Development hell

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Development hell , derived from the term development bright , well development limbo , is a term from the entertainment industry . It describes the state of an ongoing development process in which a film , a television program or a computer game is caught without the final approval for production and completion (filming, programming, etc.). The term is used when overcoming this phase proves to be particularly difficult and protracted or does not succeed despite years of efforts. It is usually characterized by little progress in the course of the project and frequent concept revisions and changes.

Application and meaning

The term is a term used in the US film industry from Hollywood . There the designation stands for the status between the acquisition of the filming rights to a work (script, literary original, etc.) by a film studio until the actual release of the production funds and the start of shooting. If the project is not given permission to film, it is “trapped in development hell”. The reasons can be varied, such as lengthy and frequent revisions of the script, lack of funding, changing positions in the production team or studio management, casting problems and business reasons, such as eliminating competition for a similar project from the same studio.

“Development Hell is one of those places that film-makers don't want to be in. There's a clue in the name. Yes, it's Hell! Not actual fire and brimstone to be sure, but frustration, vexation, wounded egos, wasted time and money and more corporate Hollywood nonsense than you can shake a stick at. Development Hell is where film scripts go when movie executives can't take the responsibility of giving a 'green light' to a project and part of the reason so many projects do end up in the Stygian darkness is that it's easier to say 'no' than 'yes'. "

“Developing Hell is one of those places filmmakers don't want to be. There is already a hint in the name. Yes it is hell Not real fire and brimstone, of course, but frustration, annoyance, hurt egos, wasted time and money and a whole lot more Hollywood corporation nonsense. Developing hell is where movie scripts go when decision makers don't want to take responsibility for approving a project, and one reason why so many projects end in infernal darkness is because it's easier to say 'no' than 'yes '. "

- BBC Radio 2

As a result, a film studio can completely abandon the project. In some cases, the project can be restarted by another studio (turnaround), which means that the process starts all over again, but is sometimes also successfully completed. An example of this is the production of the film ET - The Extra-Terrestrial , which Columbia Pictures dropped, eventually acquired by Universal Pictures and became one of the most successful films of the 1980s. An example of a particularly long development time was the film adaptation of the short story The Strange Case of Benjamin Button , whose filming rights were first secured by the studio Paramount Pictures shortly after its publication in 1922, but which was only released in theaters in 2008 as a film by director David Fincher came.

In the computer games sector, the term is also used for projects that have been in development for a long time, have undergone numerous concept changes through to realignment and / or are continued by another development studio. Projects whose development became publicly known and have been in development hell for a particularly long time are often also referred to as vaporware , such as the action game Duke Nukem Forever , which was in development for over 14 years from its first announcement in 1997 to its appearance in 2011 . The development period was characterized, among other things, by several technology changes and the closure of the original development studio. A more recent example of a development hell in the computer game sector is Final Fantasy XV . Announced in 2006 as Final Fantasy Versus XIII , the game remained largely in the planning phase until 2013, received a new producer in 2014, suffered from various, drastic story changes even in the year of publication and was finally published in November 2016, drastically shortened due to time constraints.

reception

Under the title Development Hell , the journalist and screenwriter Brad Schreiber ran a media and political column in the US weekly Entertainment Today from 1995. At the beginning of the column, Schreiber compared, among other things, newly released films with the original scripts. The web series Development Hell , published in 2013, also deals thematically with the phenomenon of development hell .

literature

  • David Hughes: Tales From Development Hell: The Greatest Movies Never Made? 2nd expanded edition. Titan Books, 2012, ISBN 978-0-85768-723-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nelson Pressley: New Plays: The Coddling Can Be Constraining ( English ) In: Washington Post . July 27, 2008. Retrieved on August 30, 2013: "Yet as the now-common development models became institutionalized, feelings sometimes hardened as playwrights began to feel they were stuck in utero - more commonly known by the Hollywood term" development hell. "“
  2. ↑ a b Brad Schreiber: What Are You Laughing At? Michael Wiese Productions, 2003, ISBN 978-1-61593-052-4 , pp. 73 ( online view ). "The column I have written since 1995 in the Los Angeles weekly paper Entertainment Today has provided me a forum for doing reviews, interviews, parody news stories and essays. I named it Development Hell, after a Hollywood term for a TV or film project that is optioned or purchased, even rewritten many times, but never actually made. "
  3. ^ John W. Cones: Dictionary of Film Finance and Distribution: A Guide for Independent Filmmakers . Algora Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-0-87586-995-7 , pp. 111 ( online view ).
  4. ↑ Charlotte Worthington: Basics Film: Production: Budget and management aspects of a film or program production . Stiebner Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8307-1367-8 , pp. 74 ( online view ).
  5. ^ A b Janet Wasko: How Hollywood Works . Sage Publications, 2003, ISBN 978-1-84787-165-7 , pp. 36 ( online view ).
  6. ↑ Gregory Lamberson: Cheap Scares !: Low Budget Horror Filmmakers Share Their Secrets . McFarland, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7864-5202-6 , pp. 76-84 ( online view ).
  7. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011lmq6
  8. ↑ Harald Pauli: A love in the face of death . In: Focus . October 6, 2008. Retrieved on August 30, 2013: “I think it's actually much older, Paramount probably bought the rights right after it was released in 1922. This is really“ Development-Hell ”... - you've been working on it yourself since 2001. Do you have any reservations when a film has gone through this "development hell" forever? "
  9. ↑ Dennis Reisdorf: Wrong: These video games went through the development hell . In: PC Games . May 2, 2013. Accessed on August 30, 2013: “Time pressure, change of developer, realignment: A lot can go wrong when developing a video game and in the end this has a negative effect on the quality of the game in almost all cases. It is not uncommon that the development is afflicted by massive conflicts and degenerates into a disaster. "
  10. ↑ Jonathan Strickland: What are the best video games that were never made? ( English ) In: HowStuffWorks . Discovery Communications . May 2, 2013. Retrieved on August 30, 2013: "Will we ever see any of these games emerge from what is popularly known as" development hell? ""
  11. ↑ Chris Kohler: Hi, I'm the Game Industry, and I'm Addicted to Vaporware ( English ) In: Wired . January 25, 2013. Retrieved on August 30, 2013: “Vaporware is such a fact of life in the game industry that we don't even call it what it is anymore. Instead, the term is typically only applied to games that spend an overly protracted amount of time in development hell. "
  12. ↑ Chris Kohler: Duke Nukem Ends 12-Year Reign as Vaporware King ( English ) In: Wired . June 14, 2011. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  13. ↑ http://www.gamona.de/games/final-fantasy-xv,character-designer-meckert-ueber-die-staende-im-team:news.html
  14. ↑ Development Hell in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  15. ↑ Lancelot Mermet: From Chiang Mai to Hollywood: An Interview with Aria Inthavong ( English ) In: Citylife . Trisila Company. March 2013. Retrieved August 30, 2013: “In the movie industry, what is a 'development hell'? - It's a project that just can't seem to get out of the development phase and actually start production, for a variety of reasons (from financial to behind-the-scenes drama). We felt that the idea of ​​telling a story about a group of miscreants, all trying to find fame and success in Hollywood but stuck in such hellish experience, would be great and that audiences could connect with it. "