15 Movies That Took Their Sweet Time Getting Made
![15 Movies That Took Their Sweet Time Getting Made](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/7/2/780672_320x180.jpg)
Movies are a form of entertainment that we all enjoy. We go to the theaters to watch them or watch them at home when they come out on DVD or streaming. Sometimes, it feels like forever since you first hear a movie is getting made until you get to fill your face with popcorn in front of it. Other times it doesn't just feel like it -- it does take forever, or close enough. Show business is a slow, lumbering beast, not nearly as fast-paced as some of the flics it regularly spews. Movie production is a long, involved process that takes up a number of years -- and occasionally, that amount just happens to be "an awful lot."
Making a movie is no easy feat. It takes a lot of time, money, and effort to bring a movie to the big screen. Sometimes, movies take so long to get made that by the time they finally come out, they've been forgotten about. Here are a few movies that took a long time to get made but were worth the wait.
The Fifth Element
![Released in 1997 Luc Besson started writing THE FIFTH ELEMENT when he 16 was years old. He intended the story to be a novel, but then he tweaked it into a movie script, filmed it, and released it over the following 20 YEARS.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/6/1/780661.jpg)
Source: Nerdist
![Released in 2002 Chris Sanders created an early version of Stitch in 1985. He shelved the character until Disney invited him to pitch a movie, which eventually came out as LILO & STITCH.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/6/7/780667.jpg)
Source: Animation World Network
![Released in 2018 Drawn to the non-stereotypical depiction of Africa, Wesley Snipes tried to do a BLACK PANTHER movie in the early '90s. The project never really took off, despite all the work put into it.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/6/2/780662.jpg)
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
![Released in 2015 George Miller had the idea for MAD MAX FURY ROAD while crossing a street in 1998. Then the movie kept getting delayed for different reasons until the 2010s.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/6/9/780669.jpg)
Sources: The Sydney Morning Herald, The New York Times
![Released in 2009 Quentin Tarantino came up with INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS in 1998, but the story kept growing bigger and bigger, so he put it aside for some time. When he came back to it years later, he trimmed it into something much more manageable.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/6/0/780660.jpg)
Source: Charlie Rose
![Released in Christopher Nolan 2010 had the idea for INCEPTION 10 years before the movie came out. It wasn't until after the Batman movies that he had the experience (and the clout) to make Inception happen.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/6/6/780666.jpg)
Source: The Telegraph
![Released in 2016 Screenwriter Eric Heisserer turned Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life into a screenplay - and then spent years getting rejected by studios. It was through independent financing that ARRIVAL finally started getting traction, making it to movie theaters after a DECADE-LONG BATTLE.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/7/0/780670.jpg)
Sources: No Film School, IndieWire
![Released in 2020 Show creator Allan Scott optioned Walter Tevis' novel THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT in 1992, 28 a full years before the miniseries came out. Michael Apted, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Heath Ledger were all attached to direct a movie version at different points.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/6/8/780668.jpg)
Source: IndieWire
![Released in 1997 Carl Sagan was first tapped to write a treatment for CONTACT in 1979. Disagreements about the script kept delaying production, so Sagan turned the story into a novel in 1985.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/6/5/780665.jpg)
Source: Entertainment Weekly
![Released in 2019 David Fincher and Tim Miller announced their own version of Heavy Metal in 2008. As the rights had been snatched when Netflix got interested, their animated sci-fi anthology was named LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/6/3/780663.jpg)
Source: IGN
![Released in 1982 Richard Attenborough was approached to make GANDHI 1962. in That was the beginning of a 20-year quest to get backing for the film, almost going personally bankrupt in the process.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/0/8/8/781088.jpg)
Source: NBC News
Uncut Gems
![Released in 2019 The Safdie brothers wrote the first draft of UNCUT GEMS in 2009, but needed to make a bigger name for themselves to be able to tackle the project. Eventually, Adam Sandler took the lead part (which he had initially turned down), and the movie came out after 10 years.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/6/4/780664.jpg)
Source: Screen Daily
![Released in 2008 The movie adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON went through several directors since the '80s. The final movie draws heavily from a draft written as far back as 1990.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/5/6/780656.jpg)
Source: Collider
![Released in 1997 Hayao Miyazaki drew the first sketches that'd eventually become PRINCESS MONONOKE in the late '70s. By the time production started in the '90s, Miyazaki had already used many of his ideas for this movie in My Neighbor Totoro.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/5/7/780657.jpg)
Source: Screen Rant
![Released in 1999 Stanley Kubrick bought the rights to Arthur Schnitzler's Dream Story in 1968. Then he sat on the story for three decades until he finally EYES adapted it into WIDE SHUT.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/5/9/780659.jpg)
Source: Time