Legendary genre director John Carpenter was set to collaborate with iconic actor Nicolas Cage on a movie called Riot, but sadly, it didn't happen. Unfortunately, like many great filmmakers, Carpenter's career is full of unrealized projects that seemed to have a ton of promise. Carpenter almost directed sequels The Exorcist 3 and Halloween H20, the latter of which would've seen him return to the franchise he created. At one point he even came close to helming a 1990s remake of The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Despite all those potential movies that never came to pass, Carpenter still ended up with a career anyone could be proud of, and managed to work with lots of great actors along the way, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Kurt Russell, Sam Neill, Christopher Reeve, Jeff Bridges, and more. One noted thespian Carpenter never crossed paths with was Nicolas Cage, and considering the aptitude Cage has shown for getting crazy and going to odd places with his performances, a John Carpenter film probably would've fit him like a glove.

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So why did Riot, the one time Carpenter and Cage came close to working together, not ultimately get made? Here's what happened.

Why John Carpenter's Riot With Nicolas Cage Never Happened

Nicolas Cage in Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance

First announced in August 2008, Riot was originally dubbed Scared Straight, as it was partially based on the 1978 TV documentary of the same name in which juvenile defenders were taken to a prison and hardened criminals attempted to frighten them out of pursuing a life of crime. The film would've starred Nicolas Cage as a lifer forced into action when a prison riot broke out, and the other inmates then took a young man being held there as part of a Scared Straight program as their hostage. Carpenter was in final talks to direct at that point, with production planned to begin in October 2008.

That October production start obviously didn't stick, but by November, a poster for the project had been released, now re-titled Riot. The poster promised a 2009 release for the film, which would've been Carpenter's first since 2001's Ghosts of Mars. By October 2009 though, Riot was officially declared dead in the water by producer Katie Chonacas. She revealed that Cage had signed a two-film deal with makers Millennium Films, and had opted to exit Riot. Instead, he made Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and Drive Angry with the company. While Carpenter never spoke about the project's cancellation publicly, one assumes that losing its star was too much for Riot to overcome.

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