I've seen the OG Village (and Children) of the Damned, which is maybe one reason I always forget the Carpenter exists.
LOGLINE; This one was always described as female version of MAD MAX/ROAD WARRIOR, although personally, I wouldn't describe it as such, so don't expect the main heroine to be something like Furiosa, and the world is definitely much more realistic and grittier, than crazy and over the top like one in FURY ROAD.The story is more like mix of a road trip and car chase movie. It takes place in post-apocalyptic future, where after some biological disaster, America was ravaged by a plague. Group of scientists create an antidote which is inside the blood of a young boy, nicknamed Pincushion in the script, due to his subjugation to syringes and tests. Once militaristic medical organization called The Cross, who want to control what's left of the country, realize how the cure will destroy their plans, they go after the boy. But good scientists, from the remains of Los Angeles, have already hired two mercenaries to deliver the boy to another group in Salt Lake City, to the lab where cure can be created, and one of the mercenaries is a young girl who has a reputation as the best driver for such jobs. Now two of them have to take the Pincushion across country, while fighting with the raiders and mutants along the way, and Cross vehicles searching and trying to stop them.
BACKGROUND; John Raffo wrote PINCUSHION around 1988. It was his second script, after he stopped working on his first, which he decided was terrible and couldn't be fixed. Instead he focused on the story idea he already had for Pincushion, and wrote the script. Raffo sold his original spec for PINCUSHION to Columbia Pictures, for $500,000, right after the infamous Writer's Guild strike of 1988. Apparently, the script was already widely praised at the time, the reputation which only grew in later years, but I'll get to that.
Amy Pascal, who joined Columbia that same year, was involved in buying the spec and later development of the project, and Scott Rudin signed on as a producer. John Carpenter was attached to direct the film, which was right after he wrote and directed THEY LIVE (1988).
Originally, Jamie Lee Curtis was going to star in the film. Of course, this would reunite her and Carpenter, several years after they worked together on films like HALLOWEEN (1978) and THE FOG (1980). And this was after she starred in one of the highest grossing films of the year, THE FISH CALLED WANDA (1988), and I believe right after she did BLUE STEEL (1990). The budget for Pincushion, at this time, was reported to be around $10 million.
Now, this bit of info I could never confirm 100%, but some sources reported how Carpenter also did a rewrite of the script. Besides Raffo's original spec, only other draft available from 1988 is another (later) draft by Raffo, from November, so if this is true, maybe Carpenter worked on the script later.
FUN FACT; Carpenter also worked on some other projects during this time, which were never made. Considering this was between late 1988 and early to mid 1989, I'd say this was right when he was attached to direct SHADOW COMPANY; An action zombie horror, written by Shane Black and Fred Dekker, and with some uncredited co-writing done by Walter Hill who was also going to produce the film, which would star Kurt Russell as Vietnam war veteran battling his former war buddies who turned into zombies and attacked a small town. If this one interests you, trust me, there's no need to go into too much details here, you can easily find many sites, podcasts and videos talking about this cult unmade film.
By January 1989, Cher was attached to star in Pincushion. This was couple years after she was in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (1987) and MOONSTRUCK (1987), both of which were very successful. By then, the budget for Pincushion increased to $20 million, and there were plans for filming to start that summer.
In September 1989, Jeb Stuart did a rewrite of the script. This was couple months after the release of DIE HARD (1988), which he co-wrote. However, it seems that the project ran into some issues in October, after $1,5 million was already spent on pre-production. And soon after that, development was stopped, or maybe just paused for unknown time.
In April 1992 interview for Starlog, Carpenter said how even though they had what he felt was a "great screenplay", Cher couldn't commit to the project due to some reasons, so he left too, since he didn't want to make the film without her. Around that same time, Cher did mentioned how she was interested in returning to the project.
In January 1993, TriStar Pictures (and Columbia) started working on Pincushion again, and with more producers involved; Ray Stalk, Dan Merrick, Joshua Donen. They wanted John Woo to direct the film, and Sharon Stone to star. Woo was working on post production for HARD TARGET, and Stone has just starred in BASIC INSTINCT, and they both expressed interest in the project. But the problem was, the script was going through more rewrites (by one or more writer or writers which I never could identify), and they were really hoping it would be finished and that both of them would sign on by August.
In September 1993, Demi Moore became attached to star in the film, replacing Stone, while Woo was replaced by Rob Cohen. That same year Moore starred in INDECENT PROPOSAL, and Cohen directed DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY, which interestingly enough, was co-written by Raffo. It's been mentioned how the reason why Moore decided to join the project was because producer Joel Silver told her how Pincushion was the best screenplay he ever read. Just to mention, I never heard he was attached to co-produce Pincushion as well, but considering how big he was, especially at the time (example, that year he produced DEMOLITION MAN), maybe he would have helped to push production to move from the same point it was stuck on for the last several years.
In May 1995, Moore was still attached to star in the film, but this time with new director, Carlo Carlei. It was reported how the script was rewritten by Peter Rader, and then by Carlei. The film still didn't get made, and I'm thinking maybe the fact that other films released that year which Moore, Rader and Carlei did, had something to do with this, since those got either very bad reviews, or were box office bombs; WATERWORLD, for which Rader wrote original script. THE SCARLETT LETTER, starring Moore. FLUKE, directed by Carlei.
Between January and March 1997, Carlei was still attached to direct the film, based on the draft he rewrote himself, and this time Madonna was going to star in it. Carlei said in an interview how he wanted her to star, after he was impressed by her acting in EVITA (1996), which was a solid hit year before. This attempt at making Pincushion also went nowhere.
FUN FACT; Moore and Madonna were close friends, and at one point in early 90’s they were going to star in a buddy cop film titled LEDA AND SWAN which Silver was going to produce. I wonder what are the chances that after Silver told Moore about it, she then went on to mention Pincushion to Madonna, which is maybe how she got interested in the film.
In October 2000, Frank Mugavero did another rewrite of Pincushion for Columbia. That same month he sold his own spec script titled WHEELMAN, another action car chase thriller, so it's possible it had something to do with him getting the job to rewrite Pincushion. If you want to read more about Wheelman, I made a thread about it some time ago;
https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/1n2na0t/wheelman_2000_2001_unproduced_car_chase_action/
Around late 2014, Pascal wanted to try and resurrect the project, along with some other producers. They had Jennifer Lawrence in mind to star, and directors such as Gareth Evans, who just directed THE RAID 2, or Morten Tyldum, who just directed THE IMITATION GAME, to direct Pincushion. Interestingly, few months later Tyldum was chosen to direct PASSENGERS (2016), which co-starred Lawrence, and was produced by Columbia.
Pincushion is still said to be considered as one of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, but it doesn't seem there were any more attempts at making it since then.