During his long career, American film director Ron Howard has worked on several projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects fell in development hell, were officially cancelled, were in development limbo or would see life under a different production team.

In the early 1980s, Howard planned to make a film surrounding the events of Greenpeace and their ship the Rainbow Warrior. "That ship had been impounded and captured by Spain, and I wanted to do a movie about that, and their escape," Howard later said. "I couldn't get it off the ground." He later fulfilled his ambitions to make a movie set in the ocean with 2015's In the Heart of the Sea.

Howard was offered the opportunity to direct Superman IV: The Quest for Peace by Christopher Reeve, but The Cannon Group, Inc. hired Sidney J. Furie to direct instead.

In the early 1990s, producer Wendy Finerman was developing The Postman for Howard to direct, with Eric Roth writing the script and Tom Hanks set to star. However, they were all booted off the project when Kevin Costner took over.

In January 1993, among the projects Imagine Entertainment were developing was Hep, a "stylish, 1960s detective piece" conceived by Howard about a "slick" L.A. private eye who must solve his partner's murder. Rockne O'Bannon was writing the screenplay based on Howard's idea., John Byrum was hired to rewrite O'Bannon's script. The project was later retitled Johnny Diamond, and Scott Rosenberg was brought on to pen a full rewrite of the script, with William Goldman overseeing the rewrite. The film was never made, with Howard nor with another director attached.

In July 1993, it was reported that Howard was developing a pitch called Clipped for his Imagine Entertainment production banner, which was being eyed as a vehicle for Steve Martin. Howard described it as "a contemporary comedy which explores the human psyche in an entertaining and exciting way. A guy gets a paper clip stuck in his brain, and as it moves around, it stimulates different lobes of his brain, whether it's his willpower, or his ability to censor." Charlie Peters was to write the script.

In 1995, after Apollo 13, Howard was said to be interested in directing two thrillers as his next films; Ransom, and an unrealized project called Into Thin Air, scripted by Henry Bean.

In the 1990s, Howard was one of three directors, including Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, in talks with George Lucas to direct Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, which Howard revealed on a 2015 episode of the Happy, Sad Confused podcast, stating that he found the offer too daunting. Lucas eventually ended up directing the film.