Craig Zaden and Neil Meron were set to produce "The Mayor of Castro Street" directed by Bryan Singer and possibly starring Steve Carell as the gay San Francisco mayor Harvey Milk who tragically gunned down by a political rival. But Zaden recently told FilmStew.com that a rival film about Milk starring Sean Penn and directed by Gus Van Sant has basically torpedoed the project. “Bryan was supposed to direct 'The Mayor of Castro Street' immediately following 'Valkyrie,'” Zadan said. “And out of the blue, Gus Van Sant came along with another Harvey Milk script. So although we have been working on this movie for 16 years, where finally we found the moment in time where we got the right script, the right director and even - we haven’t really discussed this – shall we say, interest in the movie from Steve Carell to play Harvey Milk…”

“Once we started thinking about it [the idea of Carell as Milk], we thought, ‘Wow, that’s a great idea,’” he continues. “So we were all primed to make it; Warner Bros. was primed to make it; and, in theory, we would have been going into production right after the writers strike. But now, with the Gus Van Sant movie going ahead, nobody wants to have another situation like Capote.”

“They [Van Sant, Focus] haven’t starting shooting yet, so anything can happen. But the handwriting is on the wall that if they go into production and start shooting, we won’t get to make our movie.”

It goes to show you, waiting 15 years to make your dream project probably isn't such a good idea.