page_title: Unfinished creative work
section_title: Film
hierarchical_section_title: Unfinished creative work / Media / Film
caption_attribution_description: Orson Welles, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, March 1, 1937.
context_page_description: An unfinished creative work is a painting, novel, musical composition, or other creative work, that has not been brought to a completed state. Its creator may have chosen not to finish it, or may have been prevented from doing so by circumstances beyond control, such as death. Such pieces are often the subject of speculation as to what the finished piece would have been like had the original creator completed the work. Sometimes artworks are finished by others and released posthumously. Unfinished works have had profound influences on their genres and have inspired others in their own projects. The term can also refer to ongoing work which could eventually be finished and is distinguishable from "incomplete work", which can be a work that was finished but is no longer in its complete form.
  There are many reasons for work not being completed. Works are usually stopped when their creator dies, although some, aware of their failing health, make sure that they set up the project for completion. If the work involves other people, such as a cast of actors or the subject of a portrait, it may be halted because of their unavailability.
context_section_description: Films may not be completed for several reasons, with some being shelved during different stages of the production. Arrive Alive was scrapped after a week of filming when the comedy was not living up to the screenplay. Shelving a film without it ever being released can be very expensive for the studios, with Arrive Alive costing $7 million.
  With so many people involved in filmmaking it is very possible for a film to remain incomplete because of an injury or death. While a member of the crew (even a producer or director) can often be replaced, it is much more difficult to change to a different actor if many of the scenes have already been filmed. For example, Dark Blood was cancelled 80% of the way through filming due, to the death of its star River Phoenix. However, the film premiered to a private guest audience on September 27, 2012 at the Netherlands Film Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands. Some films have been completed despite such problems. A famous example is Bruce Lee's Game of Death. Lee died during the filming, and the rest of the filming was finished by Tai Chung Kim, a Lee look-alike. Yuen Biao, a then-stunt actor who later became a TV/movie actor. His son, Brandon Lee, also suffered from the same fate: he died after filming most of The Crow, but the remaining scenes were played by stunt double Chad Stahelski, with Lee's face digitally composited onto the double.
  Continued delays can prevent a film from ever being completed. Something's Got to Give was a 1962 film with a difficult production history, which included the firing of leading lady Marilyn Monroe. She was later rehired but died before filming started; without the delay the film might have been completed.
  In Orson Welles' lifetime his unfinished films became legendary. For decades he worked on a version of Don Quixote, and he claimed that the film could be finished despite the deaths of his two leading actors. Citizen Kane remains one of the only films that was released as Welles intended, with most of his other films remaining incomplete or being changed by the studios. His death on 10 October 1985 came while he was working on The Other Side of the Wind and The Dreamers, the former being completed.
  Animated films, though less vulnerable to problems such as the death of an actor, can still fail to be completed. The Thief and the Cobbler was a twenty-six-year animated film project by Richard Williams which was taken away from him and completed by Fred Calvert. The workprint of the original film became available as a bootleg, and there have been several attempts to restore the film, most notably Garrett Gilchrist's "Recobbled" cut. The 1978 animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was not viewed by the studio as enough of a commercial success to warrant the funding of a sequel, thus not completing the story from the original trilogy of books.
caption: Orson Welles left behind numerous unfinished films.
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