History Trivia / HeavensGate

* PlayingAgainstType: Creator/SamWaterston, master of ReasonableAuthorityFigure and fatherly roles, as the film's main villain Frank Canton; it helps that [[https://onceuponatimeinawestern.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Sam-Waterston-as-Frank-Canton-leading-the-expedition-against-the-immigrants-in-Heavens-Gate-1980.jpg he looked]] quite a bit [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Frank_M_Canton.jpg/220px-Frank_M_Canton.jpg like Canton]].

* TroubledProduction: Hoo boy. Creator/MichaelCimino took his recently-earned AuteurLicense to finally make this pet project of his, but [[SuperOCD his already excessive meticuluousness]] added to [[PrimaDonnaDirector fame going into his head]] made his EpicMovie also an epic clusterfuck that the press compared to a then-recent debacle by nicknaming it "[[Film/ApocalypseNow Apocalypse Next]]". Locations were distant, Cimino's perfectionism (at a certain point, he ordered both sides of a city set to be torn down and rebuilt) and countless retakes (the raw footage amounted 220 hours!) made the shoot five days behind schedule after just six days while ballooning while skyrocketing the costs. Post-production had Cimino changing the locks on the editing suite to ensure that he could cut the film his way, and even then, his original cut was ''325 minutes long'', with a threat of dismissal shortening to 219, and disastrous test screenings leading to a wide release of 149. And it still didn't impress reviewers or audiences, helping destroy Cimino's career and United Artists's 62-year existence as an independent studio.

** Creator/ClintEastwood, Creator/SteveMcQueenActor, Creator/PaulNewman, Creator/RobertRedford and Creator/JohnWayne[[labelnote:*]]Likely not a serious possibility with his health problems, and also he undoubtedly would've hated the script's left-wing political bent.[[/labelnote]] were considered for James Averill (particularly when Cimino first shopped the script around in the early [=70s=]) before Creator/KrisKristofferson was cast.
** Creator/SallyField, Creator/JaneFonda, Creator/SylviaKristel, Creator/DianeKeaton and Creator/RaquelWelch all turned down the role of Ella Watson before Isabelle Huppert was cast. A big issue was that Kristofferson had been guaranteed top billing, and none of the big-name actresses contacted were willing to billed under him.
** Creator/JackLemmon was considered for the role of William C. Irvine before Creator/JohnHurt was cast.

* WorkingTitle: ''The Johnson County War''.

** Creator/ClintEastwood, Creator/SteveMcQueenActor, Creator/PaulNewman, Creator/RobertRedford and Creator/JohnWayne were considered for James Averill before Kris Kristoffersen was cast.
** Creator/SallyField, Creator/JaneFonda, Creator/SylviaKristel, Creator/DianeKeaton and Creator/RaquelWelch all turned down the role of Ella Watson before Isabelle Huppert was cast.

* ExecutiveMeddling: The only successful instance was the studio brass forcing Cimino to trim the film from its initial runtime of just over '''five hours''' to around three hours, forty-five minutes for its one-week run in New York. When that engagement failed, Cimino asked for the film to be withdrawn and recut, and the resultant cut that played theaters in 1981 ran about '''two-and-a-half-hours''', and somehow managed to be far worse. (Today, the most frequently screened version is the three hour-plus cut.) All other attempts to enforce this trope were either considered, but later dropped, or rebuffed by Michael Cimino. The studio brass even contemplated the possibility of firing Cimino, and in the book ''Final Cut'', Steven Bach devotes a chapter to a meeting with an anonymous "Famous Director", who Bach tries to enlist as a replacement for Cimino, but he ultimately wanted nothing to do with what sounded like a complete mess, or helping to depose a fellow director from his dream project; Creator/NormanJewison was later identified as the Famous Director.

* ExecutiveMeddling: The only successful instance was the studio brass forcing Cimino to trim the film from its initial runtime of just over '''five hours''' to around three hours, forty-five minutes for its one-week run in New York. When that engagement failed, Cimino asked for the film to be withdrawn and recut, and the resultant cut that played theaters in 1981 ran about '''two-and-a-half-hours''', and somehow managed to be far worse. (Today, the most frequently screened version is the three hour-plus cut.) All other attempts to enforce this trope were either considered, but later dropped, or rebuffed by Michael Cimino. The studio brass did consider sacking Cimino and replace him with Norman Jewison (as hinted in the book ''Final Cut''). However, Jewison wanted nothing to do with the film, so that never happened.

* FollowUpFailure: Coming off the Oscar-winning success of ''Film/TheDeerHunter'', it seemed Creator/MichaelCimino could do no wrong and was poised for another surefire hit. His next film is one of the standout examples of TroubledProduction, over-budgeting, and general practice of a director having too much control. Compared to the $34 million profit that ''The Deer Hunter'' made, ''Heaven's Gate'' turned in a box office ''loss of $40.5 million''-- it's largely responsible for the end of the New Hollywood era of films as a result of all this.

* BoxOfficeBomb: As exorbitant as the price tag was, this wasn't actually the all-time most expensive film at the time of its release, as is commonly reported (''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' and ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' both had budgets just shy of $50 million, and ''Film/{{Cleopatra}}'' was nearly twice as expensive if you adjust for inflation. It wasn’t even the studio’s most expensive film - that was ‘’Film/{{Moonraker}}’’.). Unfortunately, it didn't make even a tenth of its budget back ($3 million against a $44 million budget), making it inarguably the biggest box-office bomb that Hollywood had seen up to that point.

* BoxOfficeBomb: As exorbitant as the price tag was, this wasn't actually the all-time most expensive film at the time of its release, as is commonly reported (''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' and ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' both had budgets just shy of $50 million, and ''Film/{{Cleopatra}}'' was nearly twice as expensive if you adjust for inflation). Unfortunately, it didn't make even a tenth of its budget back ($3 million against a $44 million budget), making it inarguably the biggest box-office bomb that Hollywood had seen up to that point.

* CreatorKiller: The film destroyed Creator/MichaelCimino's career, contributed to Transamerica's sale of Creator/UnitedArtists to Creator/{{MGM}}, and ended the "UsefulNotes/NewHollywood" [[UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem post-studio-system]] era in which director/auteurs were [[ProtectionFromEditors given carte blanche to do however they see fit]]. Thus, it not only destroyed the careers of the people who created it but ended an era that produced many of the best films in history. Cimino's directing career didn't immediately end after that, but all of his post-''Heaven's Gate'' outings were commercial failures. He had a chance of recovery, however, as not long after ''Heaven's Gate'' Cimino was offered a chance to direct ''Film/{{Footloose}}'' (of all things) under the condition that he won't exceed the budget and schedule by a single day or dollar. However, his primadonna behavior started again during pre-production, [[WhatAnIdiot and when weeks before the shooting was scheduled to begin he demanded to delay it until he rewrites the script]] ([[IdiotBall and to get $250,000 for it]]), Paramount quickly booted him out the director's chair. Cimino's final film was 1996's ''Sunchaser''; its failure to get a wide theatrical release due to poor test screenings made him stop working on any more projects, as he died twenty years later.

* ExecutiveMeddling: The only successful instance was the studio brass forcing Cimino to trim the film from its initial runtime of just over '''five hours''' to around three hours, forty-five minutes for its one-week run in New York. When that engagement failed, Cimino asked for the film to be withdrawn and recut, and the resultant cut that played theaters in 1981 ran about '''two-and-a-half-hours''', and somehow managed to be [[UpToEleven far worse]]. (Today, the most frequently screened version is the three hour-plus cut.) All other attempts to enforce this trope were either considered, but later dropped, or rebuffed by Michael Cimino. The studio brass did consider sacking Cimino and replace him with Norman Jewison (as hinted in the book ''Final Cut''). However, Jewison wanted nothing to do with the film, so that never happened.

** To give an indication of just how severe of a bomb it was, here's the 2021 adjusted budget/gross numbers: $146 million; $11 million.

* BoxOfficeBomb: As exorbitant as the price tag was, this wasn't actually the all-time most expensive film at the time of its release, as is commonly reported (''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' and ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' both had budgets just shy of $50 million, and ''Film/{{Cleopatra}}'' was nearly twice as expensive if you adjust for inflation). Unfortunately, it didn't make even a tenth of its budget back, making it inarguably the biggest box-office bomb that Hollywood had seen up to that point.

!The film:

* CreatorKiller: The film destroyed Creator/MichaelCimino's career, contributed to Transamerica's sale of Creator/UnitedArtists to Creator/{{MGM}}, and ended the "UsefulNotes/NewHollywood" [[UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem post-studio-system]] era in which director/auteurs were [[ProtectionFromEditors given carte blanche to do however they see fit]]. Thus, it not only destroyed the careers of the people who created it but ended an era that produced many of the best films in history.
** Cimino's directing career didn't immediately end after that, but all of his post-''Heaven's Gate'' outings were commercial failures. He had a chance of recovery, however, as not long after ''Heaven's Gate'' Cimino was offered a chance to direct (of all things) ''Film/{{Footloose}}'', under the condition that he won't exceed the budget and schedule by a single day or dollar. However, his primadonna behavior started again during pre-production, [[WhatAnIdiot and when weeks before the shooting was scheduled to begin he demanded to delay it until he rewrites the script]] ([[IdiotBall and to get $250,000 for it]]), Paramount quickly booted him out the director's chair. Cimino's final film was 1996's ''Sunchaser''; its failure to get a wide theatrical release due to poor test screenings made him stop working on any more projects, as he died twenty years later.

* DoingItForTheArt: The production became a disaster thanks to Creator/MichaelCimino's adherence to this trope. For example, he demanded 50 takes of at least one scene, and refused to start shooting for another until a cloud he liked rolled across the sky. Sadly, in this case the attention to detail did not pay off. The film was extremely delayed, went badly over the budget, is one of the least profitable movies of all history, and more or less killed the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era. On top of that, for decades after its release it was regarded as a critical failure; it's only in the past few years with the release of a new, much-improved cut that it's been critically re-evaluated.

* FollowUpFailure: Coming off the Oscar-winning success of ''Film/TheDeerHunter'', it seemed Creator/MichaelCimino could do no wrong and was poised for another surefire hit. His next film is one of the standout examples of TroubledProduction, over-budgeting, and general practice of a director having too much control. Compared to the $34 million profit that ''The Deer Hunter'' made, ''Heaven's Gate'' turned in a box office ''loss'' of ''$40.5 million''-- it's largely responsible for the end of the New Hollywood era of films as a result of all this.

** Creator/SallyField, Creator/JaneFonda, Creator/SylviaKristel and Creator/RaquelWelch turned down the role of Ella Watson before Isabelle Huppert was cast.

** Creator/SallyField, Creator/JaneFonda and Creator/RaquelWelch turned down the role of Ella Watson before Isabelle Huppert was cast.

* BoxOfficeBomb: As exorbitant as the price tag was, this wasn't actually the all-time most expensive film at the time of its release, as is commonly reported (''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' and ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' both had budgets just shy of $50m, and ''Film/{{Cleopatra}}'' was nearly twice as expensive if you adjust for inflation). Unfortunately, it didn't make even a tenth of its budget back, making it inarguably the biggest box-office bomb that Hollywood had seen up to that point.

** Cimino's directing career didn't immediately end after that, but all of his post-''Heaven's Gate'' outings were commercial failures. He had a chance of recovery, however, as not long after ''Heaven's Gate'' Cimino was offered a chance to direct (of all things) ''Film/{{Footloose}}'', under the condition that he won't exceed the budget and schedule by a single day or dollar. However, his primadonna behavior started again during pre-production, [[WhatAnIdiot and when weeks before the shooting was scheduled to begin he demanded to delay it until he rewrites the script]] ([[IdiotBall and to get $250.000 for it]]), Paramount quickly booted him. Cimino's final film was 1996's ''Sunchaser''; its failure to get a wide theatrical release due to poor test screenings made him stop working on any more projects, as he died twenty years later.

* FollowUpFailure: Coming off the Oscar-winning success of ''Film/TheDeerHunter'', it seemed Creator/MichaelCimino could do no wrong and was poised for another surefire hit. His next film is one of the standout examples of TroubledProduction, over-budgeting, and general practice of a director having too much control. It's largely responsible for the end of the New Hollywood era of films.

* TroubledProduction: Hoo boy. Creator/MichaelCimino took his recently-earned AuteurLicense to finally make this pet project of his, but [[SuperOCD his already excessive meticuluousness]] added to [[PrimaDonnaDirector fame going into his head]] made his EpicMovie also an epic clusterfrak that the press compared to a then-recent debacle by nicknaming it "[[Film/ApocalypseNow Apocalypse Next]]". Locations were distant, Cimino's perfectionism (at a certain point, he ordered both sides of a city set to be torn down and rebuilt) and countless retakes (the raw footage amounted 220 hours!) made the shoot five days behind schedule after just six days while ballooning while skyrocketing the costs. Post-production had Cimino changing the locks on the editing suite to ensure that he could cut the film his way, and even then, his original cut was ''325 minutes long'', with a threat of dismissal shortening to 219, and disastrous test screenings leading to a wide release of 149. And it still didn't impress reviewers or audiences, helping destroy Cimino's career and United Artists's 62-year existence as an independent studio.

* TroubledProduction: Hoo boy:
** Creator/MichaelCimino had wanted to make a film about the Johnson County War, an 1892 battle between rich Wyoming cattle companies and settlers, since 1971; the good press surrounding his 1978 film ''Film/TheDeerHunter'' and its dual Oscar wins for Best Director and Best Picture finally gave Cimino the industry clout to get Creator/UnitedArtists to agree to finance the film, with initial budget estimates starting at $7.5 million but rising to $11.6 million by the time production began.
** The first signs of trouble appeared during casting of the female lead. The male leads - Kris Kristofferson, Creator/ChristopherWalken, and Creator/JohnHurt - were more character actors than box office stars when casting began in 1979, and UA hoped that they could bolster the cast's marquee power with a high profile lead actress, but after Creator/JaneFonda and Creator/DianeKeaton rejected the role, Cimino insisted on then little-known French actress Isabelle Huppert, whose English was hesitant and heavily-accented. United Artists [[ExecutiveMeddling insisted that another actress be found]]; Cimino threatened (not for the last time) to take the film to Creator/WarnerBrothers, and UA capitulated (even afterwards, UA executive Steven Bach at one point told Cimino ''to his face'' that his leading lady was so unappealing that the audience was going to wonder why Kristofferson and Walken "[weren't] fucking each other instead of her").[[note]]In ''Final Cut'' Bach admits that he was wrong, at least in the sense that Huppert was great in the role. But a big star like Keaton or Fonda probably would have helped the box office.[[/note]]
** Filming began at Glacier National Park in Montana in April 1979 and was expected to finish in June, with a projected release date of December 1979. However, Cimino's almost fanatical dedication to his artistic vision for the film meant the shoot was five days behind schedule after just six days, and the delays and inflated costs grew from there. Getting to the filming site from the cast and crew's hotel in Kalispell took two hours each way. Many cast and crew members were on site (and on the payroll) for months just to complete a few hours of shooting. Cimino insisted on taking full advantage of the location's [[SceneryPorn natural beauty]] by shooting many scenes at twilight, scenes which could thus only be shot during a time window of a few minutes each day. Cimino [[SuperOCD also insisted on countless retakes]]; a single-second shot of Kristofferson cracking a whip took an entire day and 52 takes to film.
** The glacial pace of filming was not the only factor in the skyrocketing costs. Upon deciding that the spacing of buildings either side of a street on an outdoor set "didn't look right", Cimino ordered ''both'' sides torn down and re-built.[[note]] A crew member even pointed out, to no avail, that it would be easier and cheaper to just tear ''one'' side down and build it twice as far back.[[/note]] A 19th-century locomotive was shipped on flatbed rail trucks from Colorado; as it was too big to fit into the modern tunnels, it had to take a longer and more expensive route to Montana. Cimino put an irrigation system in the rocky field in which the climactic battle sequence was shot so that it would be green with grass at the beginning of the battle, and red with blood at the end of it. And of the masses of footage shot by Cimino, an unusually high fraction was printed for possible inclusion in the finished film (far exceeding the part of the budget devoted to printing); ultimately, of over 1.5 million feet of exposed film, 1.3 million feet were printed, amounting to ''220 hours'' of raw footage; Cimino privately joked that he was aiming to beat out the one million feet that Creator/FrancisFordCoppola shot for ''Film/ApocalypseNow''.
** To make matters worse, Cimino's contract stated that he would not be penalised for any cost overruns incurred in completing and delivering the film for its December 1979 release date, so while costs spiraled, he was protected from breach of contract lawsuits. He clashed repeatedly with UA executives, who at several points considered simply scrapping the film, unloading it on another studio (unsurprisingly, they couldn't find any takers), or firing Cimino and replacing him.[[note]] Bach mentions approaching "A Famous Director", widely believed to be Creator/DavidLean, who refused to replace Cimino out of concern at incurring the wrath of the DGA (even his conversation with Bach was against DGA regulations, hence Bach does not name him in ''Final Cut''); Norman Jewison was also approached but declined.[[/note]]
** UA was able to cut one cost associated with Cimino, though. Wondering why they were paying so much money to rent the land they were filming on, they went to check the local tax records to find out who the owner was. [[PlayingBothSides It turned out that it was none other than Cimino himself]].
** Location shooting in Montana finally wrapped in October 1979,[[note]] By this point, local cars sported bumper stickers reading "To Hell with ''Heaven's Gate''", and Cimino had a very public falling out with production manager and longtime friend Charlie Okun at the wrap party.[[/note]] with only a Harvard-set prologue and Rhode Island-set epilogue to film. Given their experience with ''Film/LoveStory'' and ''A Small Circle of Friends'', however, Harvard understandably turned Cimino and UA down, so the prologue was instead shot at [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Mansfield College, Oxford]].[[note]] Creator/JohnHurt had returned to England in a hurry after filming wrapped in Montana to honour his commitment to ''Film/TheElephantMan'' - a film for which he signed on to alleviate boredom while waiting for anything to do on the ''Heaven's Gate'' set - and took a few days off to film his scenes in the Harvard segment.[[/note]] Though this was the only part of the shoot to finish on time and on budget, Cimino was refused permission to film near Christ Church on Sunday, and had to prepare and shoot the scene in secret just after dawn before the Sunday morning services. The final production budget came to nearly $40 million, over three times the original figure.
** Despite Cimino's attempts at press secrecy, the film was already beginning to draw negative publicity during shooting. Les Gapay, a freelance journalist, landed a job as an extra, then sold the story about the catastrophic time and budget overruns.[[note]] Although the story did include some exaggerations; though the shoot ran behind schedule and over budget, the cast and crew were on generally friendly terms with each other throughout, but the journalist portrayed them as constantly fighting.[[/note]] With similar problems on UA's ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' fresh in the press' memories, they began dubbing ''Heaven's Gate'' "Apocalypse Next". The shoot also attracted controversy for (mostly, but not wholly, exaggerated) claims of [[NoAnimalsWereHarmed animal cruelty]], with live cockfights being filmed, livestock entrails being used for some of the gorier scenes, and a horse being killed during the filming of a special effects scene for the climactic battle sequence. The film is still on the American Humane Association's "unacceptable" list.
** The sheer volume of raw footage meant that the Christmas 1979 release date had long since become unfeasible, and the date was pushed back to Christmas 1980. Cimino [[ProtectionFromEditors changed the locks on the editing suite]] to ensure that he could cut the film his way. His work print of the film, screened for UA executives in June 1980, was a staggering ''325 minutes'' long; under threat of dismissal as director, Cimino agreed to cut the film down to 219 minutes for a trio of premieres in New York, Toronto, and Los Angeles in November 1980.
** The New York premiere was a disaster, with the audience reacting with indifference to the story and struggling to hear the dialogue, and critics, led by Vincent Canby of ''The New York Times'' (who, in a much-quoted review, called the film "an unqualified disaster"), tearing it to shreds. A humiliated Cimino withdrew the film before its Los Angeles premiere, announcing that he wanted to edit it further.[[note]] Contrary to rumour, Cimino made this decision himself, not at UA's command.[[/note]] He finally trimmed it down to 149 minutes for general release in April 1981; this time, the critics were not so much merciless as disappointed, and the film, the final production and promotion budget of which came to $44 million, made just $1.3 million in its opening weekend and was quickly forgotten by audiences. Although it received a more positive response in France (particularly at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival) and the UK, its worldwide gross was [[BoxOfficeBomb just under $3.5 million.]]
** The film left a veritable bloodbath of dead or dying careers in its wake. [[CreatorKiller Michael Cimino is the most noted victim]]; he only made four further films, all largely ignored by critics and audiences. [[StarDerailingRole Kris Kristofferson's leading man potential withered]], and he turned his attention back to his music career. Although the film's effect on United Artists is sometimes overstated,[[note]] The studio had already been on unsteady financial footing for much of the late 1970s, prompting many employees to jump ship to form Creator/OrionPictures; ''Heaven's Gate'' was not even UA's most expensive film, an "honour" that goes to ''Film/{{Moonraker}}''.[[/note]] it was an influential factor in its parent company, Transamerica, deciding to sell UA to [[Creator/MetroGoldwynMayer MGM]] in 1981, ending its 62-year existence as an independent studio.[[note]] The cost overruns are also sometimes blamed for UA being unable to fund an Oscar campaign for ''Film/RagingBull'', which lost Best Director and Best Picture to Creator/RobertRedford's ''Literature/OrdinaryPeople''. ''Heaven's Gate'' itself managed just one Oscar nomination in 1981, for Art Direction (which it lost to ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'').[[/note]] [[GenreKiller Interest in Westerns also declined]] for most of the 1980s, and the film is generally credited with hastening the demise of UsefulNotes/NewHollywood and the ''auteur'' director movement.
** The reputation of ''Heaven's Gate'' has, however, improved in the years since its initial release. Cimino assembled a 216-minute "director's cut" of the film which won acclaim at film festivals in 2012, and Creator/KrisKristofferson and Creator/JeffBridges still speak fondly of their experiences making and seeing the film.

** Despite Cimino's attempts at press secrecy, the film was already beginning to draw negative publicity during shooting. A freelance journalist landed a job as an extra, then sold the story about the catastrophic time and budget overruns.[[note]] Although the story did include some exaggerations; though the shoot ran behind schedule and over budget, the cast and crew were on generally friendly terms with each other throughout, but the journalist portrayed them as constantly fighting.[[/note]] With similar problems on UA's ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' fresh in the press' memories, they began dubbing ''Heaven's Gate'' "Apocalypse Next". The shoot also attracted controversy for (mostly, but not wholly, exaggerated) claims of [[NoAnimalsWereHarmed animal cruelty]], with live cockfights being filmed, livestock entrails being used for some of the gorier scenes, and a horse being killed during the filming of a special effects scene for the climactic battle sequence. The film is still on the American Humane Association's "unacceptable" list.

* CreatorKiller: The film destroyed Creator/MichaelCimino's career, contributed to the collapse of the Creator/UnitedArtists studio, and ended the "UsefulNotes/NewHollywood" [[UsefulNotes/FallOfTheStudioSystem post-studio-system]] era in which director/auteurs were [[ProtectionFromEditors given carte blanche to do however they see fit]]. Thus, it not only destroyed the careers of the people who created it but ended an era that produced many of the best films in history.

* ExtremelyLengthyCreation: Creator/MichaelCimino submitted the script in 1971, but the project was shelved when it failed to attract big-name talent. Production started in 1979, but wasn't completed for another two years.

** The glacial pace of filming was not the only factor in the skyrocketing costs. Upon deciding that the spacing of buildings either side of a street on an outdoor set "didn't look right", Cimino ordered ''both'' sides torn down and re-built.[[note]] A crew member even pointed out, to no avail, that it would be easier and cheaper to just tear ''one'' side down and build it twice as far back.[[/note]] A 19th-century locomotive was shipped on flatbed rail trucks from Colorado; as it was too big to fit into the modern tunnels, it had to take a longer and more expensive route to Montana. Cimino put an irrigation system in the rocky field in which the climactic battle sequence was shot so that it would be green with grass at the beginning of the battle, and red with blood at the end of it. And of the masses of footage shot by Cimino, an unusually high fraction was printed for possible inclusion in the finished film (far exceeding the part of the budget devoted to printing); ultimately, of over 1.5 million feet of exposed film, 1.3 million feet were printed, amounting to ''220 hours'' of raw footage.
** To make matters worse, Cimino's contract stated that he would not be penalised for any cost overruns incurred in completing and delivering the film for its December 1979 release date, so while costs spiralled, he was protected from breach of contract lawsuits. He clashed repeatedly with UA executives, who at several points considered simply scrapping the film, unloading it on another studio (unsurprisingly, they couldn't find any takers), or firing Cimino and replacing him.[[note]] Bach mentions approaching "A Famous Director", widely believed to be Creator/DavidLean, who refused to replace Cimino out of concern at incurring the wrath of the DGA (even his conversation with Bach was against DGA regulations, hence Bach does not name him in ''Final Cut''); Norman Jewison was also approached but declined.[[/note]]

* ExecutiveMeddling: The only successful instance was the studio brass forcing Cimino to trim the film from its initial runtime of just over '''five hours''' to around three hours, forty-five minutes for its one-week run in New York. When that engagement failed, Cimino asked for the film to be withdrawn and recut, and the resultant cut that played theaters in 1981 ran about '''two-and-a-half-hours''', and somehow managed to be [[UpToEleven far worse]]. (Today, the most frequently screened version is the three hour-plus cut.) All other attempts to enforce this trope were either considered, but later dropped, or rebuffed by Michael Cimino. The studio brass did consider sacking Cimino and replace him with Norman Jewison (or even Creator/DavidLean, as hinted in the book ''Final Cut''). However, Jewison wanted nothing to do with the film, so that never happened.

** The Harvard scenes were actually filmed in Oxford, England, as Harvard didn’t want a repeat of ''Love Story''.

** Location shooting in Montana finally wrapped in October 1979,[[note]] By this point, local cars sported bumper stickers reading "To Hell with ''Heaven's Gate''", and Cimino had a very public falling out with production manager and longtime friend Charlie Okun at the wrap party.[[/note]] with only a Harvard-set prologue and Rhode Island-set epilogue to film. Given their experience with ''Film/LoveStory'', however, Harvard understandably turned Cimino and UA down, so the prologue was instead shot at [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Mansfield College, Oxford]].[[note]] Creator/JohnHurt had returned to England in a hurry after filming wrapped in Montana to honour his commitment to ''Film/TheElephantMan'' - a film for which he signed on to alleviate boredom while waiting for anything to do on the ''Heaven's Gate'' set - and took a few days off to film his scenes in the Harvard segment.[[/note]] Though this was the only part of the shoot to finish on time and on budget, Cimino was refused permission to film near Christ Church on Sunday, and had to prepare and shoot the scene in secret just after dawn before the Sunday morning services. The final production budget came to nearly $40 million, over three times the original figure.

** The Harvard scenes were actually filmed in Oxford, England, as Harvard refused permission to film there.

** Location shooting in Montana finally wrapped in October 1979,[[note]] By this point, local cars sported bumper stickers reading "To Hell with ''Heaven's Gate''", and Cimino had a very public falling out with production manager and longtime friend Charlie Okun at the wrap party.[[/note]] with only a Harvard-set prologue and Rhode Island-set epilogue to film. Given their experience with ''Film/LoveStory'', however, Harvard understandably refused to let Cimino and UA film on campus, so the prologue was instead shot at [[UsefulNotes/{{Oxbridge}} Mansfield College, Oxford]].[[note]] Creator/JohnHurt had returned to England in a hurry after filming wrapped in Montana to honour his commitment to ''Film/TheElephantMan'' - a film for which he signed on to alleviate boredom while waiting for anything to do on the ''Heaven's Gate'' set - and took a few days off to film his scenes in the Harvard segment.[[/note]] Though this was the only part of the shoot to finish on time and on budget, Cimino was refused permission to film near Christ Church on Sunday, and had to prepare and shoot the scene in secret just after dawn before the Sunday morning services. The final production budget came to nearly $40 million, over three times the original figure.

** The first signs of trouble appeared during casting of the female lead. The male leads - Kris Kristofferson, Creator/ChristopherWalken, and Creator/JohnHurt - were more character actors than box office stars when casting began in 1979, and UA hoped that they could bolster the cast's marquee power with a high profile lead actress, but after Creator/JaneFonda and Creator/DianeKeaton rejected the role, Cimino insisted on then little-known French actress Isabelle Huppert, whose English was hesitant and heavily-accented. United Artists [[ExecutiveMeddling insisted that another actress be found]]; Cimino threatened (not for the last time) to take the film to Creator/WarnerBrothers, and UA capitulated (even afterwards, Bach at one point told Cimino ''to his face'' that his leading lady was so unappealing that the audience was going to wonder why Kristofferson and Walken "[weren't] fucking each other instead of her").[[note]]In ''Final Cut'' Bach admits that he was wrong, at least in the sense that Huppert was great in the role. But a big star like Keaton or Fonda probably would have helped the box office.[[/note]]