Games TV and Movie projects that nearly happened or were abandoned.

"With both the movie and book licenses, EA's restrictions were lifted. Almost immediately, development began on The Lord of the Rings: The White Council, a role-playing game that would transform Middle-earth into a massive open world for players to explore. Developer EA Redwood Shores announced the title in summer 2006 and promised a world filled with characters controlled by powerful simulation AI previously used for The Sims 2 and a seemingly endless number of things to do with a story-based quest structure. Players would play as either a Man, Dwarf or Elf and move through Middle-earth as an ally of the White Council, the collection of powers fighting against Sauron's encroaching darkness.

The White Council was almost too ambitious. Monif said that during pre-production, much of the talk focused on what developers could do with the game for the next console generation — that is, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 — lighting and particle effects, the world generation, how characters would look. Players would be able to ride the Eagles. They would come into contact with an entire race of Dragons.

"It was going to be The Elder Scrolls [4]: Oblivion meets The Lord of the Rings," Monif said. "The book rights landed, so we were able to do all sorts of cool shit, that was the mandate. We got them and just went, 'Go go go!'"

Monif described massive hand-drawn maps that were scanned and placed into the game, which would give players detailed directions to consult as they ran through large areas. Monsters wouldn't randomly spawn; instead, there would be roving bands of creatures covering the map, with players having the option to engage or use stealth. And the story would dig into Tolkien lore found outside of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy — namely, The Silmarillion and, briefly, Unfinished Tales.

Prototyping was nearly complete and The White Council had been officially announced. But in February 2007, EA announced during an investor call that project had been put on hold indefinitely, and shortly afterward a large round of layoffs hit the company. Sources told Polygon that around this time, EA executives came to look at the project and asked how much time the developers needed to complete the game. According to Monif, Redwood Shores asked for three more years. EA killed the project and let the company's limited hold on the literary license run out. " 

There and back again: A history of The Lord of the Rings in video games by Alexa Ray Corriea www.polygon.com/2014/9/23/6414775/lord-the-rings-tolkien-video-games