Keeping secrets about upcoming films may be incredibly hard these days, but it was a lot easier pre-Internet. Nowadays, every person out there can pontificate about EVERY TOPIC IMAGINABLE. Therefore, we have a lot of speculation about everything, movies included.

But even before the world wide web existed, movie fans started rumors about upcoming films. Horror films, big budget franchises, no one was safe!

Let’s take a look at 10 wild rumors about movies that ran rampant over the past 40 years.

1. The Han/Vader fusion in The Empire Strikes Back

WAY before the Internet got involved, Star Wars fans speculated about rumors, theories, and what was coming next in the film franchise. Before The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980, rumors swirled that Han Solo and Darth Vader would engage in an epic lightsaber battle and their “life forces” would be fused.

This would cause Luke Skywalker to have a major dilemma. If he killed Darth Vader, would he also kill his best buddy Han? This obviously never happened, but the rumor about Han dying persisted for many years, possibly because the plot point about him getting frozen in carbonite was leaked to the public and took on a life of its own.

2. The Shining was really an expose of a faked moon landing

Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of the Stephen King novel polarizes audiences in a big way. People either love it or hate it. I personally love it. It traumatized me as a kid (not sure why I was allowed to watch it at such a young age) and I am forever grateful. The eerie silence of the secluded Colorado hotel that Jack Nicholson manages is enough to drive anyone crazy…which is exactly what happens. All the while his wife and son are stuck in the mountain retreat with him for the entire winter. His son Danny has visions of past horrors that occurred at the hotel and his wife…well she just kind of annoys everyone. Jack is also working on a book because he’s a writer. So he thinks the job watching the empty hotel will be perfect to get in the writer’s mindset.

There’s a documentary out there called Room 237 all about just what the hell the movie really means. One very strange rumor about The Shining is that Kubrick intended for the film to be a secret apology for his role in producing fake footage of the 1969 moon landing. Danny wears an Apollo 11 sweater in the film, so there’s that…but it sounds pretty far fetched.

3. Cannibal Holocaust depicted real murders

Another film from 1980…weird. Have you ever had the pleasure of seeing Cannibal Holocaust? This Italian exploitation splatterfest was marketed as a found footage film about a film crew that ran into a tribe of cannibals in the Amazon. Think The Blair Witch Project, but with natives in the South American jungle killing and eating a camera crew instead of annoying twenty-somethings in the woods being chased by a ghostly creature. I don’t know about you, but I was NOT a fan of The Blair Witch Project…

Cannibal Holocaust was incredibly controversial when it was released and was banned in Italy and Australia. There are actually several films with similar premises. A recent entry into the canon was 2013’s Green Inferno directed by Eli Roth. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never seen Cannibal Holocaust, but it is on my list. Perhaps it would make a good first date movie with a lucky lady?

The director of Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato, was actually taken to court because some folks believed that he had people murdered on camera. Obviously, that did not happen and charges of the movie being a snuff film were ultimately rejected, but some of the onscreen animal deaths in the film were real.

4. The curse of Poltergeist

I have to admit that as a horror movie fanatic, I’m really not that crazy about Poltergeist. It is always mentioned in the same breath as classics such as Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I am just not into it. I tried to revisit it again not too long ago, and I found it incredibly boring and tedious. Maybe I’m the crazy one?

Regardless of my opinion, Poltergeist is an extremely popular horror film and is consistently regarded as one of the better scary movies of the 1980s (the sequels are pretty hard to sit through, though…and that’s not just my opinion).

Tobe Hooper’s 1982 creeper about a family dealing with a serious haunting has had rumors swirling around it for years. In short, that people associated with the film became cursed and suffered untimely deaths. There is some truth to this story, as two actresses from the film died young: 22-year-old Dominique Dunne was murdered and 12-year-old Heather O’Rourke died of septic shock. The rumor associated with the film is that the skeletons used in the pool scene were not props, but the remains of dead people, and they exacted revenge. Don’t disturb the dead, people.

5. Howard Stern was going to play Scarecrow in Batman 5

This film was never made because 1997’s Batman and Robin was such a bomb, but there were some rumors about a possible entry into the series that was going to be called Batman Unchained. Director Joel Schumacher reportedly wanted Howard Stern to play Scarecrow and Courtney Love to play Harley Quinn. That would’ve been…interesting. In reality, Schumacher was never interested in the shock jock for the Scarecrow role.

But hey, maybe Stern could’ve pulled it off. Remember how much grief he got when the news came out that Private Parts, based on his book, was going to be adapted into a film and Stern was going to play himself? I do. A lot of people dismissed the idea as ridiculous and embarrassing. And then the film came out in 1997 to rave reviews and everyone had to eat crow. If you’ve never seen Private Parts, do yourself a favor and check it out. No matter how you feel about Howard Stern, it is legitimately a good, funny, heartfelt movie. There have been rumors throughout the years that Stern would star in or produce another film, but none have come to fruition yet.

6. Halloween vs. Hellraiser

I would’ve paid to see this one. At some point (ha!), Pinhead and Michael Myers from the Hellraiser and Halloween movie franchises were supposed to appear in a film together…and raise hell (ha ha!). But the Akkad brothers, who produce the Halloween series, ultimately didn’t want their villain mixing it up with any other creatures. And myabe we can’t blame them, because it kind of screams of desperation when a well-worn film series throws its fans a major curveball. It’s kind of like when a TV show introduces a new character because they’re running out of ideas. Remember when Oliver joined The Brady Bunch? Not cool.

But it might have been a horror movie mash-up that worked. Both villains are pretty popular in the horror world, and I personally would love to see how Michael Myers fared when matched up against another slasher. I admit I haven’t seen Alien vs. Predator, but I did think Freddy vs. Jason was pretty enjoyable in a cheesy kind of way. The Halloween series will live on later in 2018 with a new reboot. We’ll have to wait until October to see how this new direction for the iconic horror franchise works out…

7. Jaws as a 3-D comedy?

Hmmmmm…sounds a little fishy to me (okay, that’s the last pun). Some films should just never be remade, and Jaws is one of those. But that didn’t stop the rumor mill from spinning in 2010, when word of a remake of the classic 1975 film surfaced. The shocking part? That Jaws would be remade as a 3-D movie and rely much more on humor to lure the young people in. Man, that really would’ve sucked…

I mean, have you ever seen Jaws 3-D from 1983? It has a good cast, including Dennis Quaid, Lea Thompson, and Louis Gossett, Jr., but man that movie is painful to watch. I will say, however, that seeing that one as a kid kind of freaked me out because the killer shark somehow infiltrates SeaWorld, and as a 6-year-old, I totally bought into it. But now I’m much wiser (kind of) and I tried to watch it within the past couple of years. Wow, what a snoozer. And I think Jaws: The Revenge, released in 1987, might be the worst of the bunch. Take my advice: just stick with the original Jaws and you be good to go. Trust me.

8. The death of the Dark Knight

Director Christopher Nolan has always said he would only make three Batman films. But before The Dark Knight Rises was released, speculation was rampant that Christian Bale’s Batman would be killed off. The trailer for the film only added fuel to the fire, as Bane was throwing Batman’s broken mask on the ground. But Batman did not kick the bucket onscreen…yet.

So, will he or won’t he? And what’s in store for the Caped Crusader in future films. I have to admit that this franchise puzzles me a bit. I loved the Adam West TV show version of Batman as a kid, and of course, Tim Burton’s 1989 movie version reintroduced the hero into our lives after a hiatus. The sequels to the ’89 film were pretty bad (let’s be honest), but then Nolan’s revamped versions beginning in 2005 made many of us love Batman again. My confusion lies with the animated films. There have been a bunch of them in the past several years (including the LEGO one), and now I’m totally lost. Are they good? Worthy of watching? And when are we getting a new live-action version? Help me out, people, I’m in the dark here!

9. Man of Steel 2?

This one is still a huge mystery, as the film has no script, no director, and no release date. But that rumor mill keeps on a spinnin’! The speculation regarding this project is all about who’s going to show up with Superman as friend or foe. Possible candidates have included Brainiac, Bizarro, and Kara Zor-El, also known as Supergirl. As this film sits in limbo, all we can do is guess.

This is another franchise that has lost me. I never saw Man of Steel because, well, everyone I talked to told me it wasn’t very good. Which I was disappointed about, because I always enjoyed Superman’s origin story (at least the one where he grows up in Kansas). And while we’re on the subject, all the superhero movies of the past several years that have about 30 superheroes in them just seem so odd to me. But maybe they’re great films…it just seems hard to keep track of all the different men and women (and creatures) appearing in so many films all the time. Call me old fashioned, but I like the very typical, one hero kind of movie, the basic stuff. Are you with me or against me?

10. The Force Awakens all kinds of rumors

Before Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit theaters in 2015, fans were in a frenzy about how the extremely secretive film would play out. Many fan theories hit the Internet, including: Kylo Ren was actually Luke Skywalker, Kylo was Luke’s son, Obi-Wan would be in the film, Finn was Lando Calrissian’s son, and that Rey was Luke’s daughter. Wow, wrap your head around those.

Again, in the Star Wars department, I’m a total outsider now. Listen up people, and prepare to judge me in any way you feel necessary: I’ve only seen the original three films: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. The ones that came out in the late 1990s/early 2000s just did not look appealing at all to me, and now I feel like I missed the boat completely. I have, however, been consulting with my friends who’ve never missed a beat, and I get mixed reviews. One pal of mine believes everything in the Star Wars universe is absolutely perfect and they can do no wrong. Another friend of mine is pretty peeved at the whole situation and has now abandoned ship. The real question is, what do YOU think?