When Filmmaking Turns Into A Full-Time Hobby
Most directors dream of seeing their movies hit theaters within a couple of years. But for some, “coming soon” turns into “coming eventually”. From cursed animations to perfectionist passion projects, these films spent so long in development that entire empires rose and fell before the credits rolled. Sometimes genius takes time—and sometimes, it just takes stubbornness.
Mad God
Visual effects legend Phil Tippett—best known for bringing Star Wars monsters and Jurassic Park dinos to life—decided to make something truly twisted. Mad God is a stop-motion fever dream where a gas-masked figure descends through layers of industrial hell. Each sequence looks like a nightmare constructed out of rust, flesh, and melted toys. It’s grotesque, disturbing, and somehow beautiful—the kind of thing that makes you wonder if Tippett needed therapy or a standing ovation.
Mad God: Working Overtime
Tippett started the film in the late 1980s while working on RoboCop 2, but shelved it after realizing CGI was about to replace stop-motion entirely. Two decades later, friends convinced him to dig it out again. Tippett spent years animating by hand between other gigs, sometimes funding scenes with Kickstarter campaigns. It finally premiered in 2021—thirty years after it began. The movie’s title suddenly felt prophetic.
The Primevals
The Primevals follows a team of explorers who trek into the Himalayas and stumble upon a civilization of intelligent yetis and ancient alien tech. Think Indiana Jones meets Planet of the Apes—if both movies were shot in someone’s garage with incredible puppetry and even more heart. It’s pure old-school adventure, filled with monsters, matte paintings, and that nostalgic smell of latex and ambition.
Full Moon Features, The Primevals (2023)
The Primevals: Working Overtime
Stop-motion animator David Allen came up with the idea in the 1960s, but it didn’t start filming until 1994. He passed in 1999, leaving behind storyboards, puppets, and an unfinished film. For decades, his collaborators refused to give up on him—most notably effects artist Chris Endicott, who painstakingly completed the movie using Allen’s original materials. Twenty-nine years later, in 2023, The Primevals finally saw the light of day, proving that art really can survive its creator.
Full Moon Features, The Primevals (2023)
5-25-77
A love letter to geekdom itself, 5-25-77 follows an aspiring filmmaker whose life changes forever when he sees Star Wars on May 25, 1977. It’s a coming-of-age dramedy drenched in nostalgia for a pre-CGI world, packed with dreamers, movie posters, and sci-fi obsession. John Francis Daley stars as the ultimate fanboy before fandom became an Olympic sport.
MVD Entertainment Group, 5-25-77 (2022)
5-25-77: Working Overtime
Director Patrick Read Johnson began production in the mid-2000s but couldn’t stop tinkering. He’d show rough cuts at conventions, then decide to reshoot, re-edit, and re-score—sometimes years apart. Funding dried up, effects took forever, and perfectionism did the rest. After nearly 18 years, the film finally premiered in 2022, by which point Star Wars itself had produced an entire sequel trilogy and multiple Disney+ shows.
MVD Entertainment Group, 5-25-77 (2022)
The King and the Mockingbird
This French animated fairytale begins with a tyrannical king obsessed with a portrait of a shepherdess, unaware she’s in love with a chimney sweep. A wisecracking mockingbird helps them escape through surreal landscapes, exposing the absurdity of absolute power. It’s both charming and rebellious—a political allegory hidden inside a bedtime story.
Gaumont, The King and the Mockingbird (1980)
The King and the Mockingbird: Working Overtime
The film began in 1948, but after a producer snatched the project and released an unfinished version in 1952, director Paul Grimault spent decades reclaiming his work. He finally regained the rights in 1967 and spent over ten more years restoring and completing it. When it was re-released in 1980—33 years after production began—it was hailed as a masterpiece of French animation.
Gaumont, The King and the Mockingbird (1980)
Dangerous Men
Imagine a revenge thriller directed by someone who had never seen one. Dangerous Men tells the story of a woman avenging her fiancé’s murder by seducing and taking out men one by one, then somehow morphs into a buddy cop movie. It’s chaotic, bizarre, and utterly fascinating—a trainwreck so sincere it loops back around to genius.
Drafthouse Films, Dangerous Men (2005)
Dangerous Men: Working Overtime
Jahangir Salehi Yeganehrad, who went by John S. Rad, started filming in 1984 and screened a rough cut in 1985—but he just couldn’t stop editing. He tinkered for two more decades, changing scenes, adding dialogue, and possibly defying time itself. When it finally premiered in 2005, it instantly became a cult sensation for its sheer weirdness. Sometimes “bad” movies just need 21 years to marinate.
Drafthouse Films, Dangerous Men (2005)
The Evil Within
Billionaire Andrew Getty decided to make a horror movie based on his nightmares—and The Evil Within truly feels like one. It follows a mentally challenged man manipulated by his reflection into murder. It’s gruesome, surreal, and unsettlingly personal, like peering into someone’s private madness.
Vision Films, The evil within trailer (2017)
The Evil Within: Working Overtime
Getty self-financed the project with around $6 million, taking production inside his own mansion. He spent years perfecting the practical effects, editing the footage himself, and obsessing over every sequence. Tragically, he died before completing it in 2015, leaving the final cut to his producer. After fifteen long years, it was released in 2017—a haunting legacy from a man consumed by his art.
Vision Films, The evil within trailer (2017)
The Tragedy of Man
A philosophical epic spanning from the dawn of creation to the end of civilization, The Tragedy of Man is Hungary’s answer to Paradise Lost. It follows Adam and Lucifer as they travel through human history debating whether life has meaning, stopping in eras from ancient Egypt to the far future. It’s ambitious, heady, and visually breathtaking—a time-traveling existential crisis in animated form.
Mozinet, The Tragedy Of Man (2011)
The Tragedy of Man: Working Overtime
Animator Marcell Jankovics began the project in 1988, expecting it to take six years. Then Hungarian communism collapsed, funding vanished, and production froze. Over two decades later—through political upheaval, financial droughts, and sheer persistence—it was finally completed in 2011. The finished film feels like it carries the weight of every year it endured.
Mozinet, The Tragedy Of Man (2011)
Pakeezah
A sumptuous Indian musical drama about a courtesan torn between love, dignity, and societal judgment, Pakeezah is one of Bollywood’s grandest romances. With breathtaking sets, poetic songs, and lavish costumes, it became a classic symbol of tragic beauty—a film where every glance feels like a love letter.
Mahal Pictures, Pakeezah (1972)
Pakeezah: Working Overtime
Director Kamal Amrohi and lead actress Meena Kumari were married when production began in 1958—but their relationship crumbled midway through filming. They separated for nearly a decade before the supporting cast convinced them to finish. After 16 years of heartbreak, rewrites, and delays, Pakeezah finally premiered in 1972—and instantly became a cultural phenomenon.
Mahal Pictures, Pakeezah (1972)
BalikBayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment
Filipino filmmaker Kidlat Tahimik’s experimental opus follows Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe—but from the perspective of the colonized. Mixing documentary, myth, and performance art, it’s part history lesson, part fever dream. The film captures centuries of cultural collision and identity with equal parts humor and heartbreak.
Voyage Studios, Balikbayan #1 Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III (2015)
BalikBayan #1: Memories of Overdevelopment: Working Overtime
Tahimik started filming in 1978 using 60mm film, then spent decades adding to it with newer formats, including digital. Each technological leap became another chapter. He edited across generations of footage, turning his film into a living archive of his own artistic evolution. Forty-five years after it began, the movie finally premiered—an unintentional time capsule of both the filmmaker and filmmaking itself.
Voyage Studios, Balikbayan #1 Memories of Overdevelopment Redux III (2015)
The Thief and the Cobbler
Animator Richard Williams set out to create the most technically perfect animated film ever made. The Thief and the Cobbler tells the story of a humble cobbler who unwittingly saves a golden city from destruction, all while a silent thief chases shiny treasures and chaos ensues. The visuals are hypnotic—Escher-like cities, kaleidoscopic deserts, and endless moving parts that look hand-drawn by a god with too much time on His hands. It was supposed to be Williams’ magnum opus—and in a way, it was.
Miramax, The Thief and the Cobbler (1993)
The Thief and the Cobbler: Working Overtime
Williams began this project in the 1960s and simply…never stopped. After dazzling Hollywood with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, he finally secured full studio funding, but perfectionism became his undoing. Each frame was a masterpiece, and each masterpiece took days. Deadlines whooshed by, budgets exploded, and Warner Bros. eventually fired him from his own film. The unfinished movie was patched together and dumped into theaters in the early ‘90s—just in time for Disney’s Aladdin to “borrow” its aesthetic and beat it at the box office.
Miramax, The Thief and the Cobbler (1993)
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