Unproduced and upcoming films
In the late 1980s, Harlin was attached as the original director of Alien 3, developing the film for a year before departing from the production due to creative differences.
From the late 1980s and going into the 1990s, Harlin was attached to multiple projects at Carolco. Among them were Child of the Dragon, a starring vehicle for Brandon Lee written by Barry Beckerman about a leader of a Chinese student rebellion who comes to America to rescue his sister, and Sandbox Club written by Tom DeCerchio.
Harlin was interested in making a biopic about fellow Finnish personality, composer and national hero Jean Sibelius. Die Hard 2 used Sibelius' Finlandia in a crucial scene, but the Sibelius movie was eventually directed by Timo Koivusalo in 2003.
In August 1992, Harlin had lined up Warriors of the Rainbow to be his next film following Cliffhanger, reteaming with producer Mario Kassar. The script was written by David Williamson and John Briley and focused on Greenpeace, specifically the early 1970s work of Robert Hunter. "My life's mission is to make that movie," Harlin stressed to Variety. "I hope it will attract a name star. I want to make movies of substance–that will entertain and make people think." He wanted to cast both John Lithgow and Dern for undisclosed parts in the film. At the time, he planned to follow it up with a film for Warner Bros., The Original Gangster, which deals with black L.A. gangs in the 1960s and with one of the founders of the Crips. Richard Dilello was writing the script. Harlin dubbed the story as one about "making peace instead of violence." Approximately $1.3 million in development costs was spent on Warriors of the Rainbow, despite never going into production.
In March 1993, it was reported that following the success of the Western Unforgiven, TriStar Pictures had reentered development on an 18-year-old screenplay Hell and High Water, with Harlin directing and John Patrick Shanley hired to rewrite. The post-Civil War drama is a fictional tale of the first white men to travel down the Colorado River. It was originally written by Franklin Cohen under the title Running the Wild Big Red, which had been optioned in 1974 by David Brower and David Foster and then sold to Columbia Pictures. Over the next two decades, screenwriters Walter Newman and Paul F. Edwards wrote various new drafts to no avail. It was tentatively scheduled to go into production in August 1993, but this never occurred.
In June 1993, Harlin was attached to direct John Milius' script of the Sgt. Rock comics as his next film following Cliffhanger, in which he was to reteam with producer Joel Silver. Arnold Schwarzenegger was to star in the title role. At the time, Harlin was also developing the directing vehicle Love and Honor, an epic in Russia. Neither film was ever made.
In July 1993, Harlin was set to direct Flies (also referred to as The Fly III), a sequel to David Cronenberg's The Fly with his then-wife Davis reprising her role. The script by Richard Jefferies featured a story in which Davis' character gives birth to twin boys, and is later suspected of murder when she merges their untainted human genes into a single being, fearing that they both would begin developing fly-hybrid characteristics. Harlin and Davis were also going to collaborate on an adaptation of Mistress of the Seas, but opted to do Cutthroat Island instead.
In April 1995, HBO was reportedly developing a horror series called Fear Itself, about phobias, set to be directed by Harlin, written by Shane Black and produced by Michael De Luca.
In May 1995, following The Long Kiss Goodnight, Harlin and Davis intended to follow up with Exit Zero, a spec script by Kurt Wimmer about "what would happen if the Internet achieves consciousness and decides that the fate of the world is better off in its hands than it is in mankind's." Harlin was to direct and produce for New Line Cinema.
In 1996, he was attached to producer Silver's long-in-the-works project Isobar.
In 1997 he was going to direct Frequency for New Line Cinema, but allegedly the film got into trouble after Stallone asked too much for playing the lead. Eventually film was directed by Gregory Hoblit and starring Dennis Quaid.
In 1998, Warner Bros. acquired a pitch by Talley Griffith called Time Out, which Harlin developed to direct into a film.
In 1999, Harlin began developing the action-comedy Nosebleed at New Line Cinema, starring Chan as a window washer who foils a terrorist attack to destroy the World Trade Center. The film was delayed after changing studios to MGM in May 2001. After the September 11 attacks the plot was drastically rewritten ultimately before being completely shelved. Chan later told Oriental Daily News that the film was scheduled to begin filming at the North Tower less than two hours before it was hit by American Airlines Flight 11, and that he only escaped the attack because he made a last-minute decision to travel to Toronto to begin filming The Tuxedo instead. However, Chan's claim has been criticized as improbable since the production was delayed after the change in studios and since he was contracted for the production of The Tuxedo in Toronto months before the attacks.
Harlin's next project after Driven was to be a movie adaptation of the Ray Bradbury short story A Sound of Thunder, but Harlin left the project after a disagreement with Bradbury. Although the director was changed, Harlin was credited as a producer when the finished film was released in 2005.
In 2002, Harlin became attached to direct Land of Legend for Crusader Entertainment instead. The film, with a screenplay by Chris Hauty, was billed as an epic set in the 9th century, that follows a Danish prince who is sold into slavery as a child and returns home fifteen years later to exact revenge on the people who did him wrong. Harlin was expected to start work on the project following Mindhunters.
In 2004, it was reported that Harlin was hired to develop and direct a feature based on the graphic novel Full Moon Fever by Joe Casey, for producers Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter.
In 2006, Harlin collaborated with Selin to direct a biopic of the Finnish President and Marshal of Finland Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, but budget constraints put the project on hold. Instead, Harlin made another foray into low-budget horror with The Covenant, which was another moderate commercial success. In 2007, the Mannerheim film project resumed temporarily and Harlin returned to Finland. The screenplay was written by Heikki Vihinen and Marko Leino, and was scheduled to be the largest film production in Finnish history. Production began in 2008 with Mikko Nousiainen starring as Mannerheim, and the film was to premiere in Helsinki on January 15, 2010. However, 30% of the funding was cut by one of the financiers due to the Great Recession, and the delay meant that the time window for shooting the winter scenes during the spring of 2009 passed. Pre-production finally commenced in 2010, and the project was assigned to Dome Karukoski in August 2011.
In 2007, it was announced that Harlin would direct an adaptation of the comic-book series Brodie's Law.
In 2011, it was reported that he was planning a sequel to The Long Kiss Goodnight.
On 16 June 2017 it was announced Harlin will direct Hanging Coffins for Shanghai Film Group and Shanghai New Wave Films. On 18 June 2017, it was announced Harlin will direct Operation Somalia. The film's story, based on true events, revolves around a rescue operation against Somali pirates mounted by Chinese Special Operations Forces.
On 8 May 2018, it was announced Harlin will direct Solara, a Chinese sci-fi epic revolving around an international team that must work together to save Earth from a global catastrophe. On 18 June 2018 it was announced Harlin will direct Operation Wild.
On January 19, 2021, it was announced that Harlin will direct the new Inspector Palmu film, based on a character created by Finnish writer Mika Waltari. Although the film is shot in Finland, unlike the previous Finnish-language Palmu films, Harlin's film is becoming an international English-language production, where an actor is also being sought internationally for the title role. Filming of the new Inspector Palmu should begin at the end of 2024.
A sequel to The Postcard Killings, entitled The Postcard Killer, was announced in May 2024 with Harlin slated to direct. Filming was set to begin in fall 2024 in London, Madrid, Florence and Latvia, but was later pushed to January 2025.
