The Rip Director Joe Carnahan Reveals The Movie That Got Away That He Would've Loved To Make [Exclusive]

Joe Carnahan has been a successful writer and director in Hollywood for a long time, helming the likes of "Smokin' Aces" and "The A-Team," among many others. But Carnahan is also one of those directors who has spent time developing a project only for his version to fall apart somewhere along the way. Of those movies that got away, which one would he have loved to make?

/Film's Ben Pearson recently spoke to Carnahan in honor of his new Netflix movie "The Rip" starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. During the conversation, the filmmaker was asked if he could pick one project that never came to be, which one feels the most like it got away. Carnahan's answer? Not "Mission Impossible III," nor "Uncharted." Rather, it was his Pablo Escobar biopic "Killing Pablo." Here's what Carnahan had to say about it:

"I wish I could have made 'Killing Pablo' because I spent a lot of time on that book, and I really loved it and I thought I wrote a really good script. And at the same time, José Padilha and Wagner Moura come along and do 'Narcos,' and it's like, 'Well, that's dynamite. I can't even...' You know what I mean? It's like, what do I do? You can't complain, because they made something fantastic. But that was one I wish I could have, god, I wish we could have just gotten in there and done that at the time."

"Killing Pablo" was originally given the green light back in October 2007. At that time, Christian Bale ("Batman Begins") and Javier Bardem ("No Country for Old Men") were set to star. Unfortunately, the project eventually fell away, as these things often do.

As Joe Carnahan points out, Netflix did Pablo Escobar's story rather well with "Narcos," which ran for six seasons between "Narcos" and "Narcos: Mexico." So it's not terribly likely, it seems, that this one would be revived, at least not by him. But there are other movies over the years that Carnahan wishes he'd actually got to make.

"I think my 'Death Wish' script, which was, even though I got credit for the Bruce Willis version, my script was nothing like that," Carnahan also said. "It remains probably the best thing I think I've written. I would love another shot at that one, because that was a really, really specific movie that I wanted to make."

Carnahan's version of "Death Wish" was going to star Frank Grillo ("The Grey"), but creative differences got in the way. Eli Roth ("Hostel") took over, with Bruce Willis in the lead role. Speaking further, the director touched on whether or not his version could ever see the light of day, assuming another reboot of the franchise were to ever come about.

"Yeah, the thing is, I don't even know that you need to call mine...It was so kind of in and of itself. I just called the [protagonist] Paul Kersey, but beyond that, [there wasn't a connection to the franchise]. It was wildly different, it took place in L.A., it was just a very different approach. I'd like another at bat with that one."

Carnahan is no stranger to coming and going with big franchise movies. He was long attached to "Bad Boys 3" before clashing with Will Smith led him to depart the project, with "Bad Boys for Life" pressing forth without him. Another thing touched on was an adaptation of Mark Millar's dark superhero comic "Nemesis."

Again, Carnahan was just one of many directors attached to the movie version of this comic that never came to pass. In 2020, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost ("Project Power") became attached to "Nemesis," but that version never materialized either. Carnahan expressed a feeling that the movie could be fun, but doesn't sound confident that his version would be revived.

"When your plot is, they're going to kill the President, and someone goes like, 'That movie could be over in 30 seconds.' It's like, 'Yay!' I thought my brother and I wrote this really cool version. Because I thought Mark [Millar]'s graphic novel was great, but very thin. Like, 'Okay, what if Bruce Wayne was the Joker?' basically, is kind of the [premise]. But I did think we did a really cool thing in there, and I think the idea of going in and starting to execute politicians is probably, would play huge right now. But again, yeah, that's another one that I think would be a lot of fun. How do you do that?"

Who knows? Netflix owns Millarworld now and if "The Rip" performs well, maybe it could convince them to make this happen with Carnahan at the helm. Stranger things have happened. His next directing project hasn't been revealed so he seemingly has an opening now that this one is in the books.

"The Rip" is streaming now on Netflix.