New Jersey Turnpikes (1999)

As the Supervising Sound Effects Editor on this film, I'm in a pretty good position to know what really happened to this film and why it was never released. Once the sound mix was completed there were several test screenings held so Universal could gauge potential interest and fine-tune the marketing. Alas, the screenings were not encouraging, and with that information the studio was faced with an expensive question: do we cough up the very expensive licensing fees for all the '70's period music that we had already mixed into the film, and then release it to an indifferent audience... or do we cut our losses and just shelve it?

The financially prudent answer was: shelve it. To the best of my knowledge, there was no need for Kelsey Grammar, who was very funny in the film, to buy the rights from Universal and "destroy" it. I don't think that ever happened.