Films Not Made
Films Not Made unearths Hollywood and indie film projects that were too wild, weird, or ambitious to ever hit the big screen. Hosts Avi Zev Weider and Amy Hobby invite writers, directors, and producers to discuss abandoned scripts, impossible casting lists, and brutal rejection letters. The podcast features honest conversations about the movies that got away.
Episodes
The Sisyphus of Niagara: A Dark Comedy's Eternal Struggle
Filmmaker Joe Maggio joins Amy Hobby and Avi Zev Weider to resurrect The Fall, a dark comedy about a moral Niagara Falls attorney whose life spirals out of control after he commits a terrible sin and is unexpectedly rewarded with everything he ever wanted. The project, originally conceived as an existential drama inspired by Kafka and Joe's vicious, domineering grandmother, almost became Joe’s bre
Shot by Shot: Inside the AI Trailer Workflow
Host Avi Weider walks you inside the actual workflow behind the AI trailers we make for every guest — shot by shot, prompt by prompt. From Claude Code to GPT Image 2 to Kling to Premiere, nothing is theoretical here. And it's constantly evolving. This is what it looks like when the tools meet the timeline and you're still trying to make something that feels like a real movie. We're showing you how
DJ Natalie's Neighborhood with Natalie Weiss
Musician and playwright Natalie Weiss has come to resurrect her children's show concept, DJ Natalie's Neighborhood, which she pitches as “Pee-wee’s Playhouse meets Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood set to a DJ beat”. The series is rooted in her real-life, viral "Baby DJ School" and features Natalie as the host alongside her zany puppet roommates in a magical Brooklyn apartment, including Ms. Hay Hay, the g
Backlot: Adam Schartoff of Filmwax Radio
Adam Schartoff of Filmwax Radio is a veteran nearing 900 episodes interviewing everyone from Gus Van Sant to Werner Herzog. Filmwax began in 2011 as a small film series in a Brooklyn bar, quickly evolving into a podcast by 2012.Adam, Avi and Amy discuss the biggest challenges in getting a film seen, changes in distribution, incorporation of AI, and working from the heart. We asked his dream guest:
Stamp & Deliver with Dan MIrvish
Dan Mirvish, co-founder of Slamdance, comes on to talk about the unmade film that haunted him for years. Stamp & Deliver was a darkly comic postal western — think No Country for Old Men meets Office Space — and it got closer than most. Sets were built in Austin. Brittany Murphy auditioned. Ed Asner and Peter Fonda were in. Neil Young was going to produce and score it. Then 9/11 happened.We go
Backlot—The Amateur Pornographer Table Read
It's been over 25 years since Matthew Rhys first read the script of The Amateur Pornographer. This project broke the heart of writer-director Christopher Monger.In this special Backlot episode, actor Matthew Rhys, along with Ian McNiece and Meryn Williams Davies, share and read two scenes from the original screenplay. Chris and producer Ted Hope are in the room, reinvigorating the passion behind t
The Amateur Pornographer with Chris Monger and Ted Hope
Christopher Monger, a Welsh native, was fresh off the Miramax release of his film The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain starring Hugh Grant. His next project was to shoot in a small town in Wales, and producer Ted Hope felt it was a sure thing. The Amateur Pornographer was nearly made with a young Matthew Rhys and later got traction at HBO, with one note: Could the film be set
The Sisterhood: The Conspiracy Thriller That Was 15 Years Ahead of Hollywood
In 2007, producer Effie Brown and novelist Nichol Bradford put together a 40-page pitch deck for The Sisterhood — a global conspiracy thriller about a secret network of women of color who build an alternative system of wealth, protection, and care, and get targeted for it. The deck built an entire world around the project — a transmedia universe of community, content, and activism — before that ph
How to Tame a Fox with Heidi Ewing
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp, Detropia) joins Amy and Avi to open the drawer on How to Tame a Fox — her shelved script about two Soviet biologists who secretly tried to domesticate wild foxes in Siberia while Stalin was busy persecuting anyone who liked science.Based on the true story of Lyudmila Trut and Dmitri Belyaev, this is a Cold War thriller disguised as an animal story
Backlot —Making the Theme Song
Every unmade film deserves a score. Here's how ours got one. From the backlot of the show, musician Joe McGinty takes us behind the scenes on how he composed the theme music for Films Not Made! From groovy Conn Electric Band drum beats, to Moog boogie bass lines, to ARP arpeggios, Musonics Vanilla melody, and more.Have listen and enjoy!https://www.joemcgintymusic.com/https://www.instagram.com/joem
American Prometheus: The Other Oppenheimer
When Christopher Nolan options the same Oppenheimer biography you've been developing for a decade, is it a tragedy or just really, really bad timing?Writer-director Robert Edwards joins Amy and Avi to discuss his adaptation of "American Prometheus," the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer that he optioned in 2006—long before Christopher Nolan made it a billion-dollar blockbus
Poodle Power: The Animated Iditarod Film That Didn't Cross the Finish Line
What if a team of standard poodles ran the Iditarod? Not as a joke—as a real animated feature film.Amy Hobby and Anne Hubbell spent nearly a decade trying to make "Poodle Power" happen. Based on the true story of John Suter, who actually raced poodles (alongside huskies) in Alaska's legendary sled dog race until the Iditarod committee banned non-husky breeds in 1990. The project went through count
I Need Love: LL Cool J & Kool Moe Dee Love Story
What if the legendary 1987 beef between LL Cool J and Kool Moe Dee was hiding a forbidden romance?Filmmaker Michael Tully (Ping Pong Summer, Cocaine Angel) wrote exactly that script during COVID—a hip-hop fairy tale he describes as "Krush Groove meets Brokeback Mountain." And yes, he actually pitched it to Kool Moe Dee himself.We explore why Michael wrote a film he knew would "never get made," how
Coming Soon: Films Not Made
What if you could finally see the films that never made it to the screen? Films Not Made is a revolutionary new weekly podcast launching March 3 that uses AI to resurrect Hollywood's most bizarre and heartbreaking unmade projects.We give filmmakers closure and audiences a front-row seat to the greatest movies never made. Subscribe on your favorite platform to hear the stories—and follow our video
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