Fawlty Towers ran for just 12 episodes on BBC Two between 1975 and 1979. The short-lived British sitcom starred Monty Python’s John Cleese as Basil Fawlty, the ill-mannered proprietor of a hotel who’s constantly locking horns with his wife, his staff, and his guests. Both seasons were written by Cleese and his then-wife, Connie Booth, who also played Polly on the show. Although the couple were divorced before Fawlty Towers ended, they remained friends and at one point, discussed turning the beloved series into a feature-length film. 

Cleese and Booth weren’t interested in doing a typical movie adaptation, however. To coin a phrase, they were looking to try “something completely different.” The first order of business was to get Basil and the rest of the characters away from their familiar surroundings at the hotel. According to the 2003 book Fawlty Towers: Fully Booked by Morris Bright and Robert Ross, they were picturing a “broader, more ambitious landscape.”

Cleese recalled one particular idea they’d come up with that he really loved. The story would’ve revolved around Basil visiting his former employee, Manuel (played by Andrew Sachs in the original series), and his family in Spain. The trip starts off poorly with Basil having to wait 14 hours for a flight out of London’s Heathrow Airport. Then, when he finally gets on board, a terrorist attempts to hijack the plane. 

Basil, still seething from his long wait, manages to overpower the terrorist, but when the pilot informs him that they have to return to Heathrow, he gets even angrier. Armed with the terrorist’s gun, Basil threatens to shoot the pilot if he doesn’t fly them to Spain as planned. He’s quickly arrested after they land and spends the rest of the trip behind bars. They let him out just in time to join his wife, Sybil, originally played by the late Prunella Scales, on the plane back to London.

Cleese thought the story was hilarious, but was unable to commit to it when it was first conceived. He was also concerned with stretching the concept for 90 minutes. That and another idea about Basil meeting a Spanish hotel owner on vacation, who’s essentially his foreign equivalent, sadly never made it past the planning stages. But with recent talk of a Fawlty Towers revival set in the Caribbean, hopefully there’s still a possibility that those old plans can finally be brought to life.