Famous Movies That Were Total Disasters Behind The Scenes
Anyone out there wondering why movies are so expensive should try making one. Not only is the film industry a nerve-wracking business where a million things are almost guaranteed to go wrong at once, but all of those mistakes and misfortunes cost money and usually lots of it.
Even with that in mind, however, some movie productions stand out as expensive, chaotic nightmares for everyone involved. Not every movie ends up actually getting made, and these famous production fiascoes seemed doomed to that fate. The results may be high art or they may be disappointing, but they did well to exist at all.
Jaws (1975)
The production of Jaws was so troubled and stressful for Steven Spielberg that when Kevin Costner planned to make Waterworld, he warned him not to film in open water. While the restraint in showing the shark in Jaws made its appearances more effective, this wasn’t the result of Spielberg’s directorial instincts but rather the fact that the mechanical shark could barely stop malfunctioning for long enough to be shown.
That wasn’t the extent of the troubles, either, as the beach used for the shoot was way colder than any of the filmmakers expected it to be, leaving actors shivering in swimwear. Perhaps worst of all, the movie didn’t even have a finished script when filming started, and frantic rewrites during production were a common phenomenon. How did this turn out so well?
Waterworld (1995)
Although Waterworld had an ambitious, creative, and environmentally resonant vision behind it, Kevin Costner really should have heeded Steven Spielberg’s warning about filming in open water. As a result, he found himself smack dab in the middle of an expensive disaster, as the obsessive demand for realism and hurricanes that destroyed the entire set weeks into filming ballooned the production budget to $175 million (and that doesn’t even count expenses like marketing).
Not only did the stress and Costner’s divorce fray his relationship with frequent collaborator Kevin Reynolds so much that the latter left, but both he and co-stars Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tina Majorino were in mortal peril at times due to aquatic on-set accidents.
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
George Lucas’s problems with Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope began before filming began, as neither Twentieth Century Fox nor his actors took the project particularly seriously because they saw it as a silly space opera for kids. Once production did start, though, things got worse.
Not only was filming scenes like this in Tunisia nightmarish due to constantly malfunctioning equipment and props, but the filming period was also ridiculously unlucky enough to occur during the worst rainstorm the region had seen in 50 years. When production moved to London, Lucas then had to contend with filming regulations and the fact that his visual effects team had to achieve unprecedented technical feats, which meant a lot of money was poured into unusable shots.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Apocalypse Now had such an infamously chaotic production that the documentary about it is almost as compelling as the movie itself, and the movie is a masterpiece. Part of the trouble came from the actors, as Martin Sheen’s drunken spiral near the beginning of the film was not in the script, and Marlon Brando famously showed up completely unprepared and all but proud of it. He had also already shot multiple scenes with Harvey Keitel playing the main character, which had to be abandoned when he was replaced with Sheen.
The military equipment was also borrowed from the military of the Philippines, which suddenly stopped production to use it to fight insurgents multiple times. Among a myriad other issues, Sheen also nearly died of a heart attack, Typhoon Olga threatened to destroy everything, and the jungle was just generally an awful place to film in.
Heaven’s Gate (1980)
Although cinephiles will often assert that the director’s cut of Heaven’s Gate is brilliant and the film was misunderstood, that certainly wasn’t the prevailing sentiment of the time. The film cost so much with so little return and even critical respect that it all but bankrupted United Artists.
So why was it so expensive? As Meher Tatna wrote for the Golden Globes, Michael Cimino’s obsessive perfectionism and dictatorial presence were the main culprits, resulting in major frustrations for both the principal actors involved and the 1,200 extras Cimino hired. Scenes were obsessively shot and re-shot, sets were obsessively built and rebuilt, and the movie was costing $1 million per minute of usable film.
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
Although Slate noted that John Landis was known to have a harsh directing style to the point of being dictatorial by the time he filmed Twilight Zone: The Movie, this movie’s infamy in cinema history has more to do with one horrifyingly tragic incident.
In his part of the film, actor Vic Morrow played a bigot who attains some time-traveling redemption by saving two children from an air raid during the Vietnam War. However, this climactic moment would claim the lives of all three people, as the helicopter involved in the “raid” was set on fire by pyrotechnics before crashing on top of Morrow and child actors Renee Chen and Myca Dinh Le. Landis, Warner Bros., and the helicopter’s pilot were charged with involuntary manslaughter but eventually acquitted.
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Even compared to other famously troubled productions like Apocalypse Now, the filming of Fitzcarraldo was a nightmare on every conceivable level. For one thing, any movie that starred Klaus Kinski was bound to see him behave erratically (if not outright violently) and constantly fight with both director Werner Herzog and the rest of the cast and crew.
Granted, working under Herzog at the time wasn’t much better, as he attempted to have the crew manually haul a 320-ton ship up a steep hill. Worst of all, several indigenous actors perished or experienced amputations due to snake bites and multiple plane crashes.
Roar (1981)
In most troubled productions, it’s not unusual for actors and even directors to quit or be fired. Roar may mark one of the only occasions where crew members actually fled the production. While the reasons for this are fit for a documentary in their own right, they boil down to two major problems: Noel Marshall and big cats.
Marshall was the film’s director, co-writer, and star, and most of the lions and tigers involved in the production were genuinely owned by him and his then-wife and co-star Tippi Hedren. Almost literally everyone involved was horrifically injured by starved, agitated big cats at some point, and Marshall’s response (for whatever reason) sometimes involved getting completely nude and screaming at them as blood ran from his neck.
Caligula (1979)
On paper, there was much about the controversial Roman exploitation epic Caligula that looked like it would have worked. Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’ Toole, Helen Mirren, and the legendary Sir John Gielgud were all among its stars, literary luminary Gore Vidal was its screenwriter, and hotshot director Tinto Brass was behind the camera.
However, things fell apart in many ways before the film’s eventual release. Not only did Vidal leave after clashing with Brass, but Brass was fired after learning what it was like to deal with Penthouse Magazine mogul Bob Guccione. Guccione not only had the movie edited beyond recognition, but also spliced about sex minutes of irrelevant adult film footage into the final product.
The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
The Wizard Of Oz was a magical part of millions of childhoods, but that magic felt like a curse to the people actually involved in making it. Not only did shoots start at 4 am and last well into the night, but Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow costume cut him and interfered with his circulation, Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion’s costume put him at risk of heatstroke, and both Wicked Witch Of The West actress Margaret Hamilton and her stand-in Betty Danko were severely burned by pyrotechnics.
That just describes the problems that the people who made it through the whole production faced. Buddy Ebsen was originally supposed to be the Tin Man, but had to drop out due to a severe allergic reaction to the aluminum dust in his makeup. The Wizard Of Oz also went through five directors before it was finally finished.
Rust (2024)
Even before its release, the production of Rust was so horrifically troubled that it was hard not to doubt whether the movie would even see its release. This was due to the shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, for which both Alec Baldwin and the property master armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed were charged with involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin’s charges were dropped, but Gutierrez-Reed was convicted.
While that’s certainly the most infamous health and safety incident from Rust, it’s not the only one. A formal gun safety complaint was made several days prior due to a separate incident, and six unionized workers in the camera department walked off the set due to inadequate housing before being replaced by non-union workers.
The Crow (1994)
Although The Crow remains a cult classic, anyone who worked on the movie remembers it with a heavy heart. That’s because of an infamous incident that saw the improper packing of a prop gun claim the life of star Brandon Lee when it was fired during a pivotal scene.
In addition to making the movie incredibly difficult to finish, it has haunted Lee’s family and the film’s cast and crew ever since. This was especially true in the case of Michael Massee, who fired the gun. He was not found to be at fault for the incident, but the trauma of it led him to stop acting for a year. He had nightmares about it for the rest of his life and never watched The Crow before his passing in 2016.
The Island Of Dr. Moreau (1996)
Although it’s often considered distasteful to speak ill of the dead, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that fallen stars Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando could fairly be considered responsible for the lion’s share of the troubles plaguing The Island Of Dr. Moreau. After Kilmer replaced Bruce Willis in the film, he inexplicably negotiated a stipulation that he would only shoot 60% of Willis’s
contract, leading to a change in role and the dismissal of James Woods.
Although director Richard Stanley went into debt to make the film, he was fired after clashing with an uncooperative Kilmer and attempted to sabotage the project in various, bizarre ways afterwards. In addition to a hurricane that destroyed most of the set, matters were further complicated by Brando refusing to learn his lines and demanding rewrites to give the world’s smallest man, Nelson de La Ros, a bigger part.
The Revenant (2015)
Even Alejandro G. Iñárritu admitted that he subjected his cast and crew to harsher conditions than he needed to after The Revenant‘s Oscar success, as the mountainous location shoots in Canada, the United States, and Italy were all arduous to get to. Worse yet, more shoots were necessary than usual due to Iñárritu’s decision to light the movie only through natural means.
This not only meant that the cast and crew (especially star Leonardo DiCaprio) were subjected to extreme environmental conditions during filming, but that they had to move to an entirely different continent when the weather became too warm.
Cleopatra (1963)
Cleopatra‘s troubled production lives both in Hollywood infamy and as a fundamental part of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s storied romance, which didn’t actually help the movie’s reputation because they were both married to other people during their entanglement. However, this was also the least of its problems, as the movie saw a director (and nearly two) fired — as well as the replacement of the entire cast save Taylor — before Burton was involved.
However, this wasn’t even the worst of it, as Taylor nearly died of pneumonia during Cleopatra‘s production, and weather conditions threatened to destroy the set when only ten minutes’ worth of material had been filmed. The decision to account for these problems by shooting in sequence only made the film more expensive, effectively costing the production its lead producer as well. For all the grief of making it, the finished product proved so unsatisfying to Taylor that she reportedly threw up at the premiere.
