The Bigfoot Movies That Might Have Been: An Intro
Posted by: Sean Whitley on March 23rd, 2010
For every movie that gets made, there are hundreds more that don’t. Over the last few years, I’ve come into contact with a number of filmmakers who tried to get feature films about Bigfoot made, but for several reasons, these projects never ended up never seeing the light of day. Some didn’t progress beyond the scripting stage, while others saw financing fall through before production began.
The Bigfoot Movies That Might Have Been is an occasional series that will profile some of these Bigfoot movies and the filmmakers who were at their helm.
Want to know about a Bigfoot movie that would have featured Peter “Chewbacca” Mayhew in the title role? How about a period piece on Bigfoot from the co-writer and co-director of The Blair Witch Project? And do you want to find out more about the only official attempt to remake The Legend of Boggy Creek that had its original director, the late Charles B. Pierce, involved?
If so, stick around. Thanks to the kind assistance of the filmmakers involved, I’ve got some fascinating stories to share.
(Sean Whitley is the writer and director of “Southern Fried Bigfoot,” which is currently in broadcast rotation on The Documentary Channel.)
About Sean Whitley
Sean Whitley first heard stories of Bigfoot lurking in Texas at the ripe old age of four. Several sleepless nights and nightmare-laden years later, he attended Southern Methodist University on an academic scholarship and graduated with a BA in Cinema. Whitley has worked as a scriptwriter and field producer for a wide variety of programs that have been broadcast on The Cartoon Network, The Learning Channel, SPEED Channel, MTV, Spike TV, Starz/Encore, Turner Classic Movies, HGTV, and The Cooking Channel. "Southern Fried Bigfoot" is his directorial debut.
He lives in the Dallas, Texas metro area with his wife Cynthia, a cat named Josh, and two dogs: Speckles, an Australian cattle mix, and Lovey, a Potcake from the British West Indies.
Looking forwards to this Loren.
The funny thing is, I was only thinking about this the day. That is, bigfoot films which were never made.
There is an old 1977 book called Sasquatch by M. E. Knerr. I always thought it would have made a decent film. The film Snowbeast was pretty similar, but I always preferred the story in Sasquatch. Better setting, better characters and we get to find out that the bloodthirsty sasquatch of the title was previously injured by a gun and that’s why it went on a human killing rampage.
I would be interested if Loren could find out if there were ever any plans to make M. E. Knerr’s Sasquatch into a film.
Anyway, looking forward to the series.
Apologies. Sorry, I meant Sean.
I keep forgetting that Loren doesn’t write everything here. I am looking forward to this series………..SEAN!!! LOL.
This is certainly great news for me! I am definitely looking forward to it. Sasquatch is my most favourite cryptid and I really like movies with these magnificent creatures.
What about “THE PRIMEVALS”? That was almost done when financing ran out.
It had a yeti, lizard men, and a giant reptile creature called a river lizard.
You can go online and check out a clip of the yeti and lizard men duke-ing it out.
Bring on the stories! Although none of the movies got made, they would make for some great tales of might-have-beens.
Man, talk about synchronicity! Just yesterday I spent a few hours reading up on any of the latest info about the Patterson-Gimlin film. While doing so, I was thinking, you know, a really great Hollywood movie could be made showing all of the backstory and beyond about how the PG film came to be.