Rodney Liber
Billionaires Vinegar - Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp were to star in this Catch Me If You Can-style movie about valuable wine collections to be directed by Gore Verbinski. When Pirates of the Caribbean producer Jerry Bruckheimer decided Lone Ranger was a movie that had to be made starring Armie Hammer, he called on old friends Gore and Johnny to jump ship and this one sank. See Rotten Tomatoes for how THAT one turned out.
Daddy's Home - Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn were set to star and ready to go in this comedy to shoot in Los Angeles, but when producer Adam McKay told Paramount he might be able to edit one movie into two (Anchorman 2 AND 3!) Daddy's Home was shut down for the bigger and better deal, so Will could shoot scenes to tie the two sequels together. Anchorman 3 never materialized and Daddy's Home recast a few years later with Mark Wahlberg.
Dead Poet's Society - Disney got cold feet with our unknown star Liam Neeson (haha, not for long, he developed a "special set of skills") two weeks before we started shooting in Atlanta and Rome, Georgia, so they shut us down with the thought of recasting Dustin Hoffman. The film shot two years later with Robin Williams, directed by Peter Weir and became a little classic, so I guess Disney got the last laugh.
I Want To **** Your Sister - Yes, the asterisks were part of the title on the screenplay. This hot script was picked up quickly by Paramount for $750,000 at which point they decided to make it "better" and rewrote it four times. This movie was funny and raunchy in a new way and predated the Hangover and other edgy comedies that went on to stratospheric success. It will likely sit on a shelf for eternity.
Guam Goes To The Moon - Paramount paid me $$ to do a budget and schedule for this project about a washed up astronaut (to be played by Tim Allen at one time) hired by Guam to promote the island and put them on the space travel map. I think I was producer number 3 of 5 that was asked to plan one of the various rewrites and incarnations. Needless to say, this one never got off the ground.
