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Films Not Made: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Films Not Made
From analog rejection to digital resurrection. Films Not Made unearths both Hollywood and indie film projects too wild, weird, or ambitious to ever hit the big screen. Hosts Avi Zev Weider and Amy Hobby invite writers, directors, and producers to join them in ripping open old wounds by pulling out abandoned scripts, impossible casting lists, and brutal rejection letters. Honest conversations with creators and resurrections of the movies that got away.
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- 3 days ago19 min
Shot by Shot: Inside the AI Trailer Workflow
Host Avi Weider walks you inside the actual workflow behind the AI trailers we make for every guest — shot by shot, prompt by prompt. From Claude Code to GPT Image 2 to Kling to Premiere, nothing is theoretical here. And it's constantly evolving. This is what it looks like when the tools meet the timeline and you're still trying to make something that feels like a real movie. We're showing you how we use AI as a tool to finally see the films that never got made. Here's what that looks like behind the scenes.Go to https://filmsnotmade.com/ for info on the show, transcripts and more.Follow the show on https://www.youtube.com/@FilmsNotMadeSubscribe to our https://substack.com/@filmsnotmade
- 1 weeks ago57 min
DJ Natalie's Neighborhood with Natalie Weiss
Musician and playwright Natalie Weiss has come to resurrect her children's show concept, DJ Natalie's Neighborhood, which she pitches as “Pee-wee’s Playhouse meets Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood set to a DJ beat”. The series is rooted in her real-life, viral "Baby DJ School" and features Natalie as the host alongside her zany puppet roommates in a magical Brooklyn apartment, including Ms. Hay Hay, the glamorous horse diva, and LD the glow worm lighting designer. The core premise is teaching kids musical concepts and ASL to solve everyday problems.Despite getting her foot in the door with top-tier executives at networks like Netflix and Sesame Street, Natalie learned the industry was shifting away from adult hosts in favor of child protagonists. The executives "wanted sanitized boring Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood".Natalie got a renewed sense of purpose, leaving her energized, as she states, with a "total fire under my ass. I just want to work on this again."Come to the playhouse "where beats are dope and life is good."https://www.natalieelizabethweiss.com/https://www.instagram.com/djnatalienyc/Go to https://filmsnotmade.com/ for info on the show, transcripts and more.Follow the show on https://www.youtube.com/@FilmsNotMadeSubscribe to our https://substack.com/@filmsnotmade#DaveedDiggs #DonaldGlover #BillyPorter #AyoEdebiri #AliWong #KeeganMichaelKey #StephenRoot #FilmsNotMade #DJNataliesNeighborhood #BabyDJSchool#NatalieWeiss #KidsTV #PuppetShow #UnmadeProjects #KidsMusic #IndieFilm #ChildrensTelevision#PeeweesPlayhouse #MrRogersNeighborhood #Brooklyn #MusicEducation #ASL #PodcastLife #HollywoodDevelopment #WhatIfWeMadeItNow #HollywoodStories
- 2 weeks ago24 min
Backlot: Adam Schartoff of Filmwax Radio
Adam Schartoff of Filmwax Radio is a veteran nearing 900 episodes interviewing everyone from Gus Van Sant to Werner Herzog. Filmwax began in 2011 as a small film series in a Brooklyn bar, quickly evolving into a podcast by 2012.Adam, Avi and Amy discuss the biggest challenges in getting a film seen, changes in distribution, incorporation of AI, and working from the heart. We asked his dream guest: Jim Jarmusch, the ultimate New York indie filmmaker he’s been "orbiting" for 15 years. Put that wish out there! Find Adam’s terrific archive at FilmwaxRadio.com.
- 3 weeks ago53 min
Stamp & Deliver with Dan MIrvish
Dan Mirvish, co-founder of Slamdance, comes on to talk about the unmade film that haunted him for years. Stamp & Deliver was a darkly comic postal western — think No Country for Old Men meets Office Space — and it got closer than most. Sets were built in Austin. Brittany Murphy auditioned. Ed Asner and Peter Fonda were in. Neil Young was going to produce and score it. Then 9/11 happened.We go through the whole story, run the original script through our AI pipeline, and give Stamp & Deliver the trailer it never got and still deserves. Our film executive Meredith also stops by with notes — and sounds exactly like every development meeting you've ever sat through.If you love indie film, hollywood stories, development hell, and the ones that got away — this one's for you.https://linktr.ee/atomicfonduehttps://substack.com/@danmirvishhttps://www.danmirvish.com/Stamp-Delivernext film, Atomic Fondue (still raising money!)https://www.danmirvish.com/Atomic-Fondue"Go to https://filmsnotmade.com/ for info on the show, transcripts and more.Follow the show on https://www.youtube.com/@FilmsNotMadeSubscribe to our https://substack.com/@filmsnotmade#FilmsNotMade #UnmadeFilms #DevelopmentHell #StampAndDeliver #PostalWestern #Slamdance #IndieFilmHistory #DanMirvish #IndieFilm #IndependentFilm #FilmHistory #AIFilmmaking #GenerativeAI #AITrailer#FilmPodcast #HollywoodStories #Screenwriting #MakingMovies #MovieTrailer
- Apr 30, 202610 min
Backlot—The Amateur Pornographer Table Read
It's been over 25 years since Matthew Rhys first read the script of The Amateur Pornographer. This project broke the heart of writer-director Christopher Monger.In this special Backlot episode, actor Matthew Rhys, along with Ian McNiece and Meryn Williams Davies, share and read two scenes from the original screenplay. Chris and producer Ted Hope are in the room, reinvigorating the passion behind the script and desire to bring this Welsh film to life. Christopher said, "Seeing Matthew Rhys and Ian McNeice and Meryn Williams Davies read a couple of scenes made me both happy and sad. Happy in that, yes, I think it is a good script; and sad because, no, it did not get made. When I re-read Amateur Pornographer I was filled with the excitement I had when writing it."Go to https://filmsnotmade.com/ for info on the show, transcripts and more.Follow the show on https://www.youtube.com/@FilmsNotMadeSubscribe to our https://substack.com/@filmsnotmade
- Apr 28, 20261h 5m
The Amateur Pornographer with Chris Monger and Ted Hope
Christopher Monger, a Welsh native, was fresh off the Miramax release of his film The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain starring Hugh Grant. His next project was to shoot in a small town in Wales, and producer Ted Hope felt it was a sure thing. The Amateur Pornographer was nearly made with a young Matthew Rhys and later got traction at HBO, with one note: Could the film be set in the United States instead of Wales? Christopher Monger IMDBTed Hope’s Substack “Hope for Film”Check out our curated Letterboxd List for some New York mid 90s indie classics to go with our Ted Hope-Good Machine vibe.We have merch! Buy our awesome Films Not Made signature mug or 100% cotton t-shirt.Go to FilmsNotMade for the all transcripts and more.Follow the show on YouTube@filmsnotemadeSubscribe to our Substack@filmsnotmade
- Apr 14, 20261h 9m
The Sisterhood: The Conspiracy Thriller That Was 15 Years Ahead of Hollywood
In 2007, producer Effie Brown and novelist Nichol Bradford put together a 40-page pitch deck for The Sisterhood — a global conspiracy thriller about a secret network of women of color who build an alternative system of wealth, protection, and care, and get targeted for it. The deck built an entire world around the project — a transmedia universe of community, content, and activism — before that phrase existed.Hollywood still said no.In this episode of Films Not Made, Effie Brown (producer of Dear White People and Real Women Have Curves, CEO of Gamechanger Films, Academy Board of Governors) and Nichol Bradford (author, technologist, Singularity University faculty, Executive in Residence for AI and the Future of Work at SHRM) join Amy and Avi to finally open the drawer on The Sisterhood — a project that hasn't been pitched in over a decade and somehow feels more urgent right now than ever.Effie's pitch: "Bourne Ultimatum meets House of Cards — but with sisters." A vaccine that could collapse the global drug economy. A murder. A reckoning. And the question underneath all of it: who actually runs the world, and what happens when someone tries to build outside the system?We run the full project through our AI pipeline: pitch deck, casting board (Angela Bassett, Danielle Deadwyler, Regina King, Lashana Lynch, Mads Mikkelsen with a satellite phone in a museum), a full trailer — and a live pitch to our AI film executive, who has opinions.Effie's verdict on whether this could be made now: 1,000%.Guests:Effie Brown Gamechanger FilmsNichol Bradford Films Not Made resurrects Hollywood's wildest unmade films. Subscribe: YouTube@filmsnotmadefilmsnotmade.com Substack@filmsnotmadeLetterboxd@filmsnotmade#EffieBrown #NicholBradford #AIFilmmaking #TheSisterhood #FilmsNotMade #BlackWomenInFilm #DevelopmentHell #FilmPodcast #HollywoodStories #UnmadeFiles #Screenwriting #WomenProducers #BlackDirectors #BlackStorytelling
- Apr 1, 202647 min
How to Tame a Fox with Heidi Ewing
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp, Detropia) joins Amy and Avi to open the drawer on How to Tame a Fox — her shelved script about two Soviet biologists who secretly tried to domesticate wild foxes in Siberia while Stalin was busy persecuting anyone who liked science.Based on the true story of Lyudmila Trut and Dmitri Belyaev, this is a Cold War thriller disguised as an animal story — or an animal story disguised as a Cold War thriller, depending on how you feel about foxes that eventually sing.Heidi wrote a full pilot during COVID, had a dream cast (Daniel Day-Lewis, Cate Blanchett, Joaquin Phoenix), and then Putin invaded Ukraine and tanked the mood for celebrating Russian scientists. Timing is everything.We fed the script into our AI pipeline, generated a new pitch deck and trailer, and let our AI executive Finn weigh in. Heidi's verdict: still a f***ing good idea. We agree.Some projects don't die. They just wait.Loki Films: https://lokifilms.comHeidi Ewing on Instagram #FilmsNotMade #UnmadeFilms #DevelopmentHell #HowToTameAFox #HeidiEwing #LyudmilaGrut#DmitriBelyaev #FoxDomestication #SiberianFoxExperiment #FilmPodcast #IndieFilm #DocumentaryFilm #Screenwriting #PeriodDrama #FilmDevelopment #WarOnScience#SovietHistory #ColdWarDrama #StalinistRussia #MagicalRealism #DomesticationScience #AIFilmmaking #Cinephile #FilmPodcast
About Films Not Made
From analog rejection to digital resurrection. Films Not Made unearths both Hollywood and indie film projects too wild, weird, or ambitious to ever hit the big screen. Hosts Avi Zev Weider and Amy Hobby invite writers, directors, and producers to join them in ripping open old wounds by pulling out abandoned scripts, impossible casting lists, and brutal rejection letters. Honest conversations with creators and resurrections of the movies that got away.
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