In the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" (or "development limbo") is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development. A film, television program, screenplay, computer program,concept, or idea stranded in development hell takes an especially long time to start production, or never does.

The film industry buys rights to many popular novels, video games, and comics, but it may take years for such properties to be successfully brought to the cinema, and often with considerable changes to the plot, characters, and general tone.

In the case of a film or television screenplay, the screenwriter may have successfully sold a screenplay to a certain set of producers or studio executives, but then new executives assigned to the project may raise objections to all the scripts and casting decisions they oversee, mandating rewrites and recasting. As directors and actors become "attached" to the project, further rewrites and recasting may be done, to accommodate the needs of the new talents involved in the project. Should the project fail to meet their needs, they might leave the project or simply refuse to complete it, causing further rewrites and recasting. At any point, a project may be forced to begin again from scratch.