Over the past year or so, horror master John Carpenter has finally decided to shake off the cobwebs and start moving forward on a number of feature films after taking an 8-year hiatus from the director’s chair (not counting his two recent episodes of Masters of Horror). While he is reportedly in the middle of production on a horror/thriller called The Ward starring Amber Heard, it appears that one of his other upcoming projects may have unfortunately fallen by the wayside.

Screen Rant reports that the proposed John Carpenter/Nicolas Cage team-up Riot (previously titled Scared Straight) is now officially dead in the water. The news comes courtesy of actress Katie Chonacas, who was also going to be an executive producer of the film.

“I don’t think the film Riot is happening anymore, it was part of a two-picture deal however, Nic Cage has the option to replace Riot with another film.”

I am guessing that the other part of that two-picture deal was Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which is also produced by the folks at Millennium/Nu Image Films. Since Nic Cage also recently signed on for Millennium’s 3-D revenge flick Drive Angry, that may very well have been the movie he chose instead of Riot. Either way, having seen just how unhinged Bad Lieutenant is, it’s sad to think that Riot could have been equally amazing. Ah well. Bring on L.A. Gothic, Escape from Earth, and all the rest!