A Confederacy Of Dunces is a cult novel Hollywood has spent close to 40 years trying to adapt. Development Hell is well-known to movie fans and involves a promising project being stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of development. One famous example is Mad Max: Fury Road, which was set to shoot with original star Mel Gibson in 2003, before being cancelled due to the Iraq War. The sequel would then spent years in limbo, with tantalizing artwork hinting at what it could be. The movie eventually arrived in 2015 starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron but proved to be worth the long wait.

Not every movie is so lucky, such as the many attempts at making a live-action version of classic anime Akira. Despite the wealth of talent that’s been attached, including directors like Stephen Norrington (Blade), the Hughes Brothers, and Jordan Peele and actors like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kristen Stewart, and Gary Oldman, its always fails to get off the ground. Taika Waititi was set to finally get Akira going but delayed it to focus on Thor: Love And Thunder first.

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Some projects have been trapped there so long they’ve become legendary, which is the case with A Confederacy Of Dunces. This is based on the classic cult novel by the late John Kennedy Toole, which follows the lazy, workshy, and cynical Ignatius J. Reilly, who is also a self-styled scholar. While he might be a truly horrible character, both he and the book are hilarious. This is why many filmmakers have tried to turn A Confederacy Of Dunces into a movie, but none have succeeded.

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The great John Belushi (The Blues Brothers) was set to play Ignatius in A Confederacy Of Dunces movie directed by Harold Ramis, but the actor passed away before it came to be. Over the years actors like John Candy and John Goodman were touted for the part, while comedian and writer Stephen Fry – who is a huge admirer of the novel – was hired to pen a screenplay in the late 1990s. It seems the closest the movie has come to reality was a version adapted by Steven Soderbergh and set to be directed by David Gordon Green (Halloween) in 2006. Will Ferrell would have played Ignatius and by all accounts the script was great, but it also fell apart.

It briefly sparked to life in 2012, with James Bobin (The Muppets) set to direct Zach Galifianakis’ Ignatius, but again, it didn’t move ahead. Given the number of fans the book has, it feels like a given it will happen someday, though Steven Soderbergh would later state he believes the attempted adaptation is somehow cursed. If A Confederacy Of Dunces ever does happen, there will be big pressure on the filmmakers to live up to decades of hype.

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About The Author


Padraig Cotter
(3486 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

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A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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