http://www.cracked.com/article_16716_7-terrible-early-versions-great-movies.html
This is absolutely amazing reading. You can't even begin to imagine how lucky we are that these original scripts weren't final.
By the way, Cracked is the most addictive site to read ever. There'll be a link at the bottom, "By the way, here's another awesome article that's got you really interested!'

Yes. Cracked proves that lists can still be funny.
OH GOD THEY LOST THEIR MINDS WITH SPIDERMAN AND THEY'RE GOING TO DO IT AGAIN IN SPIDERMAN 4
Sorry. Had to get that off my chest.

At least Sam Raimi bailed the fuck out of there. "Yeah, we want you to make it 3D now and still make the same release date. Never mind the fact that it will add 6 MONTHS of work."

The fact that it's a retcon/reboot killed my interest.

Thats the point where you smack them and say "NO! Bad executive!" and rub their noses in it. Projects cannot be changed after the requirements are finalised or they almost always fail

cracked isn't the most addictive, it's t.v. tropes.
no i will not link to it.
you are not allowed to link to it.

"For years, Andy and Larry Wachowski worked on the screenplay for The Matrix, receiving nothing but confused stares from the studio executives who tried to read it. By 1996, they'd finally gotten producer Joel Silver interested in the project by directing a film noir picture about hot lesbians (long story), and they had this action-packed script called The Matrix ready to go."
Hey, I don't want Matrix, I want to see that!

Probably get any BDSM lesbian porn in black and white, then you're more or less done.

Darn right. I learned a lot about Useless Heroes, TV shows that jumped the shark, and original movie endings that were changed.
I watched I Am Legend 2 days ago, and couldn't work out why the first half was awesome and the second half left me cold. Discovering the original ending has cleared a lot of stuff up.
Which is actually a very good movie, despite mostly being on the budget shelf and looking like straight-to-video soft porn. It's a good noir story, and the lesbian stuff isn't overdone.

IT WAS HORRIBLE - HORRIBLE. LIKE A CHICKEN.
That could well have been the greatest line in cinema history. It's such a shame it was not to be.

I see your Spiderman reboot, and raise you The Karate Kid
Weclock is also correct that TV Tropes will ruin your life.

That site is actually pretty cool. I was just reading 5 Things Hollywood Reuses More Than Plots. Very funny article, but it contained two videos in particular that I thought I'd link to directly here.
One is The Wilhelm Scream, a scream sound effect that's been reused in countless movies since 1951. I will definitely notice it if I ever hear it again, after having seen that video.
The other is an example of how Disney has reused animation sequences over the years, painting over the original characters. Some of them are very long sequences too.

Oh, gods. I discovered... that site... last summer and have routinely had to wipe my FireFox windows every few months since then, as I'd start keeping several hundred tabs open at once. It's like Wikipedia, but ten times worse.
Cracked is also addictive, but it runs out of articles pretty quickly. For some reason I find the Sex section to be funniest. Damn you, vulgar humor, damn you...

I have twice thought I'd seen every trope I could want to see, and yet tonight I have around 12-20 tabs of tv tropes open... and that's since the day before yesterday...