There have been films that have had their releases delayed for other reasons - and most of them were well before COVID-19.

The New Mutants was originally scheduled for release in April 2018, well before COVID-19 hit. The release date was first postponed until February 2019 to avoid conflicting with the release of Deadpool 2 (did it really have to be postponed that long?), then delayed again, and then again. At least part of this was because of the complications of the Disney takeover of Fox, but still. There were also rumours of reshoots and postproduction tinkering - as so often with Hollywood, it's hard to know the truth, but the delays were real.

For whatever reason, the movie did not come out until August this year. It was nothing special.

The Current War, released late last year, was originally scheduled to come out in 2017. But it was originally produced by Harvey Weinstein and that was the time he was facing multiple sexual harassment allegations - and earlier this year he was sentenced to a long prison term - so it's understandable he had other things on his mind than a film about electricity. The film was shelved, then in November 2017 sold to another company that sold it to yet another. After reshoots and trims at director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's instigation - his mentor Martin Scorsese, one of the producers, had the right of final cut, it finally saw the light of day. The film's not terrible, but not terribly special.

Financial problems during shooting and/or postproduction are common reasons for delayed releases. It's probably not surprising that the legendary low-budget filmmaker Edward D. Wood Jr is prominent here. One of his films, Night of the Ghouls, filmed in 1957 did not get released until 1984 - six years after Wood's death in 1978 - because of an unpaid lab bill. Film entrepreneur Wade Williams paid the bill and acquired the rights to the film.

Even well-regarded filmmakers can suffer. The Joss Whedon-Drew Goddard film The Cabin in the Woods was scheduled for release in February 2010, then it was announced it would be released in a 3D conversion in February the following year. But it seems the real issue was studio MGM's financial problems. The Cabin in the Woods' distribution rights were eventually sold to Lionsgate and the film was released in April 2012, grossing a respectable amount and attracting many positive reviews.

RKO boss Howard Hughes was an aviator as well as a filmmaker (and many other things besides) and the film Jet Pilot was a project of special interest for him. Production began in 1949 and production took 18 months, caused in large part by changes in the script, multiple directors, retakes and budget cuts. It was announced for release in 1951, 1953 and 1955. In February 1957, it was included in a package of completed films RKO sold to Universal-International. On release, Jet Pilot went down in flames. So long was the delay that many of the planes the film showcased had become obsolete.

Some go the straight-to-DVD/streaming route even after some fanfare or promise. I remember hearing about a remake of The Devil and Daniel Webster years ago but then things went quiet. For this, his directorial debut, Alec Baldwin was also acting, with an impressive cast including Anthony Hopkins and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Classic source in the Stephen Vincent Benet short story, big-name actors, what could possibly go wrong?

After shooting finished in 2001, money - you guessed it - ran out in post-production. The film was seized by a bankruptcy court and sold to another producer who recut and retitled it from the original story's title to Shortcut to Happiness. Under that name it was released in 2007. Baldwin adopted a pseudonym - Harry Kirkpatrick - for his directorial credit and the film had only a brief outing in cinemas before going to cable TV.

Sometimes movie releases are delayed or even halted entirely because the studios realise the film is terrible and likely to be a financial as well as critical dud. This can lead to rewrites, reshoots, reediting - anything to save a film believed salvageable. Given the quality of some of the films that do get released into cinemas and the everlasting difficulties in predicting what audiences will pay to see (which is not necessarily what's good), the extent of this might seem surprising. Often films don't get critics' preview screenings - a pretty good sign they're going to stink - and there's the above-mentioned straight-to-digital dumping (for movies, not getting cinema release still seems a mark of shame).

Some films, however, don't get released at all.

Another never-released film was the live-action Gods Behaving Badly, adapted from Marie Phillips' novel, starring Christopher Walken, John Turturro and Sharon Stone. It was panned at the 2013 Rome International Film Festival and never shown again.

Then there's the animated film Big Bug Man, which featured the voices of Brendan Fraser and - in his final film role - Marlon Brando (who died a month after recording). It was written and co-directed by Bob Bendetson, whose sitcom writing credits include episodes of ALF, The Simpsons and Home Improvement. The film was scheduled for release in 2006, then 2007, then 2008 and has still never been released. Considering the abysmal quality of many of the films Brando made during his career, we can only wonder how bad this could be. Alas, we might never get to find out.