3 Cancelled Sci-Fi Movies We Deserved To See

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It’s amazing when you consider that movies actually get made at all. It’s not about the special effects or the huge effort involved in filmmaking. It’s that for every film we see in theaters, many more are started but never finished. Even projects that seem promising can get cancelled, becoming lost to history and leaving fans to wonder what could have been.

Cancelled movies happen in every genre, but some sci-fi films that never got made are particularly disappointing. These were either continuations of stories we loved, or promised amazing visuals and performances we were really hoping for. Here are three cancelled sci-fi movies that we wish had been completed.

3) The Divergent Series: Ascendant

The 2010s saw a surge in dystopian science fiction, particularly in film adaptations of popular books. The Divergent series, based on Veronica Roth’s novels, was a prime example. The first movie, Divergent, came out in 2014 and, despite mixed reviews, was a box office success, leading to sequels Insurgent and Allegiant. However, Allegiant didn’t perform well, and the planned final movie, Ascendant, was cancelled. Although there were attempts to continue the story as a television film for Starz, that project was also scrapped. Ultimately, the film series ended without a conclusion, leaving fans who enjoyed the books to seek closure there, but many still hoped to see a finished movie adaptation.

2) Alejandro Jodoworsky’s Dune

Despite the successful recent adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune by Denis Villeneuve, a truly ambitious version of the story almost never came to fruition. In 1974, Alejandro Jodorowsky envisioned a Dune film with an incredibly talented team: H.R. Giger and Moebius designing the visuals, Dan O’Bannon handling special effects, and a score composed by both Pink Floyd and Magma. The planned cast was equally impressive, including Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, David Carradine, and Salvador Dali. It could have been a groundbreaking masterpiece or a complete failure, but the project ultimately fell apart due to excessive pre-production costs and a lack of continued funding. David Lynch later directed a Dune film in 1984, but was unhappy with the result. Even with Villeneuve’s successful adaptation years later, many still wonder what Jodorowsky’s unique vision for Dune would have been like.

1) Alien 5

Many potential Alien movies have been cancelled over the years, but fans are still disappointed about Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5. Announced in 2015, the film would have continued the story directly after Aliens (1986), ignoring the events of Alien 3 and Resurrection. It would have featured an older Ripley and Hicks, set thirty years after the second film. After the success of Blomkamp’s 2009 hit District 9, excitement for Alien 5 was high. However, the project was ultimately cancelled in favor of Ridley Scott’s prequel films, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. While Covenant didn’t perform as well as hoped, it took seven years for another Alien movie to appear – 2024’s Alien: Romulus. Though Romulus is a great film, many fans still wish they could have seen what Alien 5 would have offered.

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2026-05-18 00:12