John Carpenter's unrealized projects

The following is a list of unproduced John Carpenter projects, in roughly chronological order. During a career that has spanned over 30 years, John Carpenter has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction.

1980s

• During filming of The Thing, Universal offered him the chance to direct Firestarter, based on the novel by Stephen King. Carpenter hired Bill Lancaster and Bill Phillips respectively to adapt the novel into different versions of the screenplay. Carpenter had intended Richard Dreyfuss as Andy McGee, but when The Thing was a financial disappointment, Universal replaced Carpenter with Mark L. Lester.
• Carpenter was also offered The Exorcist III during 1989, and met with writer William Peter Blatty (who also authored the novel on which it was based, Legion) during the course of a week. However, the two disagreed about the film's climax and Carpenter refused the project. Blatty directed the film himself a year later. Carpenter said that although they argued about the ending, they had a mutual respect and talked about an interest they both shared: quantum physics.

1990s

• Carpenter was originally in the running to be the director for this particular follow-up since Curtis wanted to reunite the cast and for the crew of the original to have active involvement in it. It was believed that Carpenter opted out because he wanted no active part in the sequel; however, this is not the case. Carpenter agreed to direct the film, but his starting fee as director was $10 million. Carpenter rationalized this by believing the hefty fee was compensation for revenue he never received from the original Halloween, a matter that was still a point of contention between Carpenter and Akkad even after twenty years had passed. When Akkad balked at Carpenter's fee, Carpenter left the project, though supposedly served as an uncredited producer.