During his career, American film director Quentin Tarantino has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects fell into "development hell" or were officially canceled, some were turned over to other production teams, and others never made it past the speculative stage.

1980s Love Birds in Bondage Tarantino co-wrote Love Birds in Bondage with Scott Magill or McGill. Tarantino would go on to co-produce and co-direct the film. McGill committed suicide in 1987, but not before destroying all footage that had been shot. The film concerned a young woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury after an accident leading her to act erratically. She is institutionalized in a mental hospital and her boyfriend figures out a way to get himself admitted. Tarantino also played the boyfriend.

My Best Friend's Birthday

Long before his first released feature Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino met with Craig Hamann and was introduced to his 30-40 page script, My Best Friend's Birthday. Tarantino helped expand the script up to 80 pages and agreed to direct the film. On a $5,000 budget and a 16 mm camera, the film was shot in the span of four years. It was often alleged that the completed run time came out to 70 minutes but due to a lab fire during editing, the film was nearly destroyed, and only 36 minutes remained. However, in the 2019 book My Best Friend's Birthday: The Making of a Quentin Tarantino Film, written by Andrew J. Rausch, it was revealed the fire story was fabricated, with Tarantino choosing not to dismiss it as he thought it sounded interesting. In actuality, some rolls of film were simply discarded by mistake, and Tarantino, unsatisfied with the final product, edited together the scenes he liked, leaving the project unfinished. The 36 minute version was roughly edited together, and screened at several film festivals.

The Open Road Tarantino co-worker and collaborator Roger Avary wrote a 40–80 page script while working with Tarantino at Video Archives. Avary likened it to Martin Scorsese's After Hours. The story revolved around a buttoned-up business man who decides to leave his world for the open road. He ends up picking up a wild hitchhiker and they get into various adventures. However, Avary struggled to finish the story and at some point Tarantino started to work on it and make changes. According to Tarantino the title of the screenplay was Pandemonium Reigns. According to Avary, Pandemonium Reigns was a separate script about a boxer who does not throw a fight, and the origins of Butch Coolidge.

At some point the script was named The Open Road and Tarantino ended up turning it into a 500-page screenplay with Avary. A significant change came when Tarantino changed the business man and hitchhiker into a comic book store worker and a call girl named Clarence and Alabama. Clarence begins to write a movie script while the two of them are on the road about a psychotic fantasy version of him and Alabama. The couple are serial killers named Mickey and Mallory. Eventually story and plot from Clarence's script start to bleed into his and Alabama's life, blurring the lines of fantasy and reality.

In spite of being 500 pages long, neither Tarantino nor Avary could figure out how to end the story. They deconstructed the whole thing leading to the screenplays of True Romance and Natural Born Killers, as well as aspects of Killing Zoe and Pulp Fiction.

1990s Untitled John Woo film In 1992, during a Toronto International Film Festival press conference for Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino revealed he wrote a screenplay for a film directed by John Woo. The film went unproduced.

Silver Surfer Fresh off of the success of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino went to Constantin Films with a completed script for a proposed Silver Surfer film. Ultimately, Constantin Films passed on his script.

Luke Cage After the release of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino contemplated developing a film based on Luke Cage. Being a huge fan of the character, Tarantino held a meeting with producer Ed Pressman, who owned the film rights to Luke Cage, and proposed a film based on the character and suggested casting Laurence Fishburne as Cage. Despite liking the idea, Tarantino shifted his interest for Pulp Fiction.

The Psychic remake Sometime in the 1990s, Tarantino considered remaking Lucio Fulci's 1977 giallo Sette note in nero (Seven Notes in Black), released in America as The Psychic. He intended for Jackie Brown co-star Bridget Fonda to star in the film. By the year 2000, Tarantino gave an update on the proposed remake: "It's a project in the murky future. I don't even own the rights to that stuff. It's one of those things where it's like if somebody buys the rights to make it, I won't make it. They can totally fuck it up. If it's meant to happen, it'll happen." No further remarks on the project were made until Dardano Sacchetti, one of the original film's writers, revealed in an interview conducted for its 2019 Blu-ray release that he had been in contact with producers from Sony Pictures, who were interested in having Tarantino or other directors remake the film.

Black Mask In the early 1990s, Tarantino has stated that he originally planned "to do a Black Mask movie", referring to the magazine largely responsible for popularizing hardboiled detective fiction, but development on "it kind of went somewhere else".

Killshot

After completing Pulp Fiction, Tarantino and Roger Avary acquired the film rights to Elmore Leonard's novel Killshot. Tarantino initially planned to write and direct Killshot and have another director make Rum Punch, but he changed his mind after re-reading the latter, saying he "fell in love" with the novel all over again.O'Neil, Gareth (director) (2002). "Jackie Brown: How It Went Down". [Jackie Brown DVD Special Edition]. Miramax Home Entertainment.

Halloween 6

In 1994, after completing Pulp Fiction, Miramax approached Tarantino to write and direct a sixth installment of the Halloween franchise. Though a screenplay was never completed, Tarantino pitched a story idea involving Michael Myers and the Man in Black fleeing Haddonfield together and going on a road trip down Route 66 while murdering people, events which bear resemblance to those depicted in his screenplay for Natural Born Killers, which he was pitching to Miramax Films at the same time. Tarantino ultimately declined the offer, but suggested Evil Dead II co-writer Scott Spiegel as a potential director.

The Killer Inside Me

In the mid-1990s, after the success of Pulp Fiction, Tarantino was attached to direct an adaption of The Killer Inside Me. Uma Thurman was set to star as Amy Stanton. Juliette Lewis was considered for the part of Joyce Lakeland and Brad Pitt was attached to star as Lou Ford. This effort fell through after the September 11 attacks, because the film script was deemed too violent. The film was eventually directed by Michael Winterbottom in 2010, without the involvement of Tarantino.Sundance '10: IFC Films Acquires Alba Starrer 'The Killer Inside Me' from bloody-disgusting.com

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Tarantino was briefly attached to a film adaptation of the 1960s TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. He opted to do Jackie Brown instead. Eventually, a film adaptation of the show without Tarantino's involvement was released in 2015.

Never Again

In 1996, Tarantino was set to direct The X-Files episode "Never Again", but he was prevented by the Directors Guild of America; the guild noted that Tarantino, who was not a member, failed to join the union after directing the ER episode "Motherhood", violating an agreement the two parties had made. A spokeswoman from 20th Century Fox later noted, "Quentin approached us, we were very excited at the opportunity. We made some special arrangements, and we're disappointed that it's not happening. But we bow to Quentin's philosophical stance [and] we hope something can be worked out for the future." The episode was eventually directed by Rob Bowman and released in 1997.

Modesty Blaise

In 1997, it was reported that Tarantino would write the screenplay for a Modesty Blaise film for Miramax, and planned as a franchise. An anticipated sequel, pending the first film's success, was to be written by Neil Gaiman. In 2004, he would later serve as an executive producer on My Name Is Modesty, an adaptation of the Modesty Blaise comic series.

Sometimes We Touch In 1997, Variety reported that Tarantino optioned J.C. Pollock's then-upcoming book Sometimes We Touch.

Green Lantern In the late 1990s, Tarantino was offered to direct a film adaptation of Green Lantern before there was even a script, but he declined the offer.

The Outfit Also in the late 1990s, Tarantino considered doing his version of Donald E. Westlake's The Outfit—previously filmed in 1973—with Robert De Niro as Parker, Harvey Keitel as his partner, and Pam Grier as the female lead. Specifically, the project was mooted during Tarantino's six-year hiatus from directing after the release of Jackie Brown and before committing to Kill Bill. Decides later, he expressed his regret that the opportunity had passed; "There's a part of me that wishes, now that they're older and can't do it, there's a part of me that really wishes I could have done that."

Iron Man In 1999, Tarantino was also linked to a live-action Iron Man film, as director and writer.

Double V Vega When developing Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino began to consider making a prequel/origin story about the Vega brothers. The film would have starred Michael Madsen as Vic Vega (Mr. Blonde) from Reservoir Dogs and John Travolta as Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction. In 2007, due to the actors' ages and because of their characters' deaths in their respective films, Tarantino claimed that the film, titled Double V Vega, was "kinda unlikely now."

2000s Forty Lashes Less One In 2000, Tarantino was rumored to be developing the Elmore Leonard novel, Forty Lashes Less One, into a film. By 2007, he had written 20 pages of the screenplay. In 2015, he revealed that he still owned the rights to adapt the book, and that he was considering adapting it into a television miniseries.

Kill Bill sequels and spin-offs During the production of Kill Bill and Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Tarantino originally believed that he would do a further two live action Kill Bill films, tentatively believing that they would be made once every ten years. In April 2004, Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly that he was planning a sequel: