Atuk, A Film So Cursed It Never Got Made
Wikimedia CommonsJohn Belushi, John Candy, and Chris Farley all signed on to star in Atuk before their untimely deaths.
Unlike other films on this list, Atuk was not a horror movie, and it had nothing to do with the devil. Based on Canadian author Mordecai Richler’s 1963 novel The Incomparable Atuk, the film has had a number of directors and actors attached to it, but unfortunately, tragedy has prevented the film from ever coming to fruition.
The first director to attempt Atuk was Norman Jewison. Collider reports that Jewison had enlisted Tod Carroll to write the script for Atuk in the early 1970s, but ultimately moved on from the project to direct Jesus Christ Superstar.
It wasn’t until a decade later, in 1982, that John Belushi got hold of the script and signed on to play the lead. Unfortunately, on March 5, 1982, Belushi died from a drug overdose at the age of 33.
Six years later, in 1988, the film finally found its next star in Sam Kinison. In this instance, production on the film actually began, and Kinison managed to shoot a few scenes of Atuk. But as Carroll later told the Los Angeles Times, Kinison wanted parts of the script to be rewritten, ultimately leading the project to once again be abandoned.
And then on April 10, 1992, Kinison died in a car accident. He was 38.
Shortly after, John Candy expressed interest in Atuk — then died after a heart attack at the age of 43 on March 4, 1994.
Soon enough, comedy legend Chris Farley was in talks to finally bring Atuk to the big screen. Like the others before him, though, Chris Farley faced an untimely death, overdosing in December 1997.
To this day, it seems that Atuk was simply never meant to be, and some believe it’s a cursed film.
