love out in the open.

Like a vast majority of people nowadays, I was introduced to the show through YouTube back then. I first saw it in a WatchMojo video believe it or not, their Top 10 Criminally Underrated Animated Shows Of All Time, it was in their honorable mentions. Then I was properly introduced to it through the Todd McFarlane's Spawn Trilogy back when they were actually UP on YouTube. A reminder that they did an awesome thing in that as they were only six episodes each, they edited all three seasons into three two hour movies on home video that I just called the Spawn Trilogy years later. Fucking copyrights.

Anyway, that's why in my heart, I consider the home video releases the definitive version especially since they play great as movies.

On my end, these would be my choices as if I had to pick let's say a theme than I would go right with unconventional protagonists having to struggle in a world where the overwhelming odds are against them and must face the highest, even impossible stakes, whether they're supernatural and fantastical or not which PERFECTLY suits the HBO Al Simmons/Spawn character especially with Keith David's fantastic performance who brings so much humanity and tragedy and moral complexity to the character as well.

TODD MCFARLANE'S SPAWN (HBO) TRILOGY takes place in the same universe as the following —

THE CROW (1994)

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (1990)

BLADE (1998) & BLADE II

SAM RAIMI'S SPIDER-MAN TRILOGY

THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY

BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW

GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S FRANKENSTEIN

SINNERS (2025)

SUSPIRIA (2018)

THE INVISIBLE MAN (2020)

THIEF (1981)

HEAT (1995)

F1 (2025)

SEND HELP

GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON'T DIE

PROJECT HAIL MARY

WILDWOOD (2026)

THE SECRET WAR (LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS)

THE EXORCIST

THE EXORCIST III: LEGION

WHERE EAGLES DARE

OVERLORD (2018)

SOLOMON KANE (2009)

&

THE INDIANA JONES QUADRILOGY

But just for fun, as the literal theme, I'm going with this:

https://youtu.be/OAOALIbGdrE?si=3HMnD0jO7BV83DNW

Because isn't this what you think of when you think of Spawn? I'm TOTALLY not being sarcastic.....

This is what I have on my end of the subject.

I think this specific mini-series can be set in the same universe as about all of the following.

Theme: Unconventional leads overcoming the odds that are stacked against them.

I, CLAUDIUS (MINI-SERIES)

THE WIND AND THE LION

WHERE EAGLES DARE

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

THE DOLLARS TRILOGY

GUY RITCHIE'S SHERLOCK HOLMES DUOLOGY

EXCALIBUR (1981)

THE INDIANA JONES QUADRILOGY

SINNERS (2025)

GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S FRANKENSTEIN

WE WERE SOLDIERS

LONE SURVIVOR

THIEF (1981)

HEAT (1995)

HAMLET (1996)

FOUNDATION (APPLE TV+)

THE REVENANT

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (DIRECTOR'S CUT)

THE NATIONAL TREASURE DUOLOGY

GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON'T DIE

STREET TRASH (1987)

THE EXORCIST (1973)

THE EXORCIST III

YEAR OF THE DRAGON

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RUNAWAY TRAIN

*Chef's kiss. Perfect*

This will be good. I love these movies, obviously except the atrocious third film that was so bad I don't even think Wesley Snipes himself considers it canon, so I want to ask other fans like me this to see what they've got in mind.

On my end, I think that the BLADE DUOLOGY (let's call it that) can be set in the same universe as others that are about unconventional protagonists not only having to fight against the overwhelming odds but face the highest stakes there are possible. The catch – as long as they're somewhat grounded to a certain degree.

SAM RAIMI'S SPIDER-MAN TRILOGY

THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY

TODD MCFARLANE'S SPAWN (HBO)

THE INVISIBLE MAN (2020)

PREDATOR, PREDATOR 2, PREDATORS, PREY & PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS

ALIEN & ALIENS

STREET TRASH (1987)

THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT

DARK CITY

THE CROW (1994)

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (1990)

NOBODY (2021)

THE TRANSPORTER TRILOGY

THE JOHN WICK QUADRILOGY

ATOMIC BLONDE

WONDER WOMAN (2009)

GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT

CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE (2019) & CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE II (2022)

WHERE EAGLES DARE

THE INDIANA JONES QUADRILOGY

SINNERS (2025)

WILDWOOD (2026)

THE SECRET WAR (LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS)

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SOLOMON KANE (2009).

Which ones on my list do you agree or disagree with on and why? Love feedback.

This is what I would do.

BULLSEYE: MOST WANTED or MARVEL'S MOST WANTED

CAST:

Wilson Bethel

Stephen Dorff

Christian Slater

Rebecca Romijn

Jonathan Frakes

Daryl Sabara

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Carey Mulligan

SHOWRUNNER:

Erik Oleson (the showrunner for the acclaimed Daredevil S3)

LEAD DIRECTORS:

Stephen Norrington (the director of the original Blade film)

— The premise would follow Bullseye, right after S2 of Daredevil: Born Again, who has now become the most wanted fugitive in New York City and becomes embroiled in the criminal underworld post-Wilson Fisk.

— It will be a cross between the original Blade and the Netflix Daredevil series in terms of its cinematography and style, mixing both of them together into its own unique aesthetic that stands out on its own.

— The series will very subtly retroactively establish a new MCU continuity that's more stream-lined and consistent where ones like Black Panther, Loki, The Punisher, Moon Knight and Avengers: Infinity War reign supreme and lesser ones like Captain Marvel and She-Hulk are non-canonical.

— It will be an incredibly hard TV-MA series, no holds barred R rated. Blood, gore, swearing, you name it. Just have it be brutal, vicious, over-the-top and creative with its violence in the same way that the first two Blade movies were and still are.

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— It will be a Hulu original series as Hulu, more so than Disney+, offers more creative freedom in its storytelling and especially its content that the show will have and present without going overboard with it. If anything, this is more of a throwback to the type of comic book movies of the 2000s just on television.