History Trivia / Ishtar

* HostilityOnTheSet: Director Elaine May spent a lot of time arguing with Creator/WarrenBeatty, her producer and star, in both the set and the editing booth. The joke was (and some people say it was not a joke) that Bert Fields, their mutual agent, was the one with the real final cut on the film.

* PlayingAgainstType: Creator/DustinHoffman is known for playing nerdy outcasts, and Beatty is known for playing good looking womanizers. Here, Creator/WarrenBeatty plays a shy dope who's [[HollywoodDateless terrible with women]], and Hoffman plays the womanizing character. Many fans of the movie see this as an intentional joke, and part of the film's humor style, but May claims that it wasn't a joke, and that the actors are ''not'' playing against type [[ComicallyMissingThePoint because Beatty really is from the South and Hoffman really is from New York]].

* NoExportForYou: Due to the movie's infamous ranking, Sony haven't bother to release the film on DVD in North America, but it is available on Blu-Ray.

* TroubledProduction: Possibly the most infamous of the 1980s, in-between shooting in Morocco in the midst of unrest across the Middle East and with lacking logistics, Elaine May (who was sick with toothaches most of the time) clashing a lot with Warren Beatty while doing a lot of retakes (ultimately she shot 108 hours of raw footage), and a post-production where May only delivered a print of the film when the studio threatened legal action. Not helping was how Columbia's new president David Puttnam proceeded to leak information about the film's cost overruns and troubled shoot to the press, sparking a firestorm of bad publicity. (Puttnam himself was ejected from the studio only a few months after the release of this film, thanks to not only this flop and others, but also alienating much of the Hollywood community.)

* ActorAllusion: Chuck's somewhat jealous comments about Music/SimonAndGarfunkel are funnier since they're being delivered by the star of ''Film/TheGraduate''.
* BigNameFan: Creator/QuentinTarantino and Creator/EdgarWright admitted that they liked the film, while Creator/MartinScorsese named it as one of his favourite movies of all time. Really.

* WorkingTitle: ''Blind Camel''

* DuelingStarsMovie

* TroubledProduction: Where to begin?
** They decided to shoot the desert scenes in Morocco instead of the Southwest United States because the studio had money in banks there it couldn't repatriate. Filming began in the midst of unrest across the Middle East, adding security costs to the movie (some locations actually had to be checked for land mines). And no one in Morocco had experience supporting a big-budget studio production, so logistics got really screwy.
** The lore from this one is great. There was the production assistant who went looking for a blue-eyed camel in the market. Not realizing how rare they were, and that he should have just bought it right then and there, he went looking for another one so he'd have a price to bargain with the first guy. By the time he figured that out, the first guy had ''eaten the camel''. Then, of course, there was the time that director Elaine May supposedly suddenly changed her mind about wanting dunes in a scene. So the production had to spend $75,000 and ''ten days'' having a ''square mile'' of desert bulldozed flat.
** May was sick with toothaches most of the time, and spent a lot of time arguing with Creator/WarrenBeatty, her producer and star. She got pissed at him for constantly taking the side of Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro in disputes, and didn't get along much with Isabelle Adjani, the female lead, who also happened to be Beatty's girlfriend at the time. Creator/DustinHoffman says there were periods when Beatty and May wouldn't talk to each other. Some of the crew said that any other director would have been fired for pulling the attitude she pulled on him. Eventually they compromised by shooting every scene twice, one her way and one his. "This was the kind of film where nobody would say 'Sorry, we can't afford that,'" said the guy in charge of the budget.
** May liked to shoot lots of film. She supposedly demanded 50 retakes of a scene where some vultures landed next to Beatty and Hoffman. Ultimately she shot 108 hours of raw footage.
** When they returned from Morocco to shoot scenes in New York, under union rules, an American cinematographer and crew had to sit around on paid standby for Storaro and his crew. During postproduction, May and Beatty fought frequently in the editing room, and May often left it to Beatty to direct the actors during looping sessions. The joke was (and some people say it was not a joke) that Bert Fields, their mutual agent, was the one with the real final cut on the film. And editing took so long (release was planned for Christmas 1986, but the film only hit theaters 6 months later), that May only turned in a print of the film when the studio threatened legal action.
** Meanwhile, Columbia had a new head: British filmmaker David Puttnam, who had previously competed against (and criticized) Beatty's film ''Film/{{Reds|1981}}'' with ''Film/ChariotsOfFire'', and quit the film ''Film/{{Agatha}}'' after Hoffman rewrote the script to make his character more prominent (calling Hoffman "the most malevolent person I have ever worked with"). With the grudges against the stars in one hand and his general hatred of mass-appeal films in the other, Puttnam proceeded to leak infornation about the film's cost overruns and troubled shoot to the press, sparking a firestorm of bad publicity. (Puttnam himself was ejected from the studio only a few months after the release of this film, thanks to not only this flop and others, but also alienating much of the Hollywood community.)

** Meanwhile, Columbia had a new head: British filmmaker David Puttnam, who had previously competed against (and criticized) Beatty's film ''Film/{{Reds}}'' with ''Film/ChariotsOfFire'', and quit the film ''Film/{{Agatha}}'' after Hoffman rewrote the script to make his character more prominent (calling Hoffman "the most malevolent person I have ever worked with"). With the grudges against the stars in one hand and his general hatred of mass-appeal films in the other, Puttnam proceeded to leak infornation about the film's cost overruns and troubled shoot to the press, sparking a firestorm of bad publicity. (Puttnam himself was ejected from the studio only a few months after the release of this film, thanks to not only this flop and others, but also alienating much of the Hollywood community.)

* TroubledProduction:Where to begin?

* CreatorKiller: The failure of ''Ishtar'' killed Creator/ElaineMay's directing career, though she's still done well as a writer for such films as ''Film/TheBirdcage'' and ''Film/PrimaryColors'', both directed by her former comedy partner Creator/MikeNichols.

* TheDanza: Carol Kane as Carol.

* PlayingAgainstType: Hoffman is known for playing nerdy outcasts, and Beatty is known for playing good looking womanizers. Here, Beatty plays a shy dope who's [[HollywoodDateless terrible with women]], and Hoffman plays the womanizing character. Many fans of the movie see this as an intentional joke, and part of the film's humor style, but May claims that it wasn't a joke, and that the actors are ''not'' playing against type [[ComicallyMissingThePoint because Beatty really is from the South and Hoffman really is from New York]].

* TroubledProduction: See TheOtherWiki for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_%28film%29#Principal_photography details]], including the famous story about how May up and decided to have a square mile of desert bulldozed flat because she didn't like the dunes.

* CreatorKiller: The failure of ''Ishtar'' killed Creator/ElaineMay's directing career, though she's still done well as a writer for such films as ''Film/TheBirdcage'' and ''Film/PrimaryColors''.

* TroubledProduction: See TheOtherWiki for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_%28film%29#Principal_photography details]], including the famous story about how May up and decided to have a square mile of desert bulldozed flat because she didn't like the dunes.

* BoxOfficeBomb: Budget, $55 million. Gross, $14,375,181.

* CreatorKiller: The failure of ''Ishtar'' killed Creator/ElaineMay's directing career, though she's still done well as a writer for such films as ''Film/TheBirdcage'' and ''PrimaryColors''.

* CreatorKiller: The failure of ''Ishtar'' killed Elaine May's directing career, though she's still done well as a writer for such films as ''Film/TheBirdcage'' and ''PrimaryColors''.

* CreatorKiller: The failure of ''Ishtar'' killed Elaine May's directing career, though she's still done well as a writer for such films as ''TheBirdcage'' and ''PrimaryColors''.