In an epic-sized post over at the Team Fortress 2 blog, the Valve writing staff goes into great detail on how exactly their original vision for Meet The Sandwich morphed from a four-hour epic film into a minute-long short. It all comes down to the original script, which the executives trashed at the last minute.
"Could you explain to us how your script is in any way different from Predator?" asked one of the suits. "Predator takes place in Guatemala," Erik Wolpaw explained, using his I'm-explaining-something-idiotic-to-a-child voice. "Meet the Sandvich takes place inside a refrigerator in Guatemala." "Where you can hear Predator happening outside of the refrigerator," clarified Jay Pinkerton. "Also, Predator is two hours long," Erik continued. "Ours is four hours long." "Right," said a suit, "but only because the script includes the first half of Predator..." We nodded. "... then all of Road House, and then the rest of Predator."
Dammit. It sounds like the best movie ever. Hit the jump for the full explanation, including charts and graphs. Finding the Time to Bleed [Team Fortress 2 Blog - Thanks Rhys!]