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* ''TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'' was David Lean's first foray into the epic genre, and his first experience with all the trouble producing epic films often brings.
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* ''TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'' was ''TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'', the film that brought David Lean's Lean his first Best Director Oscar, was his first foray into the epic genre, and his first experience with all the trouble producing epic films often brings.
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** The role of Colonel Nicholson was offered to several actors, including Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier, before Alec Guinness was cast after a "summit meeting" with Spiegel and Lean. Guinness, at the time known more as a comic actor, was dismayed by the dull characterisation of Nicholson in the script and wanted to play the role as more light-hearted and sympathetic, while Lean insisted that he play Nicholson as written; the two men fought constantly over how the character should be portrayed. In the scene in which Nicholson reflects on his military career, Guinness felt that his face should be shot in closeup, and when he asked Lean why he decided instead to film Nicholson from behind, Lean exploded in anger.[[note]] Guinness did, however, ultimately regard his performance in the film as the best of his career.[[/note]]
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** The role of Colonel Nicholson was offered to several actors, including Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier, before Alec Guinness was cast after a "summit meeting" with Spiegel and Lean. Guinness, at the time known more as a comic actor, was dismayed by the dull characterisation of Nicholson in the script and wanted to play the role as more light-hearted and sympathetic, while Lean insisted that he play Nicholson as written; the two men fought constantly over how the character should be portrayed. In the scene in which Nicholson reflects on his military career, Guinness felt that his face should be shot in closeup, and when he asked Lean why he decided instead to film Nicholson from behind, Lean exploded in anger.[[note]] Guinness did, however, ultimately regard his performance in the film as the best of his career.career; the Academy agreed and gave him the Oscar for Best Actor.[[/note]]
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** Finally, Spiegel was determined to release the film before the end of 1957 to make it eligible for the year's Academy Awards. However, because of the chaotic production, by early December 1957, the film still had no music score - no-one had even been hired to compose it. The composer ultimately hired by Spiegel, Malcolm Arnold, had to write and record the score in just ten days. His efforts were rewarded with a Best Score Oscar, while the film itself went on to win the Best Picture Oscar for 1957.
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* ''TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'' was David Lean's first foray into the epic genre, and his first experience with all the trouble producing epic films often brings.
** The script was initially adapted by Carl Foreman from the book by French author Pierre Boulle. After Lean was chosen to direct, producer Sam Spiegel brought Lean and Foreman together to work on the script, and was delighted to see the men take an almost instant dislike to each other, feeling that many great films were born from such animosity. Unfortunately, they hated each other so much that Foreman eventually resigned and was replaced by Michael Wilson. Since both Foreman and Wilson were on the Hollywood blacklist, the screenwriting credit (and Oscar) went to Boulle, who did not even speak English.[[note]] Foreman and Wilson were awarded retroactive - and posthumous - Oscars for their work on the script in 1984.[[/note]] When Columbia executives read the script, they objected to the lack of any romantic subplots, and Lean was forced to shoehorn in an affair between Commander Shears and a British nurse at the military hospital.
** The role of Colonel Nicholson was offered to several actors, including Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier, before Alec Guinness was cast after a "summit meeting" with Spiegel and Lean. Guinness, at the time known more as a comic actor, was dismayed by the dull characterisation of Nicholson in the script and wanted to play the role as more light-hearted and sympathetic, while Lean insisted that he play Nicholson as written; the two men fought constantly over how the character should be portrayed. In the scene in which Nicholson reflects on his military career, Guinness felt that his face should be shot in closeup, and when he asked Lean why he decided instead to film Nicholson from behind, Lean exploded in anger.[[note]] Guinness did, however, ultimately regard his performance in the film as the best of his career.[[/note]]
** Location scouts found that the actual River Kwai was a mere trickle, so, at Jack Hawkins' suggestion, production was set up near Kitulgala in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The remote location required special construction of a bungalow complex to house the cast and crew. Though Lean was right at home in the tropical climate, most of the other personnel suffered in the intense heat and humidity. They were frequently forced to call in sick, and had to share the area with snakes, leeches,[[note]] though the swamps through which the demo squad treks were specially constructed - the local swamps were too dangerous to use for filming - the leeches were real[[/note]] and other wildlife. The slow pace of filming resulting from Lean's rampant perfectionism did not help. Furthermore, Spiegel did not allocate money for extras, so the British soldiers were mostly played by crew members and Ceylon natives wearing Caucasian makeup.
** Although the river posing as the Kwai in the film may have made for a more photogenic location, the strong currents nearly claimed several lives. During shooting of a scene in which a Japanese soldier falls from the bridge, stuntman Frankie Howard was swept away by the strong current, as was prop technician Tommy Early when he dove in after Howard. Though both men were rescued, Howard contracted a stomach illness during the shoot and had to be flown to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London; sadly, he did not recover. Lean himself was also nearly swept away by a current during a break in filming and was rescued by actor Geoffrey Horne (who played Lieutenant Joyce).
** The spectacle of the construction and destruction of the bridge itself provided some of the film's most memorable images, as well as some of the production's most troublesome moments. In the film, the bridge is built in two months; the actual construction took eight months and required 500 men and 35 elephants. The elephants would take breaks every four hours to lie in the water, whatever the wishes of the construction crew. When the cameras were set up to film the bridge's destruction - with an audience including the Prime Minister of Ceylon - a cameraman was unable to get out of the way of the train in time, and Lean halted filming. The train crossed the bridge safely, but crashed into a generator on the far side. The cameras were set up again the following day for the take that went into the finished film...
** ... but it very nearly didn't make it into the film at all. Filming took place during the Suez Crisis in 1956, so filming equipment that would normally have been transported by ship instead had to be flown back and forth. The film of the bridge's destruction failed to arrive in London as scheduled, and a worldwide search was undertaken. To the crew's horror, the cans of film were eventually found in Cairo, where they had been sitting on the airport tarmac in the hot sun for a week. The film should have been ruined, leaving the film without its climactic scene, but somehow the prints were undamaged.
** The script was initially adapted by Carl Foreman from the book by French author Pierre Boulle. After Lean was chosen to direct, producer Sam Spiegel brought Lean and Foreman together to work on the script, and was delighted to see the men take an almost instant dislike to each other, feeling that many great films were born from such animosity. Unfortunately, they hated each other so much that Foreman eventually resigned and was replaced by Michael Wilson. Since both Foreman and Wilson were on the Hollywood blacklist, the screenwriting credit (and Oscar) went to Boulle, who did not even speak English.[[note]] Foreman and Wilson were awarded retroactive - and posthumous - Oscars for their work on the script in 1984.[[/note]] When Columbia executives read the script, they objected to the lack of any romantic subplots, and Lean was forced to shoehorn in an affair between Commander Shears and a British nurse at the military hospital.
** The role of Colonel Nicholson was offered to several actors, including Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier, before Alec Guinness was cast after a "summit meeting" with Spiegel and Lean. Guinness, at the time known more as a comic actor, was dismayed by the dull characterisation of Nicholson in the script and wanted to play the role as more light-hearted and sympathetic, while Lean insisted that he play Nicholson as written; the two men fought constantly over how the character should be portrayed. In the scene in which Nicholson reflects on his military career, Guinness felt that his face should be shot in closeup, and when he asked Lean why he decided instead to film Nicholson from behind, Lean exploded in anger.[[note]] Guinness did, however, ultimately regard his performance in the film as the best of his career.[[/note]]
** Location scouts found that the actual River Kwai was a mere trickle, so, at Jack Hawkins' suggestion, production was set up near Kitulgala in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The remote location required special construction of a bungalow complex to house the cast and crew. Though Lean was right at home in the tropical climate, most of the other personnel suffered in the intense heat and humidity. They were frequently forced to call in sick, and had to share the area with snakes, leeches,[[note]] though the swamps through which the demo squad treks were specially constructed - the local swamps were too dangerous to use for filming - the leeches were real[[/note]] and other wildlife. The slow pace of filming resulting from Lean's rampant perfectionism did not help. Furthermore, Spiegel did not allocate money for extras, so the British soldiers were mostly played by crew members and Ceylon natives wearing Caucasian makeup.
** Although the river posing as the Kwai in the film may have made for a more photogenic location, the strong currents nearly claimed several lives. During shooting of a scene in which a Japanese soldier falls from the bridge, stuntman Frankie Howard was swept away by the strong current, as was prop technician Tommy Early when he dove in after Howard. Though both men were rescued, Howard contracted a stomach illness during the shoot and had to be flown to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London; sadly, he did not recover. Lean himself was also nearly swept away by a current during a break in filming and was rescued by actor Geoffrey Horne (who played Lieutenant Joyce).
** The spectacle of the construction and destruction of the bridge itself provided some of the film's most memorable images, as well as some of the production's most troublesome moments. In the film, the bridge is built in two months; the actual construction took eight months and required 500 men and 35 elephants. The elephants would take breaks every four hours to lie in the water, whatever the wishes of the construction crew. When the cameras were set up to film the bridge's destruction - with an audience including the Prime Minister of Ceylon - a cameraman was unable to get out of the way of the train in time, and Lean halted filming. The train crossed the bridge safely, but crashed into a generator on the far side. The cameras were set up again the following day for the take that went into the finished film...
** ... but it very nearly didn't make it into the film at all. Filming took place during the Suez Crisis in 1956, so filming equipment that would normally have been transported by ship instead had to be flown back and forth. The film of the bridge's destruction failed to arrive in London as scheduled, and a worldwide search was undertaken. To the crew's horror, the cans of film were eventually found in Cairo, where they had been sitting on the airport tarmac in the hot sun for a week. The film should have been ruined, leaving the film without its climactic scene, but somehow the prints were undamaged.
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* ''AmericanGraffiti'': Although the shoot finished on time and on budget, it was no small miracle that it managed to do so:
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* ''AmericanGraffiti'': ''Film/AmericanGraffiti'': Although the shoot finished on time and on budget, it was no small miracle that it managed to do so:
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** Universal won a close bidding war with Paramount for the project, and of course they were overjoyed to have JohnBelushi, coming off a year when he'd starred in both a top-grossing film and a top-rate TV show ''and'' had a number one single. But they didn't have a script. After an experience writing partner was unable to help him, Aykroyd, who'd never even ''read'' a movie screenplay before, much less written one, took his time writing it. He delivered a 324-page monstrosity formatted more like free verse. Landis spent two weeks just cutting it down and converting it to something filmable.
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** Universal won a close bidding war with Paramount for the project, and of course they were overjoyed to have JohnBelushi, coming off a year when he'd starred in both [[AnimalHouse a top-grossing film film]] and [[SaturdayNightLive a top-rate TV show show]] ''and'' had a number one single. But they didn't have a script. After an experience writing partner was unable to help him, Aykroyd, who'd never even ''read'' a movie screenplay before, much less written one, took his time writing it. He delivered a 324-page monstrosity formatted more like free verse. Landis spent two weeks just cutting it down and converting it to something filmable.
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** Meanwhile, there was ExecutiveMeddling to deal with. Fuming about the skyrocketing cost of the movie, Universal kept trying to get the filmmakers to replace the blues and soul stars like Aretha Franklin and Cab Calloway in the case with more contemporary, successful acts like Rose Royce. Landis stuck to his guns, but because he did, some large theater chains refused to book it into theaters in white neighborhoods.
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** Meanwhile, there was ExecutiveMeddling to deal with. Fuming about the skyrocketing cost of the movie, Universal kept trying to get the filmmakers to replace the blues and soul stars like Aretha Franklin ArethaFranklin and Cab Calloway in the case with more contemporary, successful acts like Rose Royce. Landis stuck to his guns, but because he did, some large theater chains refused to book it into theaters in white neighborhoods.
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* The little-known SamRaimi \ CoenBrothers collaboration ''Crimewave'', that suffered from heavy ExecutiveMeddling (starting from them denying Raimi to cast his friend BruceCampbell as the protagonist; [[WriterRevolt he retaliated by expanding a minor role so Campbell would be there for most of production]]), going over budget despite being a minor production, and other difficulties such as an addicted lead actress that at times refused to leave her trailer.
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* ''RadioFlyer'' was a red-hot script when it was picked up by Columbia Pictures and initially was directed by its screenwriter, David Mickey Evans (who later did ''The Sandlot''). But after a week of shooting, he was fired and production was shut down until Richard Donner was brought in to replace him. In the process, the production budget more than doubled from $15 million to $35 million. While it was initially supposed to be Columbia's big movie for the summer of 1991, the release date was constantly shuffled due to reshoots, production delays, and finally bad test screenings -- the premise of "two boys build a flying machine to escape child abuse" ''was'' an infamously awkward one. Eventually, the film was quietly released in February 1992 and was a critically-savaged BoxOfficeBomb.
* ''ShockTreatment'' underwent a long and tumultuous process between its initial conception as a sequel to ''TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' to a musical about television with little connection to its predecessor. Originally written as a direct sequel (initially titled ''Curse of the Baby'', and later ''Rocky Horror Shows His Heels''), the story would have started with Janet finding herself pregnant after the sex-filled night at Frank's castle. Meanwhile, Brad decides he is gay, and joins Rocky (who somehow escaped the castle alive) and also-gay Dr. Scott in finding virgin blood to revive Frank, who proceeds to turn the town of Denton into transsexuals while requiring further transfusions. Eventually, Janet has her baby, but it's promptly kidnapped by Riff Raff and Magenta while Frank meets his demise again. Fox rejected the script because it was just plain terrible.
** The script having been rejected by both Fox and his RHPS behind-the-scenes collaborators, Richard O'Brien tossed it but kept the songs for a new script provisionally titled ''The Brad and Janet Show'' and only featuring them and Dr. Scott as returning characters. Production was to take place in Denton, Texas - an idea which never progressed beyond location scouting due to the 1980 Screen Actors Guild strike.
** In a last-ditch attempt to get a second movie to the ''Rocky'' fanbase, Richard rewrote the new script as ''Shock Treatment'', which drastically simplified the story to take place inside a television studio, with the citizens of Denton as a brain-dead studio audience entertained by whatever on-set activities occurred in front of them. The role of "fake cripple" now went to sleazy game show host Bert Schnick, with Dr. Scott written out. Even with the production scaled down as much as possible, the film *still* struggled, as casting proved difficult.
** Susan Sarandon, now a genuine movie star, would only reprise her role as Janet for a fee far beyond what the film's miniscule budget would allow. The role went to cult actress Jessica Harper, whose version of Janet seemed to be an exact carbon copy of Phoenix, her character from ''PhantomOfTheParadise'', rather than Susan's take. (Allegedly, Susan has never actually seen ''Shock Treatment'' to this day.)
** Barry Bostwick was involved in other projects and could not reprise his role as Brad. The next potential actor was Tim Curry (no kidding), who felt that he couldn't pull off an American accent. In the end, Cliff de Young played both Brad [[spoiler: and his evil twin brother Farley]]; and like Janet, Cliff's version of Brad bears no resemblance to Barry's, leaving some fans to question if they're even meant to be the same characters. In the end, ''Shock Treatment'' was a complete box office failure, and despite gaining a small cult following over time has been disowned by Richard O'Brien. It's usually considered the unloved bastard sequel to ''Rocky Horror''.
* Another movie affected by the Screen Actors Guild strike of 1980 was ''Heartbeeps'', due to the strike causing production to go on hiatus for over two months mid-shoot. But even when it was shooting, the sci-fi RomanticComedy that was intended both as a big-screen vehicle for AndyKaufman and Universal's big Christmas release for 1981 was troubled: The weather at the Colorado shooting location caused StanWinston's elaborate robot makeups (which took several hours to apply) to gradually wilt in the heat, limiting how much footage could be shot in a day. Director Allan Arkush, who had never helmed a big-budget project before, staged scenes at a glacial pace that frustrated everyone ''but'' him. Kaufman, increasingly bored and frustrated with the proceedings and having no friends to goof off with between takes (his friend/co-conspirator Bob Zmuda was specifically prohibited from the shoot), began acting out. Universal executives were horrified by the cut the director presented them with, and their final cut was a mere 79 minutes with credits. The movie grossed only a fifth of its budget, proving to be both Kaufman's StarDerailingRole and an OldShame.
* ''ShockTreatment'' underwent a long and tumultuous process between its initial conception as a sequel to ''TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' to a musical about television with little connection to its predecessor. Originally written as a direct sequel (initially titled ''Curse of the Baby'', and later ''Rocky Horror Shows His Heels''), the story would have started with Janet finding herself pregnant after the sex-filled night at Frank's castle. Meanwhile, Brad decides he is gay, and joins Rocky (who somehow escaped the castle alive) and also-gay Dr. Scott in finding virgin blood to revive Frank, who proceeds to turn the town of Denton into transsexuals while requiring further transfusions. Eventually, Janet has her baby, but it's promptly kidnapped by Riff Raff and Magenta while Frank meets his demise again. Fox rejected the script because it was just plain terrible.
** The script having been rejected by both Fox and his RHPS behind-the-scenes collaborators, Richard O'Brien tossed it but kept the songs for a new script provisionally titled ''The Brad and Janet Show'' and only featuring them and Dr. Scott as returning characters. Production was to take place in Denton, Texas - an idea which never progressed beyond location scouting due to the 1980 Screen Actors Guild strike.
** In a last-ditch attempt to get a second movie to the ''Rocky'' fanbase, Richard rewrote the new script as ''Shock Treatment'', which drastically simplified the story to take place inside a television studio, with the citizens of Denton as a brain-dead studio audience entertained by whatever on-set activities occurred in front of them. The role of "fake cripple" now went to sleazy game show host Bert Schnick, with Dr. Scott written out. Even with the production scaled down as much as possible, the film *still* struggled, as casting proved difficult.
** Susan Sarandon, now a genuine movie star, would only reprise her role as Janet for a fee far beyond what the film's miniscule budget would allow. The role went to cult actress Jessica Harper, whose version of Janet seemed to be an exact carbon copy of Phoenix, her character from ''PhantomOfTheParadise'', rather than Susan's take. (Allegedly, Susan has never actually seen ''Shock Treatment'' to this day.)
** Barry Bostwick was involved in other projects and could not reprise his role as Brad. The next potential actor was Tim Curry (no kidding), who felt that he couldn't pull off an American accent. In the end, Cliff de Young played both Brad [[spoiler: and his evil twin brother Farley]]; and like Janet, Cliff's version of Brad bears no resemblance to Barry's, leaving some fans to question if they're even meant to be the same characters. In the end, ''Shock Treatment'' was a complete box office failure, and despite gaining a small cult following over time has been disowned by Richard O'Brien. It's usually considered the unloved bastard sequel to ''Rocky Horror''.
* Another movie affected by the Screen Actors Guild strike of 1980 was ''Heartbeeps'', due to the strike causing production to go on hiatus for over two months mid-shoot. But even when it was shooting, the sci-fi RomanticComedy that was intended both as a big-screen vehicle for AndyKaufman and Universal's big Christmas release for 1981 was troubled: The weather at the Colorado shooting location caused StanWinston's elaborate robot makeups (which took several hours to apply) to gradually wilt in the heat, limiting how much footage could be shot in a day. Director Allan Arkush, who had never helmed a big-budget project before, staged scenes at a glacial pace that frustrated everyone ''but'' him. Kaufman, increasingly bored and frustrated with the proceedings and having no friends to goof off with between takes (his friend/co-conspirator Bob Zmuda was specifically prohibited from the shoot), began acting out. Universal executives were horrified by the cut the director presented them with, and their final cut was a mere 79 minutes with credits. The movie grossed only a fifth of its budget, proving to be both Kaufman's StarDerailingRole and an OldShame.
to:
* ''RadioFlyer'' was a red-hot script when it was picked up by Columbia Pictures and initially was directed by its screenwriter, David Mickey Evans (who later did ''The Sandlot''). But after a week of shooting, he was fired and production was shut down until Richard Donner was brought in to replace him. In the process, the production budget more than doubled from $15 million to $35 million. While it was initially supposed to be intended as Columbia's big movie for the summer of 1991, 1991 -- they saw the fantasy about two brothers who escape an abusive stepfather with a homemade flying machine as an ''ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' for TheNineties -- the release date was constantly shuffled due to reshoots, production delays, and finally bad test screenings -- the premise of "two boys build a flying machine to escape child abuse" ''was'' an infamously awkward one.screenings. Eventually, the film was quietly released in February 1992 and was a critically-savaged BoxOfficeBomb.
* ''ShockTreatment'' underwent a long and tumultuous process between its initial conception as a direct sequel to ''TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' to a musical about television with little connection to its predecessor.Originally written as a direct sequel (initially titled Originally, Richard O'Brien's script for ''Curse of the Baby'', and later Baby'' (later ''Rocky Horror Shows His Heels''), the story would have Heels'') started with Janet finding herself pregnant after the sex-filled night at Frank's castle. Meanwhile, Brad decides he is gay, and joins Rocky (who somehow escaped the castle alive) and also-gay Dr. Scott in finding virgin blood to revive Frank, who proceeds to turn the town of Denton into transsexuals while requiring further transfusions. Eventually, Janet has her baby, but it's promptly kidnapped by Riff Raff and Magenta while Frank meets his demise again. Fox and his RHPS collaborators rejected the script because it was just plain terrible.
**The script having been rejected by both Fox and his RHPS behind-the-scenes collaborators, Richard O'Brien tossed it the script but kept the songs for a new script provisionally titled ''The Brad and Janet Show'' and only featuring them and Dr. Scott as returning characters. Production was to take place in Denton, Texas - an idea which never progressed beyond location scouting due to the 1980 Screen Actors Guild strike.
** In a last-ditch attempt to get a second movie to the ''Rocky'' fanbase, Richard rewrote the new script as ''Shock Treatment'', which drastically simplified the story to take place inside a television studio, with the citizens of Denton as a brain-dead studio audience entertained by whatever on-set activitiesoccurred occur in front of them. The role of "fake cripple" now went to sleazy game show host Bert Schnick, with Dr. Scott written out. Even with the production Production was scaled down as much as possible, the film *still* struggled, as but then casting proved difficult.
** Susan Sarandon, now a genuine movie star, would only reprise her role as Janet for a fee far beyond what the film's miniscule budget would allow.The role went to cult Cult actress Jessica Harper, whose Harper's version of Janet seemed to be an exact carbon copy of Phoenix, her character from ''PhantomOfTheParadise'', rather than Susan's take. (Allegedly, Susan has never actually seen ''Shock Treatment'' to this day.)
** Barry Bostwick was involved in other projects and could not reprise his role as Brad. The next potential actor was Tim Curry (no kidding), who felt that he couldn't pull off an American accent. In the end, Cliff de Young played both Brad [[spoiler: and his evil twin brother Farley]]; and like Janet, Cliff's version of Brad bears no resemblance to Barry's, leaving some fans to question if they're even meant to be the same characters. In the end, ''Shock Treatment'' was a complete box office failure, and despite gaining a small cult following over time has been disowned by RichardO'Brien. It's usually considered O'Brien and most of the unloved bastard sequel to ''Rocky Horror''.
RHPS fanbase.
* Another movie affected by the Screen Actors Guild strike of 1980 was ''Heartbeeps'', due to the strike causing production to go on hiatus for over two months mid-shoot. But even when it was shooting, the sci-fi RomanticComedy that was intended both as a big-screen vehicle for AndyKaufman and Universal's big Christmas release for 1981 was troubled: The weather at the Colorado shooting location caused StanWinston's elaborate robot makeups(which -- which took several hours to apply) apply -- to gradually wilt in the heat, limiting how much footage could be shot in a day. Director Allan Arkush, who had never helmed a big-budget project before, project, staged scenes at a glacial pace that frustrated everyone ''but'' him. Kaufman, increasingly bored and frustrated with the proceedings and having no friends to goof off with between takes (his friend/co-conspirator Bob Zmuda was specifically prohibited from the shoot), began acting out. Universal executives were horrified by the cut the director presented them with, and their final cut was a mere 79 minutes with credits. The movie grossed only a fifth of its budget, proving to be both Kaufman's StarDerailingRole and an OldShame.
* ''ShockTreatment'' underwent a long and tumultuous process between its initial conception as a direct sequel to ''TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' to a musical about television with little connection to its predecessor.
**
** In a last-ditch attempt to get a second movie to the ''Rocky'' fanbase, Richard rewrote the new script as ''Shock Treatment'', which drastically simplified the story to take place inside a television studio, with the citizens of Denton as a brain-dead studio audience entertained by whatever on-set activities
** Susan Sarandon, now a genuine movie star, would only reprise her role as Janet for a fee far beyond what the film's miniscule budget would allow.
** Barry Bostwick was involved in other projects and could not reprise his role as Brad. The next potential actor was Tim Curry (no kidding), who felt that he couldn't pull off an American accent. In the end, Cliff de Young played both Brad [[spoiler: and his evil twin brother Farley]]; and like Janet, Cliff's version of Brad bears no resemblance to Barry's, leaving some fans to question if they're even meant to be the same characters. In the end, ''Shock Treatment'' was a complete box office failure, and despite gaining a small cult following over time has been disowned by Richard
* Another movie affected by the Screen Actors Guild strike of 1980 was ''Heartbeeps'', due to the strike causing production to go on hiatus for over two months mid-shoot. But even when it was shooting, the sci-fi RomanticComedy that was intended both as a big-screen vehicle for AndyKaufman and Universal's big Christmas release for 1981 was troubled: The weather at the Colorado shooting location caused StanWinston's elaborate robot makeups
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** Eventually shooting in Jordan got so expensive that the production moved to Spain. More difficulties arose: production designer John Box had to build the Aqaba set from scratch. The crew couldn't find enough camels. Peter O'Toole nearly died filming a battle scene when he fell off his camel. Edmond O'Brien (playing Bentley) had an onset heart attack and Arthur Kennedy was flown direct from New York to replace him. Lean and his actors grew increasingly tense; Lean exploded at Jack Hawkins for trying to lighten the mood on-set. Lean couldn't find suitable locations for the final battle scenes and there was a final move to Morocco for the climactic massacre.
to:
** Eventually shooting in Jordan got so expensive that the production moved to Spain. More difficulties arose: production designer John Box had to build the Aqaba set from scratch. The crew couldn't find enough camels. Peter O'Toole nearly died filming a battle scene when he fell off his camel. Edmond O'Brien (playing Bentley) had an onset heart attack and Arthur Kennedy was flown direct from New York to replace him. Lean and his actors grew increasingly tense; Lean exploded at Jack Hawkins for trying to lighten the mood on-set. Lean couldn't find suitable locations for the final battle scenes and there was a final move to...
** Morocco. The crew took up residence at an old Foreign Legion encampment in Ouarzazate, with no air conditioning in 100-plus degree F temperatures. Lean argued with his second unit directors on how toMorocco for film the climactic massacre.final battle, firing one (Andre de Toth). More diseases broke out among crew-members. Camels again proved a problem. The main difficulty however came with the extras. Soldiers from the Moroccan army were employed without pay, which they understandably resented. During off-hours they actually took potshots at cast and crew, Lean included. Others deserted between takes and never came back.
** Morocco. The crew took up residence at an old Foreign Legion encampment in Ouarzazate, with no air conditioning in 100-plus degree F temperatures. Lean argued with his second unit directors on how to
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* Film/LawrenceOfArabia''. Besides the difficulties shooting on location in various deserts...
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* Film/LawrenceOfArabia''.''Film/LawrenceOfArabia''. Besides the difficulties shooting on location in various deserts...
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** Sam Spiegel and David Lean did not get along at all. Spiegel only visited the set twice but constantly complained about Lean's "wasting" of money and the allegedly poor quality of the footage. On one visit he showed up with William Wyler in tow, threatening to replace Lean if he didn't work faster. Lean eventually [[TakeThat got back at Spiegel]] by sneaking into the dailies a shot of him flipping Spiegel off... [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome in 70mm]].
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** Sam Spiegel and David Lean did not get along at all. Spiegel only visited the set twice but constantly complained long-distance about Lean's "wasting" of money and the allegedly poor quality of the footage. On one visit he showed up with William Wyler in tow, threatening to replace Lean if he didn't work faster. Lean eventually [[TakeThat got back at Spiegel]] by sneaking into the dailies a shot of him flipping Spiegel off... [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome in 70mm]].
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* Film/LawrenceOfArabia''. Besides the difficulties shooting on location in various deserts...
** The production started without a script. Michael Wilson worked on the screenplay for over a year, then was summarily dismissed by David Lean for unsatisfactory work. Unfortunately the cast and crew were already in Jordan and waited for weeks before a new writer was hired. Robert Bolt's tenure got off to a rocky start when he was arrested for taking part in a CND demonstration in London. Eventually Sam Spiegel invited Bolt to live on his private yacht in Aqaba, mostly to keep an eye on him.
** Logistics filming in Jordan were a nightmare. The crew had to commandeer tanker trucks full of fresh water from Aqaba and airlift frozen food to the location every day. Outbreaks of illness laid many crew members low. The Jordanian government initially cooperated with the production but proved leery about filming in cities like Aqaba and Maan.
** Sam Spiegel and David Lean did not get along at all. Spiegel only visited the set twice but constantly complained about Lean's "wasting" of money and the allegedly poor quality of the footage. On one visit he showed up with William Wyler in tow, threatening to replace Lean if he didn't work faster. Lean eventually [[TakeThat got back at Spiegel]] by sneaking into the dailies a shot of him flipping Spiegel off... [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome in 70mm]].
** Eventually shooting in Jordan got so expensive that the production moved to Spain. More difficulties arose: production designer John Box had to build the Aqaba set from scratch. The crew couldn't find enough camels. Peter O'Toole nearly died filming a battle scene when he fell off his camel. Edmond O'Brien (playing Bentley) had an onset heart attack and Arthur Kennedy was flown direct from New York to replace him. Lean and his actors grew increasingly tense; Lean exploded at Jack Hawkins for trying to lighten the mood on-set. Lean couldn't find suitable locations for the final battle scenes and there was a final move to Morocco for the climactic massacre.
** The production started without a script. Michael Wilson worked on the screenplay for over a year, then was summarily dismissed by David Lean for unsatisfactory work. Unfortunately the cast and crew were already in Jordan and waited for weeks before a new writer was hired. Robert Bolt's tenure got off to a rocky start when he was arrested for taking part in a CND demonstration in London. Eventually Sam Spiegel invited Bolt to live on his private yacht in Aqaba, mostly to keep an eye on him.
** Logistics filming in Jordan were a nightmare. The crew had to commandeer tanker trucks full of fresh water from Aqaba and airlift frozen food to the location every day. Outbreaks of illness laid many crew members low. The Jordanian government initially cooperated with the production but proved leery about filming in cities like Aqaba and Maan.
** Sam Spiegel and David Lean did not get along at all. Spiegel only visited the set twice but constantly complained about Lean's "wasting" of money and the allegedly poor quality of the footage. On one visit he showed up with William Wyler in tow, threatening to replace Lean if he didn't work faster. Lean eventually [[TakeThat got back at Spiegel]] by sneaking into the dailies a shot of him flipping Spiegel off... [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome in 70mm]].
** Eventually shooting in Jordan got so expensive that the production moved to Spain. More difficulties arose: production designer John Box had to build the Aqaba set from scratch. The crew couldn't find enough camels. Peter O'Toole nearly died filming a battle scene when he fell off his camel. Edmond O'Brien (playing Bentley) had an onset heart attack and Arthur Kennedy was flown direct from New York to replace him. Lean and his actors grew increasingly tense; Lean exploded at Jack Hawkins for trying to lighten the mood on-set. Lean couldn't find suitable locations for the final battle scenes and there was a final move to Morocco for the climactic massacre.
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* Thanks to [[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/magazine/here-is-what-happens-when-you-cast-lindsay-lohan-in-your-movie.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 this New York Times article]], it looks like ''The Canyons'' (a collaboration between Paul Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis starring LindsayLohan) will enter the ranks. Lindsay - notoriously rather troubled herself - was hired based on starpower, and was fired before the production due to completely vanishing during a key meeting. She literally had to beg and cry for her job back... and when production started, she was in a constant struggle with Schrader, had to be persuaded to do nude scenes (despite knowing going in that they were part of the film), and often showed up late after partying all night (one night staying out until 5:30 AM with Lady Gaga - when she had a 6 AM call time). She wasn't the only problem with the production, as star James Deen (yes, porn star James Deen) left town to pursue his... other career during filming, and several attempts to shoot covertly without permits were thwarted. And seeing as the film's already been rejected from Sundance and [=SXSW=]...
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* Thanks to [[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/magazine/here-is-what-happens-when-you-cast-lindsay-lohan-in-your-movie.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 this New York Times article]], it looks like ''The Canyons'' (a collaboration between Paul Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis starring LindsayLohan) will enter the ranks. Lindsay - notoriously rather troubled herself - was hired based on starpower, and was supposedly fired before the production due to completely vanishing during a key meeting. She literally had to beg and cry for her job back... and when When production started, she was in a constant struggle with Schrader, had to be persuaded to do nude scenes (despite knowing going in that they were part of the film), scenes, and often showed up late after partying all night (one night staying out until 5:30 AM with Lady Gaga - when she had a 6 AM call time). She wasn't the only problem with the production, as star James Deen (yes, porn star James Deen) left town to pursue his... other career during filming, and several attempts to shoot covertly without permits were thwarted. And seeing as the film's already been film was rejected from Sundance and [=SXSW=]...[=SXSW=].
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* The Creator/WesCraven[=/=][[Film/{{Scream}} Kevin Williamson]] werewolf film ''Film/{{Cursed|2005}}'' turned out to have a rather fitting title. Production was halted in the middle of filming in order to do studio-mandated rewrites, which delayed the film's expected completion by over a year. Music/MandyMoore dropped out and was replaced by Mya due to the delays, Skeet Ulrich dropped out when he saw the changes to the script (leading to his character being removed), and several actors (Illeana Douglas, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley, Omar Epps, Robert Forster, James Brolin, and Corey Feldman) all saw the scenes they shot removed entirely from the film. The result was a critical and box office dud that is often cited as Wes Craven's worst film.
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* The Creator/WesCraven[=/=][[Film/{{Scream}} Creator/WesCraven[=/=][[Film/{{Scream 1996}} Kevin Williamson]] werewolf film ''Film/{{Cursed|2005}}'' turned out to have a rather fitting title. Production was halted in the middle of filming in order to do studio-mandated rewrites, which delayed the film's expected completion by over a year. Music/MandyMoore dropped out and was replaced by Mya due to the delays, Skeet Ulrich dropped out when he saw the changes to the script (leading to his character being removed), and several actors (Illeana Douglas, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley, Omar Epps, Robert Forster, James Brolin, and Corey Feldman) all saw the scenes they shot removed entirely from the film. The result was a critical and box office dud that is often cited as Wes Craven's worst film.
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* Thanks to [[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/magazine/here-is-what-happens-when-you-cast-lindsay-lohan-in-your-movie.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 this New York Times article]], it looks like ''The Canyons'' (a collaboration between Paul Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis starring LindsayLohan) will enter the ranks. Lindsay - notoriously rather troubled herself - was hired based on starpower, and was fired before the production due to completely vanishing during a key meeting. She literally had to beg and cry for her job back... and when production started, she was in a constant struggle with Schrader, had to be persuaded to do nude scenes (despite knowing going in that they were part of the film), and often showed up late after partying all night (one night staying out until 5:30 AM with Lady Gaga - when she had a 6 AM call time). She wasn't the only problem with the production, as star James Deen (yes, porn star James Deen) left town to pursue his... other career during filming, and several attempts to shoot covertly without permits were thwarted. And seeing as the film's already been rejected from Sundance and [=SXSW=]...
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* The infamous ''Film/SuperMarioBros'' suffered from ExecutiveMeddling, conflicts between the studio and the ControlFreak directors, constant rewrites (apparently so much that the actors stopped paying attention), going over budget and schedule (DennisHopper stated he "was supposed to go down there for five weeks, and I was there for 17")... JohnLeguizamo declared that he and BobHoskins were having such a bad time that frequently get drunk to make it through the experience.
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* The 1989 horror film ''Clownhouse'' became one of the nastier examples on this list when it was discovered that director Victor Salva had been molesting the film's 12-year-old star, Nathan Forrest Winters, during production. Despite the film winning the Grand Jury Prize in the dramatic category at Sundance that year, Salva [[CreatorKiller wouldn't direct again until 1995]] -- and his next film, ''Film/{{Powder}}'', was hit with an attempted boycott led by Winters.
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** Most of the problems stemmed from the endless feuding between writer GoreVidal, director Tinto Brass, and producer Bob Guccione (of ''Penthouse'' magazine fame). Vidal wanted the film to stay true to his script, to the point of claiming in a ''Time'' magazine interview that directors were "parasites" living off writers, and that the director need only follow the directions as provided by the writer of the screenplay. Brass, not amused in the slightest, threw Vidal out of the studio. Guccione, meanwhile, wanted to incorporate hardcore sex into the film in order to promote his magazine, which caused female lead Maria Schneider to withdraw from the film (she was replaced by Teresa Ann Savoy) and no shortage of disagreements with Brass.
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** Most of the problems stemmed from the endless feuding between writer GoreVidal, Creator/GoreVidal, director Tinto Brass, and producer Bob Guccione (of ''Penthouse'' magazine fame). Vidal wanted the film to stay true to his script, to the point of claiming in a ''Time'' magazine interview that directors were "parasites" living off writers, and that the director need only follow the directions as provided by the writer of the screenplay. Brass, not amused in the slightest, threw Vidal out of the studio. Guccione, meanwhile, wanted to incorporate hardcore sex into the film in order to promote his magazine, which caused female lead Maria Schneider to withdraw from the film (she was replaced by Teresa Ann Savoy) and no shortage of disagreements with Brass.
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* The 1996 ''TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau'' had two directors because dealing with prima donnas Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando (who were both going through bad days: the former, a divorce; the latter, a daughter killing herself) proved too much for Richard Stanley, who left for John Frankenheimer to take over (he faced the two on the same coin: [[http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,292752_3,00.html apparently]] once he replied Kilmer with "I don't give a fuck. Get off my set!"). Co-star David Thewlis had such a terrible time making the film that he skipped the premiere and has vowed to never watch it. The final result shows how bad it was.
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* The 1996 ''TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau'' ''Film/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau'' had two directors because dealing with prima donnas Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando (who were both going through bad days: the former, a divorce; the latter, a daughter killing herself) proved too much for Richard Stanley, who left for John Frankenheimer to take over (he faced the two on the same coin: [[http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,292752_3,00.html apparently]] once he replied Kilmer with "I don't give a fuck. Get off my set!"). Co-star David Thewlis had such a terrible time making the film that he skipped the premiere and has vowed to never watch it. The final result shows how bad it was.
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* ''Film/TheAfricanQueen'' was shot on location in Africa, a rarity in those days. The results weren't pretty: handling the heavy Technicolor cameras was hard, the cast and crew got sick (KatherineHepburn had to keep a bucket beside her while filming the piano scene that opens the film so she could vomit between takes; only HumphreyBogart and director JohnHuston escaped illness, due to consuming nothing but canned goods and whiskey) and had several close brushes with wild animals and poisonous snakes (specially because Bogart got interested in hunting - which even became a ClintEastwood [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100928/ movie]]), the title boat sunk and had to be raised twice, the ship's boiler nearly fell on Hepburn, army ants infested the set...
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* ''Film/TheAfricanQueen'' was shot on location in Africa, a rarity in those days. The results weren't pretty: handling the heavy Technicolor cameras was hard, the cast and crew got sick (KatherineHepburn (Creator/KatharineHepburn had to keep a bucket beside her while filming the piano scene that opens the film so she could vomit between takes; only HumphreyBogart and director JohnHuston escaped illness, due to consuming nothing but canned goods and whiskey) and had several close brushes with wild animals and poisonous snakes (specially because Bogart got interested in hunting - which even became a ClintEastwood [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100928/ movie]]), the title boat sunk and had to be raised twice, the ship's boiler nearly fell on Hepburn, army ants infested the set...
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* The Creator/WesCraven[=/=][[Film/{{Scream}} Kevin Williamson]] werewolf film ''Film/{{Cursed|2005}}'' turned out to have a rather fitting title. Production was halted in the middle of filming in order to do studio-mandated rewrites, which delayed the film's expected completion by over a year. Music/MandyMoore was replaced by Mya due to the delays, Skeet Ulrich dropped out when he saw the changes to the script (leading to his character being removed), and several actors (Illeana Douglas, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley, Omar Epps, Robert Forster, James Brolin, and Corey Feldman) all saw the scenes they shot removed entirely from the film. The result was a critical and box office dud that is often cited as Wes Craven's worst film.
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* The Creator/WesCraven[=/=][[Film/{{Scream}} Kevin Williamson]] werewolf film ''Film/{{Cursed|2005}}'' turned out to have a rather fitting title. Production was halted in the middle of filming in order to do studio-mandated rewrites, which delayed the film's expected completion by over a year. Music/MandyMoore dropped out and was replaced by Mya due to the delays, Skeet Ulrich dropped out when he saw the changes to the script (leading to his character being removed), and several actors (Illeana Douglas, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley, Omar Epps, Robert Forster, James Brolin, and Corey Feldman) all saw the scenes they shot removed entirely from the film. The result was a critical and box office dud that is often cited as Wes Craven's worst film.film.
* ''Film/TheRageCarrie2''. To begin with, the film was supposed to start production in 1996 as an original project titled ''The Curse'', with no relation to ''{{Carrie}}'' beyond a similar plot. However, production got stalled for two years, during which time it was [[DolledUpInstallment rewritten into a sequel]] to ''Carrie''. A few weeks into production, director Robert Mandel quit, citing CreativeDifferences, leaving Katt Shea (maker of ''Film/PoisonIvy'') to take over the production with less than a week to prepare. This also forced two weeks of reshoots.
* ''Film/TheRageCarrie2''. To begin with, the film was supposed to start production in 1996 as an original project titled ''The Curse'', with no relation to ''{{Carrie}}'' beyond a similar plot. However, production got stalled for two years, during which time it was [[DolledUpInstallment rewritten into a sequel]] to ''Carrie''. A few weeks into production, director Robert Mandel quit, citing CreativeDifferences, leaving Katt Shea (maker of ''Film/PoisonIvy'') to take over the production with less than a week to prepare. This also forced two weeks of reshoots.
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->''"People question me, like you're questioning me now, say 'Must've been fun making TheWizardOfOz.' It was not fun. Like hell it was fun. It was a lot of hard work. It was not fun at all."''
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->''"People question me, like you're questioning me now, say 'Must've been fun making TheWizardOfOz.Film/TheWizardOfOz.' It was not fun. Like hell it was fun. It was a lot of hard work. It was not fun at all."''
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* ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'' had to undergo a RidiculouslyFastConstruction because the producers had already set a release date, and they had to face problems such a boat of cameras sinking into the Bosphorus and a helicopter falling into a lake (with the director inside!) while location scouting; and ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'' had a few stuntmen accidents, and leading man George Lazenby had conflicts with the director and the producers.
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* [[Film.JamesBond The official Bond films]] have two minor cases compared to the one above. ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'' had to undergo a RidiculouslyFastConstruction because the producers had already set a release date, and they had to face problems such a boat of cameras sinking into the Bosphorus and a helicopter falling into a lake (with the director inside!) while location scouting; and ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'' had a few stuntmen accidents, and leading man George Lazenby had conflicts with the director and the producers.
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** The production is the subject of an entire book, ''Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of ''Heaven's Gate, by Stephen Bach, one of the (former, unsurprisingly) studio executives involved.
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** The production is the subject of an entire book, ''Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of ''Heaven's Gate, Heaven's Gate'', by Stephen Bach, one of the (former, unsurprisingly) studio executives involved.
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** And, like ''Apocalyspe'', ''Fitzcarraldo'''s trouble production is the subject of its own documentary film, ''Burden of Dreams''. Near the end, Herzog speculates that he should give up filmmaking and go into a mental asylum.
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** And, like ''Apocalyspe'', ''Apocalypse'', ''Fitzcarraldo'''s trouble production is the subject of its own documentary film, ''Burden of Dreams''. Near the end, Herzog speculates that he should give up filmmaking and go into a mental asylum.
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* As mentioned on the page quote, ''Film/TheWizardOfOz''. First, changes in both cast (Margaret Hamilton replaced the original Wicked Witch three days before production begun, Tin Man performer Buddy Ebsen quit due to allergic reactions to the make-up) and director (five were used, with credit only to the fourth and responsible for most of the film, Victor Fleming). Then, both filming - which took extended six months and many budget overruns, with incidents such as Hamilton getting burned, and the cast having to work six days a week arriving as early as four or five in the morning to be fitted with makeup and costumes (which were impractical - Hamilton could not eat! - and nearly intolerable due to the heavy lighting required for the Technicolor), not leaving until seven or eight at night - and post-production - three months with many reshoots and complicated effects work, as well as last-minute cuts following a test screening - were chaotic.
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* As mentioned on the page quote, ''Film/TheWizardOfOz''. First, changes in both cast (Margaret Hamilton replaced the original Wicked Witch three days before production begun, Tin Man performer Buddy Ebsen quit due to allergic reactions to the make-up) and director (five were used, with credit only to the fourth and responsible for most of the film, Victor Fleming).Fleming), not to mention numerous rewrites - just check [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film) the laundry list below the three credited writers...]]. Then, both filming - which took extended six months and many budget overruns, with incidents such as Hamilton getting burned, and the cast having to work six days a week arriving as early as four or five in the morning to be fitted with makeup and costumes (which were impractical - Hamilton could not eat! - and nearly intolerable due to the heavy lighting required for the Technicolor), not leaving until seven or eight at night - and post-production - three months with many reshoots and complicated effects work, as well as last-minute cuts following a test screening - were chaotic.
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Moving from the main page.
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->''"People question me, like you're questioning me now, say 'Must've been fun making TheWizardOfOz.' It was not fun. Like hell it was fun. It was a lot of hard work. It was not fun at all."''
-->-- '''Jack Haley'''
-->-- '''Jack Haley'''
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expand ST:TNG
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* ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'': Paramount knew it had to let Gene Roddenberry produce, because of the godlike cult of personality he'd built up among the fans, but it had reservations as he'd never produced a feature film before. Robert Wise hadn't directed a sci-fi film of this scope and was getting old (he refused to shoot for more than 12 hours a day, resulting in the film being behind schedule after just two days). [[SpecialEffectFailure The original special effects house blew the job]] and had to be replaced by Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra late in the production. Long before principal photography was even finished the production was way over budget, to the point that Paramount executives were keeping a running tab every day.\\
\\
According to Jeff Katzenberg, then the Paramount executive in charge of the production, what finally went out to the theaters the weekend of release was a rough cut -- no one at the studio had seen it in its entirety. In fact, the movie's crunch-timing meant that it wasn't edited properly due to being rushed -- editing carried on up until the day of the release, and when the print was delivered for the movie's premiere, it was still wet.
\\
According to Jeff Katzenberg, then the Paramount executive in charge of the production, what finally went out to the theaters the weekend of release was a rough cut -- no one at the studio had seen it in its entirety. In fact, the movie's crunch-timing meant that it wasn't edited properly due to being rushed -- editing carried on up until the day of the release, and when the print was delivered for the movie's premiere, it was still wet.
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* ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'': Paramount knew it had to let Gene Roddenberry produce, because of the godlike cult of personality he'd built up among the fans, but it had reservations as he'd never produced a feature film before. before as it decided to convert the production from a SequelSeries pilot to a feature film to cash in on the success of ''Star Wars''.
** Even when it was still supposed to have been the pilot episode for the series, Roddenberry and his cowriter, Harold Livingston, had been feuding. His replacement, Dennis Clark (''ComesAHorseman'') got along even worse with the Great Bird, and Livingston was back in three months. But despite Livingston having it in his new contract that Roddenberry couldn't do any more work on it than he already had, Roddenberry would do rewrites on the sly and then send them to the studio head.
** Paramount's original budget was $8 million. The original director and producer were let go once Roddenberry realized just how much the kind of special effects audiences would be expecting after ''Star Wars'' and ''Close Encounters'' would cost ... that much, and possibly more. Robert Wisehadn't directed a sci-fi film of this scope was hired as director and the film's budget doubled. He put shooting on hold while he had the sets and (yes) the costumes redesigned. But the cast, already under contract for the now-abandoned series, was still getting old (he refused paid every week under regularly extended contracts, and finally Paramount said in late summer 1978 that principal photographry ''had'' to start.
** Wise didn't want to shoot for more than 12 hours a day, resulting in thefilm being production getting behind schedule after just the first two days). [[SpecialEffectFailure days.
** Theoriginal feuding between Roddenberry and Livingston continued, at the expense of the script. William Shatner, who titled his chapter on this in ''Movie Memories'' "''Star Trek: The Emotional Picture''", said the cast was getting revisions ''every two hours''. And they hadn't even settled the question of what was going to happen in the third act, until two months had gone by and Leonard Nimoy began mediating between Roddenberry and Livingston at night after shooting.
** Only after the wrap did Wise check on the special effects, of which he hadn't even seen a demo shot (which concerned him). It soon became apparent that the first special effects houseblew [[SpecialEffectsFailure couldn't get the job]] job done]] so John Dykstra and had to be replaced by Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra late in were hired with only months to go. They had to work around the production. Long before principal photography clock to get the job done.
** It waseven finished the production was way so over budget, to the point budget that Paramount executives were keeping a running tab every day.\\
\\
each day of how much it was such (they had trusted Roddenberry despite the fact that he had never produced a feature film; after this they knew better than to let him again).
** According toJeff Katzenberg, then Wise and Jon Povill, the Paramount executive in charge of associate producer, the production, what finally went out to the theaters the weekend of release released film was essentially a rough cut -- that no one at the studio had seen it in its entirety. In fact, entirety before shipping. Wise completed the movie's crunch-timing meant that it wasn't edited properly due to being rushed -- editing carried on up until final cut a day before the day of premier and had to take it with him to the release, and when the print was delivered for the movie's premiere, it was premiere in Washington. The reels were still wet.wet when they were loaded onto the projector.
** Even when it was still supposed to have been the pilot episode for the series, Roddenberry and his cowriter, Harold Livingston, had been feuding. His replacement, Dennis Clark (''ComesAHorseman'') got along even worse with the Great Bird, and Livingston was back in three months. But despite Livingston having it in his new contract that Roddenberry couldn't do any more work on it than he already had, Roddenberry would do rewrites on the sly and then send them to the studio head.
** Paramount's original budget was $8 million. The original director and producer were let go once Roddenberry realized just how much the kind of special effects audiences would be expecting after ''Star Wars'' and ''Close Encounters'' would cost ... that much, and possibly more. Robert Wise
** Wise didn't want to shoot for more than 12 hours a day, resulting in the
** The
** Only after the wrap did Wise check on the special effects, of which he hadn't even seen a demo shot (which concerned him). It soon became apparent that the first special effects house
** It was
\\
** According to
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* [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/brad-pitt-world-war-z-production-nightmare-336422 By all accounts]], the [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] of ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' has shaped up into one of these.
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* [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/brad-pitt-world-war-z-production-nightmare-336422 By all accounts]], the [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] of ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' ''Film/WorldWarZ'' has shaped up into one of these.
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* ''DaysOfThunder'', per [[http://books.google.com/books?id=0OSXeiTCfLAC&pg=PA40 this old ''Spy'' article]]. Everyone thought getting the producers of ''TopGun'' (Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer), its director (the late Tony Scott) and star (TomCruise) together, with a script by the legendary Robert Towne about a trendy sport (stock-car racing) couldn't miss. It was a commercial success indeed, despite bad reviews, but none of them ever worked all together again, because:
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* ''DaysOfThunder'', ''Film/DaysOfThunder'', per [[http://books.google.com/books?id=0OSXeiTCfLAC&pg=PA40 this old ''Spy'' article]]. Everyone thought getting the producers of ''TopGun'' (Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer), its director (the late Tony Scott) and star (TomCruise) together, with a script by the legendary Robert Towne about a trendy sport (stock-car racing) couldn't miss. It was a commercial success indeed, despite bad reviews, but none of them ever worked all together again, because:
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* The remake of ''Film/RedDawn2012'' was originally meant to be released in 2010. MGM was hit with financial difficulties which halted production for a while. Distributors refused to pick up the film for fear that the Chinese antagonists would anger the Chinese government, which has the power to censor films in China and cut a film's box office take. After resuming production MGM spent an additional one million dollars to turn the Chinese villains into [[NorthKoreansWithNodongs North Koreans]] by digitally altering images and dubbing dialogue. The film is scheduled to be released November 2012, and only then with Film District, a surprisingly small distributor for such a big film.
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* The remake of ''Film/RedDawn2012'' was originally meant to be released in 2010. MGM was hit with financial difficulties which halted production for a while. Distributors refused to pick up the film for fear that the Chinese antagonists would anger the Chinese government, which has the power to censor films in China and cut a film's box office take. After resuming production MGM spent an additional one million dollars to turn the Chinese villains into [[NorthKoreansWithNodongs North Koreans]] by digitally altering images and dubbing dialogue. The film is scheduled to be was finally released in November 2012, and only then with Film District, a surprisingly small distributor for such a big film.film... and it flopped big-time.
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* While it's obvious from all the on-screen mayhem why ''TheBluesBrothers'' cost so much to make (they actually dropped the Ford Pinto from a mile up, requiring a special FAA permit), there were also the days they more or less lost completely waiting for John Belushi to show up, hours after unit call. And all the money that went up Belushi's (and everyone else's) noses. Fortunately the movie was a box-office smash that has since become a CultClassic.
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* While it's obvious from all the on-screen mayhem why ''TheBluesBrothers'' cost so much to make (they actually dropped the Ford Pinto from a mile up, requiring a special FAA permit), there were also a lot of other issues that aren't obvious on screen, as [[http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2012/12/drugs-john-belushi-making-blues-brothers this ''Vanity Fair'' article]] showed:
** Universal won a close bidding war with Paramount for thedays project, and of course they were overjoyed to have JohnBelushi, coming off a year when he'd starred in both a top-grossing film and a top-rate TV show ''and'' had a number one single. But they didn't have a script. After an experience writing partner was unable to help him, Aykroyd, who'd never even ''read'' a movie screenplay before, much less written one, took his time writing it. He delivered a 324-page monstrosity formatted more or less lost completely waiting for John like free verse. Landis spent two weeks just cutting it down and converting it to something filmable.
** The script was finished but the studio and the creative people hadn't settled on a budget. After the first month of filming in Chicago, where Landis kept Belushito show up, hours after unit call. under control and things went well, they finally saw it. "I think we've spent that much already," Landis half-joked when he saw that it was $17.5 million.
** Andall then things went to hell. Belushi went everywhere in Chicago when he wasn't on set—and when he did, ''everybody'' was slipping him vials and packets of coke. That was in addition to what he could procure, or have procured for, himself, often consumed in his trailer or at the private bar on set he had built for himself, his longtime friends, the cast and any visiting celebrities. Carrie Fisher, who Landis had warned to keep Belushi away from drugs if she could, said almost everyone who had a job there also dealt, and the patrons could (and did) score almost anything there. DanAykroyd, who unlike Belushi or Fisher kept his use under control, says there was money that went up in the budget set aside for coke for night shoots.
** After Belushi's(and everyone else's) noses. late nights partying, he'd either be really late for unit calls, tanking almost a whole day's worth of shooting, or only an hour or two late ... but then he'd go back to his trailer and sleep it off. One night, he wandered away from the set to a nearby house, where Aykroyd found him conked out on the couch after he'd raided the owner's fridge. On another, Landis went in to Belushi's trailer and found a gigantic pile of coke on a table inside, which he flushed down the toilet. Belushi attacked him when he came back, Landis knocked him down with a single punch and Belushi collapsed into tears.
** Meanwhile, there was ExecutiveMeddling to deal with. Fuming about the skyrocketing cost of the movie, Universal kept trying to get the filmmakers to replace the blues and soul stars like Aretha Franklin and Cab Calloway in the case with more contemporary, successful acts like Rose Royce. Landis stuck to his guns, but because he did, some large theater chains refused to book it into theaters in white neighborhoods.
** The production returned to Los Angeles for the last month of shooting, already way behind schedule and over budget. Fortunately Belushi calmed down and got it done. But right before shooting the final scene, which required him to do all sorts of onstage acrobatics while performing at the LA Palladium in front of an audience of hundreds of extras, he tried out some kid's skateboard...and fell off and seriously injured his knee. Lew Wasserman, the studio head, called the top orthopedist in LA and made him postpone his weekend until he could shoot Belushi up with enough anesthetics to get him through filming
**Fortunately the movie was a box-office smash that has since become a CultClassic.
** Universal won a close bidding war with Paramount for the
** The script was finished but the studio and the creative people hadn't settled on a budget. After the first month of filming in Chicago, where Landis kept Belushi
** And
** After Belushi's
** Meanwhile, there was ExecutiveMeddling to deal with. Fuming about the skyrocketing cost of the movie, Universal kept trying to get the filmmakers to replace the blues and soul stars like Aretha Franklin and Cab Calloway in the case with more contemporary, successful acts like Rose Royce. Landis stuck to his guns, but because he did, some large theater chains refused to book it into theaters in white neighborhoods.
** The production returned to Los Angeles for the last month of shooting, already way behind schedule and over budget. Fortunately Belushi calmed down and got it done. But right before shooting the final scene, which required him to do all sorts of onstage acrobatics while performing at the LA Palladium in front of an audience of hundreds of extras, he tried out some kid's skateboard...and fell off and seriously injured his knee. Lew Wasserman, the studio head, called the top orthopedist in LA and made him postpone his weekend until he could shoot Belushi up with enough anesthetics to get him through filming
**Fortunately the movie was a box-office smash that has since become a CultClassic.
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* The Creator/WesCraven[=/=][[Film/{{Scream}} Kevin Williamson]] werewolf film ''Film/{{Cursed|2005}}'' turned out to have a rather fitting title. Production was halted in the middle of filming in order to do studio-mandated rewrites, which delayed the film's expected completion by over a year. Music/MandyMoore was replaced by Mya due to the delays, Skeet Ulrich dropped out when he saw the changes to the script (leading to his character being removed), and several actors (Illeana Douglas, Heather Langenkamp, Scott Foley, Omar Epps, Robert Forster, James Brolin, and Corey Feldman) all saw the scenes they shot removed entirely from the film. The result was a critical and box office dud that is often cited as Wes Craven's worst film.
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* ''KinDzaDza'', a late 80s Soviet surrealist SciFi comedy by the renowned comedy director GeorgiDanelia was this from the start. Between filming in the desert with no infrastructure to speak of (and this being the 80s SovietUnion, that really is saying something), the railway losing ''all'' prepared sets (they were eventually found after the filming on the other end of the country) in shipping, which forced the team to cobble them together from scrap in-place,[[note]]Wef's cap is actually the codpiece from the discarded fighter pilot's suit, and Pepelats was just thrown together from scrap iron from the nearest dump welded together by a local plumber.[[/note]] the relentless ExecutiveMeddling from the authorities, script changes [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_Russian_Empire_and_the_Soviet_Union#Gorbachev_prohibition_campaign due to Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign]], and half of the film actually being ad-libbed, it's a major miracle that it was just completed, much less becoming the instant cult classic that it is.
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* ''KinDzaDza'', ''Film/KinDzaDza'', a late 80s Soviet surrealist SciFi comedy by the renowned comedy director GeorgiDanelia was this from the start. Between filming in the desert with no infrastructure to speak of (and this being the 80s SovietUnion, that really is saying something), the railway losing ''all'' prepared sets (they were eventually found after the filming on the other end of the country) in shipping, which forced the team to cobble them together from scrap in-place,[[note]]Wef's cap is actually the codpiece from the discarded fighter pilot's suit, and Pepelats was just thrown together from scrap iron from the nearest dump welded together by a local plumber.[[/note]] the relentless ExecutiveMeddling from the authorities, script changes [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_Russian_Empire_and_the_Soviet_Union#Gorbachev_prohibition_campaign due to Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign]], and half of the film actually being ad-libbed, it's a major miracle that it was just completed, much less becoming the instant cult classic that it is.
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Despite initial optimism from producer Arthur Jacobs (who had a heart attack during production), the final budget was considered to be in the then-outrageously high $18 million area. Often cited as a GenreKiller for the family musical; though {{Warner|Brothers}}'s ''Theatre/{{Camelot}}'' was actually released first, both opened to a negative critical reception and general lack of interest.
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Despite initial optimism from producer Arthur Jacobs (who had a heart attack during production), the final budget was considered to be in the then-outrageously high $18 million area. Often cited as a GenreKiller for the family musical; though {{Warner|Brothers}}'s ''Theatre/{{Camelot}}'' was actually released first, both opened to a negative critical reception and general lack of interest. The only good thing to come out was that Jacobs was able to make Fox greenlight a discredited sci-fi adaptation he was seeking to adapt for years, given he kept it on a $5 million budget... called ''PlanetOfTheApes''.
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** The weather was so unco-operative that many of the beach scenes in the film were shot near Cape Town in South Africa rather than near the specially constructed village on the Irish coast. Ironically, Lean had to wait for a year for a suitably dramatic storm to strike the Irish coast for a pivotal scene. Actor Leo [=McKern=], who played the title character's father, nearly drowned and nearly lost his glass eye to the rough seas, and was so frustrated by the slow pace of filming that he swore he would never act again (his "retirement" ultimately only lasted a few years).
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** The weather was so unco-operative that many of the beach scenes in the film were shot near Cape Town in South Africa rather than near the specially constructed village on the Irish coast. Ironically, Lean had to wait for a year for a suitably dramatic storm to strike the Irish coast for a pivotal scene.scene in which the villagers wade into the sea to retrieve a shipment of weapons intended for the IRA. Actor Leo [=McKern=], who played the title character's father, nearly drowned and nearly lost his glass eye to the rough seas, and was so frustrated by the slow pace of filming that he swore he would never act again (his "retirement" ultimately only lasted a few years).
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* ''KinDzaDza'', a late 80s Soviet surrealist SciFi comedy by the renowned comedy director GeorgiDanelia was this from the start. Between the filming in the desert with no infrastructure to speak of (and this being the 80es SovietUnion really is something), the railway losing ''all'' prepared sets (they were eventually found after the filming on the different end of the country) in shipping, which forced the team to cobble them together from scrap in-place,[[note]]Wef's cap is actually the codpiece from the discarded fighter pilot's suit, and pepelats was just threwn together from scrap iron from the nearest dump welded together by a local plumber.[[/note]] the relentless ExecutiveMeddling from the authorities, script changes [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_Russian_Empire_and_the_Soviet_Union#Gorbachev_prohibition_campaign due to the Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign]], and half of the film actually being ad-libbed, it's a major miracle that it was just completed, much less becoming the instant cult classic that it is.
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* ''KinDzaDza'', a late 80s Soviet surrealist SciFi comedy by the renowned comedy director GeorgiDanelia was this from the start. Between the filming in the desert with no infrastructure to speak of (and this being the 80es SovietUnion 80s SovietUnion, that really is saying something), the railway losing ''all'' prepared sets (they were eventually found after the filming on the different other end of the country) in shipping, which forced the team to cobble them together from scrap in-place,[[note]]Wef's cap is actually the codpiece from the discarded fighter pilot's suit, and pepelats Pepelats was just threwn thrown together from scrap iron from the nearest dump welded together by a local plumber.[[/note]] the relentless ExecutiveMeddling from the authorities, script changes [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_Russian_Empire_and_the_Soviet_Union#Gorbachev_prohibition_campaign due to the Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign]], and half of the film actually being ad-libbed, it's a major miracle that it was just completed, much less becoming the instant cult classic that it is.
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** But the most troublesome role proved to be that of Rosy's lover, ShellShockedVeteran Major Randolph Doryan. The role was originally offered to MarlonBrando, but he was forced to drop out when production of ''Burn!'' lagged behind schedule. Lean finally cast American actor Christopher Jones on the strength of his performance in ''The Looking-Glass War''... not realising until production began that the film had been shot to hide Jones' diminutive stature and that his high-pitched voice had been dubbed; Jones was also emotionally distraught by the murder of his close friend Sharon Tate during production, so his mind was not entirely on his work. Jones and Lean clashed frequently, with Lean finding Jones' voice and performance so unsuited to the square-jawed soldier he had envisioned that he had Doryan re-written as traumatised into near silence by his trench experiences, with his aide-de-camp, Captain Smith (Gerald Sim), given the extra lines. Jones' voice was ultimately dubbed by Julian Holloway.
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** But the most troublesome role proved to be that of Rosy's lover, ShellShockedVeteran Major Randolph Doryan. The role was originally offered to MarlonBrando, but he was forced to drop out when production of ''Burn!'' lagged behind schedule. Lean finally cast American actor Christopher Jones on the strength of his performance in ''The Looking-Glass War''... not realising until production began that the film had been shot to hide Jones' diminutive stature and that his high-pitched voice had been dubbed; Jones was also emotionally distraught by the murder of his close friend Sharon Tate during production, so his mind was not entirely on his work. Jones and Lean clashed frequently, with Lean finding Jones' voice and performance so unsuited to the square-jawed soldier he had envisioned that he had Doryan re-written as traumatised into near silence by his trench experiences, with his aide-de-camp, Captain Smith (Gerald Sim), given the extra lines. Jones' voice was ultimately dubbed by Julian Holloway.
Holloway. A combination of grief over Tate's death and his negative experience working on the film prompted Jones to retire from acting; he has only made one film since.
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%% NOTE: Real life examples only. In-universe examples go on TroubledProduction/FictionalExamples.
* ''Film/{{Jaws}}''. Richard Dreyfuss basically summed it up as follows: "We started the film without a script, without a cast and without a shark." The full model mechanical shark sank to the bottom of the ocean on its first day, forcing a team of divers to retrieve it, and all three models frequently malfunctioned due to exposure to salt water. Add to that the occasionally soaked cameras, ruined takes because unwanted sailboats drifted into frame, and that one time the ship began sinking with the actors aboard. While these disasters did force Creator/StevenSpielberg to be creative and contributed to the film's success (famously, he only [[NothingIsScarier hinted at the shark's presence]] for most of the film), ''Jaws'' still wound up $5 million over budget (that was a lot back in 1974) and behind schedule - what was initially meant to be a 55-day shoot ended up at 159 days. Spielberg even thought he would never work again because of how screwed the thing was!
* And the other daddy of {{Summer Blockbuster}}s, the original ''StarWars'' (AKA: "Episode IV: ANewHope"). They had the bad luck of starting filming in the Tunisian desert just as it rained. The props and equipment had their obligatory malfunctions and breakdowns. The crew didn't really care about or understand the movie. Lucas clashed with cinematographer Gilbert Taylor and the movie ended up so badly behind schedule the crew had to split into three units and meet deadlines or else face shutdown. Post-production fared little better despite a delayed release date, as Lucas had to call in two editors (including his then-wife, Marcia Lucas) to salvage the movie after his first cut was a complete disaster and ILM was forced to complete a year's work in six months. And did we mention how ILM initially spent half their budget on four shots that turned out to be completely worthless? When the studio asked for a teaser trailer, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gvqpFbRKtQ this]] was basically slammed together from the footage available at the time.
* ''TheEmpireStrikesBack'', while less brutal, did run into troubles too. New director Irvin Kershner spent a lot more time for takes, which had the film lag behind and producer Gary Kurtz allowed production to go way over budget (triple that of the original in fact). Lucas wanted to keep the film out of any studios hands and financed it himself, but he was forced to take out a loan with 20th Century Fox as his security. The crew arrived in UsefulNotes/{{Norway}} to film the Hoth scenes to be greeted by the worst winter storm in years. (How bad? The scene where Luke escapes from the Wampa lair was achieved by opening the door to their hotel and filming Mark Hamill running outside.) And the various locations used, knowing it was a ''Star Wars'' film, overcharged the production for their services. This was the reason Kurtz was changed for ''ReturnOfTheJedi'' which had the least angsty production of all the original movies, in fact.
* ''AmericanGraffiti'': Although the shoot finished on time and on budget, it was no small miracle that it managed to do so:
** The day before shooting was due to begin, a key crew member was arrested for growing marijuana, and setting the cameras up for location shooting on the first day took so long that they did not start shooting until 2am, putting them half a night behind before a single scene had been shot.
** After a single night of outdoor filming in San Rafael, the city revoked their filming permit after a local bar owner complained that the road closures were costing him business, forcing them to move filming twenty miles away to Petaluma. On the second night, a local restaurant caught fire, and the noise of the fire engine sirens and the resulting traffic jams made filming impossible.
** Inevitably for a film featuring so many driving scenes, the cars and equipment required to film them in motion seldom behaved as planned. An assistant cameraman was run over after he fell off the back of the camera truck during filming of a road scene, while filming of the climactic drag race was hampered when one of the cars broke an axle, then broke the replacement axle, and then nearly ran over two cameramen lying in the road to film its approach.
** Among non-technical problems, Paul [=LeMat=] (who played John Milner) had to be rushed to hospital after suffering a walnut allergy flare-up, and Richard Dreyfuss had his forehead gashed after [=LeMat=] threw him into a swimming pool the day before his closeups were to be filmed.
** And when the film was screened for a test audience, Universal Studios representative Ned Tanen told Lucas the film was unreleaseable, prompting an outraged FrancisFordCoppola (the film's producer) to offer to buy the film from Universal and release it himself while Lucas, burned out from the chaotic film shoot, could only watch in shock. Instead, Universal offered a compromise whereby they could [[ExecutiveMeddling suggest modifications to the film before release.]] It was not until 1978, after the success of ''StarWars'', that Lucas was able to re-edit and release the film as he originally intended.
* JamesCameron seems to be a lightning rod for this trope.
** He ended up directing ''Film/{{Piranha}} II: The Spawning'' after the original director abandoned the project. While filming in Rome, Grand Cayman and Jamaica, Cameron had to struggle with a crew made up of Italians who didn't speak English and [[ExecutiveMeddling overbearing producer]] Ovidio Assonitis. At one point he reportedly broke into the Rome editing room to cut his own version of the film, but Assonitis re-cut it again. Still, the two good things were that he got the idea for ''TheTerminator'' during production and reused some of the models for ''Aliens'' later. Lesson learned: if the producer's name is [[MeaningfulName Assonitis]], the filming may hit a few snags.
** ''Film/{{Alien}}s'' was one of his worse productions, and one of the few times when his JerkAss demeanour is kind of understandable. To wit: the English crew thought Cameron was [[TyrantTakesTheHelm a tyrannical and incompetent substitute]] for RidleyScott, and Cameron's workaholism clashed with their regular tea breaks and relaxed attitude towards production. The crew insulted his wife Gale Anne Hurd, implying that [[NeverASelfMadeWoman she was only getting producer's credit because she was married to him]], and he had to contend with a walkout after firing original cinematographer Dick Bush who wouldn't light the alien nest the way he wanted (Bush was a very old school DP, who lit the scenes to his content, while Cameron was a very visually involved director) and was then replaced by Adrian Biddle (who had never DP'ed a feature before). Michael Biehn ended up replacing James Remar as Hicks shortly into production.\\
\\
Unsurprisingly, production wound up behind schedule and the crew had to work at breakneck pace to finish the film in time for its July 1986 release date. This fell particularly hard on JamesHorner, who had to write the score without access to the film (that was still being filmed and edited) and record it in four days in an outdated studio. In turn, Cameron and editor Ray Lovejoy had to hack it in places to match the film without his input. Horner swore off working with Cameron for the next 11 years.
** ''TheAbyss'' had 40% of live-action photography take place underwater. It was filmed in two specially constructed tanks in an abandoned nuclear plant in South Carolina[[note]]"abandoned" as in "its construction was never finished", not as in "it was used and decommissioned"[[/note]], requiring experimental technology and equipment to allow the underwater scenes to be filmed right. Over six months of 6-day, 70-hour work weeks ensued, and the production had to be delayed when on the first day the main water tank sprung a leak, requiring dam-repair experts to fix it. And later, the crew were forced to only film at night after a lightning storm tore up the tarpaulin covering the main tank.\\
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It's significant that Cameron himself declared this the worst production he was ever involved in. It's the only production where he had to spend most of his time hanging upside down in decompression tanks from filming underwater -- he even said he had to review the footage in this position. He also almost drowned Ed Harris through EnforcedMethodActing, which resulted in the one and only time an actor has ever actually punched him. Cameron himself nearly drowned during production, too, when his diving suit malfunctioned while he was weighed down at the bottom of the giant water tank during filming.
** And then came ''{{Titanic}}'', the film that cemented his reputation as Hollywood's biggest JerkAss, so much so that the crew claimed he had a [[JekyllAndHyde psychotic alter ego named]] "[[SdrawkcabName Mij]]". Apart from terrorizing the film's two lead actors (KateWinslet suffered bruises so impressive that the makeup artists took photos to use for reference later), driving it insanely over budget and schedule and having to deal with cast members who came down sick from a shitload of hours spent in cold water, Cameron and about 50 other guys fell victim to an almost DeadlyPrank when a crew member put PCP in their soup, forcing them to spend a night in hospital. The movie stands as possibly his last completely OffTheRails Production, as he's mellowed out quite a bit since.
* ''Alien³''. Before production even started, several scripts were written and several directors were hired (including Renny Harlin and Vincent Ward), but all of them ran into resistance from FOX executives who were unwilling to have a film that didn't feature the Ellen Ripley character. Filming begun with $7 million already spent on sets (including a monastery set built before the setting was changed to a prison -- but still kept, as a church inside the facility), and no finished script.\\
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Finally, DavidFincher was brought in late in production, but even then, [[ExecutiveMeddling he was stymied at every turn by executives who attempted to stop him from shooting important scenes]]. After a disastrous industry screening and test screenings in California (featuring, according to actor Ralph Brown, young teenagers who didn't understand the film at all), scenes had to be filmed months after filming wrapped. And after all that, executives rode in again and recut the film without asking Fincher. Though Fincher never [[AlanSmithee took his name off the film]], he's otherwise [[CreatorBacklash disowned the film and doesn't list it on his resume]] (not even the [[DirectorsCut "Assembly Cut"]] that restored over half an hour of footage).
* FrancisFordCoppola's ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', a case so famous that it has its own documentary dedicated to it, ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Darkness:_A_Filmmaker%27s_Apocalypse Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse]]''. Coppola himself summed it up by saying "My film is not about Vietnam, it ''is'' Vietnam" and famously explained that "We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane." Let's see, where do we start?
** The film took a total of four years to complete. Filming in the Philippines went on for a year, going nine months behind schedule and $17-19 million over budget[[note]]The initial budget was projected at $12-14 million; it wound up coming in at $31.5 million.[[/note]] for reasons detailed below. Coppola took two further years in post-production to deliver the final product. To put it into perspective: LaurenceFishburne lied about his age to get cast as a 17-year old in the movie when he was actually 14. By the time the movie was released, he was actually 17 years old.
** MarlonBrando was cast as Colonel Kurtz, being his usual prima donna self. He showed up to the set morbidly obese rather than the muscular physique that was called for, leading to the decision to film Kurtz solely from the shoulders up. Worse, when he arrived on set he had read neither the script nor Joseph Conrad's ''Literature/HeartOfDarkness'' like he had been told to.
** President Marcos disrupted production by recalling the military equipment he lent to Coppola to fight against the Communist insurgents in the South. The reason he had to use Philippine military equipment in the first place is because the United States military refused to [[BackedByThePentagon lend him anything]], due to the order to "Kill Colonel Kurtz" (Coppola refused to change it to a DeadlyEuphemism).
** A scene that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to film was thrown out.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Pacific_typhoon_season#Typhoon_Olga_.28Didang.29 Typhoon Olga]] in May 1976, combined with constant rainfall, destroyed most of the sets and totally ground production to a halt for six weeks.
** The ending had to be re-written on the fly and the script was frequently discarded for improvisation.
** Martin Sheen drunkenly cut his hand open shattering a mirror and, in an unrelated incident, later suffered a heart attack and had to struggle a quarter-mile to get help. The latter of these two meant that some of his scenes had to filmed from the back, using his brother, Joe Estevez, as a body double.
** For that matter, many cast and crew members were drunk or stoned while filming. Dennis Hopper got a teenaged LaurenceFishburne addicted to heroin.
** Coppola lost 100 pounds, threatened suicide several times, and attempted it once.
** Even post-production was no walk in the park. For one thing, the Philippines had no professional film laboratories at the time, meaning the raw camera negatives had to be shipped to the US to be processed. Coppola never saw a shot on film until ''after'' returning to California. The entire movie was shot blind. For another thing, Coppola had to edit through several ''miles'' of film to create the final cut. On top of that, Sheen was unavailable to provide the voice-over narration, so, once again, Coppola had to turn to Joe Estevez.
* And on a less successful note, ''One from the Heart'' was initially meant to be a small $2 million movie for Coppola to chillax after the sheer hell of ''Apocalypse''. It wound up ballooning to $25 million due to his insistence on shooting on sound stages exclusively, and failed so badly it led him to declare bankruptcy and spend the rest of his career in TheEighties and TheNineties making movies just to recover the debts he incurred from this. [[Website/{{Cracked}} Yes, One from the Heart was responsible for freakin' Jack]].
* And in a minor case compared to both, ''Film/TheGodfather''. On set wasn't as troubled (apart from a delay due to AlPacino twisting his ankle, and Coppola arguing with the cinematographer). But Coppola's relationship with the Paramount executives was really chaotic - they hated the casting, the lighting, the writing, the music, the length...
* Though numerous troubled productions have resulted in body counts, few are as infamous in this respect as ''The Cotton Club'' - and a gangland-style execution is just the tip of the iceberg of the shoot's problems.
** Former Paramount studio chief Robert Evans (a nemesis of Coppola during filming of ''Film/TheGodfather'') had the idea of producing and directing a film about the 1920s Harlem speakeasy in 1980, but struggled to spark interest among backers in Mario Puzo's script (early donors included Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, whose money Evans had to return after rejecting his suggested script changes). Through Miami drug dealer Lanie Jacobs, he was introduced to New York impresario Roy Radin, who offered to help raise the necessary funds. However, Jacobs expected a share of the profits and a production credit for her efforts, which Radin refused. In June 1983, Radin's bullet-riddled corpse was found in the desert outside Los Angeles, and Jacobs was later convicted of ordering his murder and sentenced to life without parole. Though suspicions also fell on Evans, his involvement was never proven. In his memoir ''The Kid Stays In the Picture'', Evans says that experience made the early years of the '80s, in which he was arrested for trying to smuggle a large quantity of cocaine into the country and required to organize antidrug events with the big stars he knew as community service, the "good half" of the 1980s for him.
** Radin's murder alone would render ''The Cotton Club'' a troubled production, but as efforts to tweak the script continued to founder, Evans brought in his former foe FrancisFordCoppola to work on the script, and ultimately gave him the reins of director. Coppola, already reeling from the troubled productions and financial failures of ''Rumble Fish'' and ''One from the Heart'', saw the film as an opportunity to get his career as a director back on track, just as Evans hoped to do the same for his career as a producer following the troubled productions of ''Film/{{Popeye}}'' and ''Urban Cowboy''. This inevitably set the stage for an epic battle of egos between the old enemies, who had drastically different creative visions for the story, characters, and visuals of the film.
** Enticed by a script by Mario Puzo and the promise of funding from Las Vegas casino-owning brothers Edward and Fred Doumani, Paramount offered Evans the talents of Richard Gere as leading man and access to their studio facilities along with further production funds. However, determined to re-establish his reputation as a major player in Hollywood, Evans turned down the latter offer in favour of the services of Orion Pictures - who were in the business of marketing and distributing films rather than producing them, meaning that Evans would need to raise more production money and find a studio in which to shoot the film, causing further delays and adding to the already bloated budget.
** Upon being appointed director, Coppola added to the budgetary woes by firing the film crew Evans had assembled ''en masse'' (in some cases requiring large payoffs) and hiring his own crew members, including a music arranger who commuted via Concorde between the shoot in New York and a regular engagement in Switzerland. His quasi-improvisational approach to directing the actors meant the script was in a constant state of flux, and actors would frequently spend all day on set without shooting a single frame of film. There were frequent clashes between Coppola and Richard Gere, who insisted on showing off his (modest) skills on the cornet in the film, and seemed more concerned about possible damage to his reputation than about the film itself.
** Filming finished in March 1984 with a final budget of $47 million (nearly three times initial estimates), and the battle between Evans and Coppola continued during post-production. A lawsuit filed by Evans against Coppola, the Doumani brothers, and Orion resulted in Evans being given a flat fee and a producer credit, but yielding complete creative control over the film to Coppola. The film was released in December 1984, and although Series/SiskelAndEbert both named it one of the year's ten best films, most critics were more muted in their enthusiasm, and its final domestic gross was just $25.9 million. Although Evans and Coppola continued to produce and/or direct films, their careers as major players in Hollywood were over.
* Creator/TerryGilliam is a lightning rod for this type of thing.
** ''The Man Who Killed Don Quixote'' faced this problem, without anyone in the cast or crew being difficult at all - the production was faced by nothing but disasters, from the weather (as in the Star Wars example, it freakishly rained in a desert location, ruining several days of filming). The actor who played Don Quixote faced several health problems, and was told by doctors to stop filming. In the end, the film stopped production completely, ruining Gilliam's dream project. At least we got a [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308514/ good documentary]] about it.
** ''TwelveMonkeys'' was in danger of going over budget until BruceWillis decided to free up some cash by [[DoingItForTheArt doing the movie for free]].
** After filming ''Film/{{Brazil}}'', Gilliam protested the extreme ExecutiveMeddling by releasing a full-page ad criticizing the production company. He ultimately managed to block the "love conquers all" re-cut of the film.
* ''Film/CasinoRoyale1967''. ''Literature/CasinoRoyale'' was the only IanFleming novel EON Productions failed to secure the rights to due to a bunch of legal issues, and it ended up with Charles Feldman. Unable to get EON on board and do a straight movie, he turned it into an insane, psychedelic parody of spy films with an AllStarCast. There were multiple directors, none of them working with a finished script but all working independently, and there were also [[TooManyCooksSpoilTheSoup numerous screenwriters]]. PeterSellers argued with OrsonWelles, and the former was eventually fired ''despite playing the lead character''. Many of the other actors were brought in to make up for this, many of whom assume the 007 moniker at some point. The editor seemed to be instructed to put the film together in the most disjointed, nonsensical fashion possible. And Website/TheAgonyBooth has recapped it [[http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Casino_Royale_1967.aspx here]].
* ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'' had to undergo a RidiculouslyFastConstruction because the producers had already set a release date, and they had to face problems such a boat of cameras sinking into the Bosphorus and a helicopter falling into a lake (with the director inside!) while location scouting; and ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'' had a few stuntmen accidents, and leading man George Lazenby had conflicts with the director and the producers.
* ''Film/{{Superman}}'' had a few problems, mainly producer-director clashes (which generally involved the director rejecting the campy, slapstick parts the producers wanted), special effects problems (not that many breakdowns, but a lot of money to make them work), and getting way behind schedule - they filmed both ''Superman'' and its sequel simultaneously without much of a clear schedule in the first place. The film was a hit, but the lost profits to the producers over this led to RichardDonner being fired before the second movie was completed and replaced by RichardLester.
* The production of the fifth ''Superman'' movie definitely qualifies, especially if one considers all the different versions it went through on the road to becoming ''SupermanReturns'' (which actually had a calm production). TheOtherWiki has a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_%28film_series%29#Proposals_for_fifth_film very exhaustive listing]], but the best-known facet is that later stages were essentially a battle between two sides. On one hand we had writers like KevinSmith (who wittily recounts his experiences on the project [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYhLIThTvk here]]) who wanted to produce a faithful, respectful treatment of Superman's mythos. On the other we had producer Jon Peters, who said Supes's red-and-blues looked "too faggy", wanted to give Brainiac a robot sidekick described as "a gay [[StarWars R2-D2]] with attitude", and demanded that Superman battle a [[SpiderTank giant robot spider]], which has become a RunningGag among Superman fans, while Peters himself has become a symbol for incompetent ExecutiveMeddling.
* ''Film/BladeRunner'' was a victim of this. RidleyScott's drive for perfection often led to double-digit takes of a single scene, eating up film in the process. This, coupled with his confrontational relationship with the film crew (which at one point had them wearing anti-Scott T-shirts on set), time constraints caused by filming at night and expensive, time-consuming effects shots quickly caused the shoot to run behind schedule and over budget. The final scene was shot literally ''hours'' before the producers were due to take creative control away from Scott.
* A whole mess of this led to the utter disaster that was the notorious 1979 historical epic/porn film ''Caligula''. To make a very long story short:
** Most of the problems stemmed from the endless feuding between writer GoreVidal, director Tinto Brass, and producer Bob Guccione (of ''Penthouse'' magazine fame). Vidal wanted the film to stay true to his script, to the point of claiming in a ''Time'' magazine interview that directors were "parasites" living off writers, and that the director need only follow the directions as provided by the writer of the screenplay. Brass, not amused in the slightest, threw Vidal out of the studio. Guccione, meanwhile, wanted to incorporate hardcore sex into the film in order to promote his magazine, which caused female lead Maria Schneider to withdraw from the film (she was replaced by Teresa Ann Savoy) and no shortage of disagreements with Brass.
** The aggressive shooting schedule developed by the inexperienced producers Guccione and Franco Rossellini was unrealistic for a film of such scope. Art director Danilo Donati had to scrap some of his more elaborate original ideas for the sets and replace them with such surreal imagery as bizarre matte paintings, blacked-out areas, silk backdrops and curtains. This resulted in significant script changes, with Brass and the actors improvising scenes written to take place in entirely different locations, and sometimes shooting entirely new scenes (such as the frolicking scene that opens the film) in order to show progress while the incomplete or redone sets were unavailable.
** As the film entered post-production, Guccione took control of the film footage and fired Brass for running up huge costs (Guccione claims Brass shot enough film to "make the original version of ''BenHur'' about 50 times over"), casting actual criminals as Roman senators, and using what Guccione considered "fat, ugly, and wrinkled old women" in the sex scenes instead of his Penthouse Pets. Guccione hired his friend Giancarlo Lui to reedit the film. Lui was instructed to refashion the film into something more in keeping with what Vidal had first scripted, while delivering the sexual content demanded by Guccione; they shot and added hardcore scenes. With much footage improvised and rewritten from the original draft of the film, Lui further scrambled, re-cut, and deleted scenes altogether. Many of the disturbing sexual images shot by Brass were removed, replaced by approximately six minutes of hardcore sex shot by Guccione and Lui. In the end, the final cut of the film had strayed far afield from what Brass had intended. Ironically, perhaps, it bore little resemblance to what Vidal had scripted as well.
** In the unpleasant aftermath, both Brass and Vidal launched independent tirades against the film and lawsuits against Guccione, delaying the release of ''Caligula''. Vidal, who was paid $200,000 for his script, agreed to drop his contractual claim for 10% of the film profits in exchange for [[AlanSmithee having his name removed]] from the title of the film (original billing was to have been ''Gore Vidal's Caligula''). In 1981, Anneka Di Lorenzo, who played Messalina, sued Guccione, claiming that he damaged her career by using hardcore sexual scenes in the final cut of ''Caligula'' without her knowledge, thereby associating her with a pornographic film. After a protracted litigation, in 1990 a New York state court awarded her $60,000 in compensatory damages and $4,000,000 in punitive damages, but on appeal, the punitive damages were determined to be not recoverable and the court vacated the award.
* 1976's ''TheBlueBird'' was a much-ballyhooed family musical, the first-ever cinematic co-production between the United States and the U.S.S.R. An AllStarCast of mostly American actors had the lead roles while respected director George Cukor helmed the project, shooting in Russia. The first problem was that the U.S. side originally promised the participation of MarlonBrando (in what role, it isn't known), but he backed out. This was resolved amicably when ElizabethTaylor was brought in to play ''four'' parts, though her attempt to get DavidBowie in the cast (probably as Fire) didn't pan out once he read the script; for that matter, Katherine Hepburn and Shirley [=MacLaine=] also backed out of the film by the time it was set to go.\\
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The real trouble started in Russia. The Russian studio and crew were far behind the curve of the American talent (they had to replace the cinematographer because he'd ''never shot a film in color'') and the on-set translators weren't up to the task of making sure both sides could communicate clearly. Leading ladies Taylor, JaneFonda and Cicely Tyson all caused unique sets of problems: Taylor fell ill with amoebic dysentery, Fonda wouldn't stop chatting up the crew about politics, and Tyson warred with the director (among other things, she couldn't get proper lighting with a Caucasian woman serving as her stand-in). The American and Russian composers argued over the direction the score should take, James Coco (cast as Tylo the dog) had to drop out in mid-shoot when he suffered a gallbladder attack, the filmmakers couldn't find real bluebirds to use or import for the title figure and resorted to dyeing ''pigeons'' (and their handlers were actually accused of '''eating''' some of them), and so on and so forth. The resultant $12 million film was so bad that it tanked instantly; in the U.S. it still hasn't had a legit video release after 30+ years, and the financial figures related to it were rendered a '''state secret''' in Russia. There has never been another coproduction between the two countries.
** George Cukor told the Soviet studio head how honored he was to be filming in the same studio where Sergei Eisenstein had filmed ''Film/TheBattleshipPotemkin'' in 1925. "Yes," said the studio head, "and with the very same equipment."
* The 1996 ''TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau'' had two directors because dealing with prima donnas Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando (who were both going through bad days: the former, a divorce; the latter, a daughter killing herself) proved too much for Richard Stanley, who left for John Frankenheimer to take over (he faced the two on the same coin: [[http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,292752_3,00.html apparently]] once he replied Kilmer with "I don't give a fuck. Get off my set!"). Co-star David Thewlis had such a terrible time making the film that he skipped the premiere and has vowed to never watch it. The final result shows how bad it was.
* The ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' [[TwoPartTrilogy sequels]] -- more specifically, the second. Writing wasn't finished by the time it started, ships had to be built, the small island where it was filmed wasn't ready to receive the huge crew, and Hurricane Wilma devastated the Bahamas set.
* ''Film/{{Predator}}'' was shot in the Mexican jungle on a rough terrain, cold temperatures, and had every member of the cast and crew but Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger [[MemeticBadass (of]] [[NighInvulnerable course)]] and director John [=McTiernan=] getting Montezuma's Revenge due to unclean hotel water. The shoot was further delayed due to the creature's original design not working well enough and having to be scrapped and replaced - and the actor found the suit difficult to wear because it was heavy and off-balance, and he could not see outside the mask.
* The 2004 parody remake of ''TheStepfordWives'' underwent massive reshoots, script rewrites that created gaping plot holes, John and Joan Cusack pulling out of the film (and NicoleKidman, who played the main character, considering it after she saw the changes to the script), and fighting on set between director Frank Oz and his stars. It all built to an [[GainaxEnding utterly incoherent]] final product that bombed at the box office and was savaged by critics.
* Infamous flop ''HudsonHawk'' gathered bad reaction before its release due to a disastrous production - egos running rampant, constant rewrites, clashes between director and star, you name it.
** Richard E. Grant dedicated a chapter about the nightmare that was making ''HudsonHawk'' in his book ''With Nails''.
* Albert Pyun's 1989 ''Film/{{Cyborg}}'' was actually born out of it rather than suffering from this. The extremely troubled production of Cannon Film's ''{{Spider-Man}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{He-Man|AndTheMastersOfTheUniverse}}'' film projects eventually caused both to [[DevelopmentHell collapse under their own weight]]. With $2 million invested already on pre-production and very early production, Pyun was brought to, literally, make something out of both (now) failed projects. After coming up with the story for Cyborg in a single weekend, $500,000, and 24 days of hectic and rushed filming and editing, ''Cyborg'' was released and made a little more than $10,0000,000 on the box office, becoming one of Pyun's most commercially successful films and indeed saving Cannon Films from imminent bankruptcy.
** Cannon Films went bankrupt some time later, though.
** ''Film/{{District 9}}'' has a similar origin, coming out of the failed ''{{HALO}}'' movie.
* ''Film/{{Waterworld}}''. Budget overrun (from $100 million to the then-record $175 million), director Kevin Reynolds leaving and leading KevinCostner [[WagTheDirector to further take over the film]], a hurricane destroying the sets, stuntmen getting lost or drowned... and ExecutiveMeddling kicked in to order cuts and reshoots.
* JacquesTati envisioned ''Playtime'' as his MagnumOpus, and for that [[EpicMovie the film had to be somewhat more than ordinary]]. This grand social satire and ode to classic slapstick could not be done on any ordinary set. Rather, it required a set for which ''two full-size modernistic buildings'' had to be constructed on the outskirts of Paris, along with several smaller models, a full-size road, and its own working electrical system powered by a small plant. The development of the film would then necessitate numerous script rewrites and continuous maintenance of the set.\\
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Filming in itself lasted '''three years''', during which Tati had to take out numerous loans in order to continue production. In order to further accommodate his immense vision, the film was shot on 70mm film and edited for a stereophonic sound setup. These decisions would eventually cause difficulties in finding theatres that could properly screen the film. When the project was finally completed and released in 1967, it flopped pitifully. The official budget has gone unreported, but the failure of ''Playtime'' led Tati to file for bankruptcy and pay off the film's debts for the rest of his life. [[VindicatedByHistory Fortunately the film's reputation has improved since its release and is now considered Tati's masterpiece.]]
* ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail''. NoBudget, the directors clashing with each other, Creator/GrahamChapman either getting drunk or suffering from withdrawal on set, getting a location veto shortly before filming began, actors [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/trivia?tab=tr&item=tr0767057 rushing back to the hotel after wrapping for the day in order to bathe]]...
* ''Film/EasyRider''. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda were constantly at odds with each other, the bikes were stolen (Fonda's declared motivation for his delivery of "We blew it") and Hopper proved to be a PrimaDonnaDirector, eventually leading to the studio sending him on a paid vacation while they recut the film in his absence to a more manageable length (Hopper's original cut was ''220 minutes'' long).
* Sadly, this was a hallmark of most of the films of OrsonWelles after ''Film/CitizenKane'', mostly due to his difficulties in raising funds and sometimes simple crappy luck (a film called ''The Deep'' was shelved after star Laurence Harvey died).
** ''The Deep'' would later be remade (and completed) as ''Dead Calm'' (which didn't suffer through a troubled production).
* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' already suffered badly with their series, as an entry below shows... but the movies were worse!
** With ''Film/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'':
*** The directors of the movie, not having seen the actual series, pretty much did a quick "fast-fowarding" run of the series, pretty much ensuing things would go wrong.
*** When the Ranger suits were developed, the helmets were designed without visors or mouth pieces, intending on the heroes showing fear or worry. It wasn't until a little while later that they realized that they were meant to be a fearless force to be reckoned with and they remolded the helmets to include those missing pieces.
*** Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, the original and final choice for Dulcea, was replaced partway by Mariska Hargitay. However, after filming her scenes, which included a training sequence, they felt she wasn't the right one for the job and they rehired Gabrielle, dumping all of those scenes.
*** The filming for the final scene where the team is thanked turned into a disaster area when local radio shows caught wind of it and tried to turn it into a "Meet the Power Rangers" contest.
*** Originally, Ivan Ooze was meant to mutate a bunch of rats for the Rangers to fight. However, the rat costumes proved to be too low budget even for the actual series, leading to the creation of the Ooze Men. However, the suits were spared and used in "The Return of the Green Ranger" three-parter.
*** Delays in the series forced the cast to remain in Australia for filming, forcing Saban to make the aforementioned "The Return of the Green Ranger" episode.
** ''[[Series/PowerRangersTurbo Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie]]'' was just as bad. Initially envisioned as a reunion of the original MMPR cast teaming up with the new Turbo team, it fell apart when Walter Jones and Thuy Trang refused to give up their Guild membership cards to film. The explanation of the Turbo powers was dropped when David Yost left near the end of ''Series/PowerRangersZeo''. The original cut was actually over ''three hours long'' and they were forced to trim it down to under two. Beyond all of that, it was no wonder the movie flopped!
* ''Film/HeavensGate''. Planned budget: $11.6 million. Actually spent money at the end: More than $44 million. To top it all off, it also tanked at the box office, [[CreatorKiller ruining]] director Michael Cimino's career.
** The production is the subject of an entire book, ''Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of ''Heaven's Gate, by Stephen Bach, one of the (former, unsurprisingly) studio executives involved.
* ''Film/DoctorDolittle''. [[TwentiethCenturyFox Fox's]] 1967 family musical was envisioned as a FollowTheLeader title in the steps of ''MyFairLady'' and ''Film/TheSoundOfMusic'' following years of legal battles with Creator/HughLofting's family and writing difficulties. Hundreds of animals were trained for the film... in California, making them essentially unusable for location shooting in England and St. Lucia. Said location shoots were disasters, forcing additional studio lot reshoots. Rex Harrison frequently made a nuisance of himself by dismissing the screenwriter, his younger co-stars and the songs, all while suffering with personal issues.\\
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Despite initial optimism from producer Arthur Jacobs (who had a heart attack during production), the final budget was considered to be in the then-outrageously high $18 million area. Often cited as a GenreKiller for the family musical; though {{Warner|Brothers}}'s ''Theatre/{{Camelot}}'' was actually released first, both opened to a negative critical reception and general lack of interest.
* Pretty much any collaboration between Creator/WernerHerzog and KlausKinski was guaranteed to be this; most notably ''Film/{{Fitzcarraldo}}'', which took the problems of ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' and turned them UpToEleven. Among the many problems with the production was that, instead of using special effects to replicate the feat of towing a huge boat up and over the side of a mountain, Herzog insisted in doing it for real. Numerous serious injuries and at least one death resulted. ''Film/AguirreTheWrathOfGod'' was almost as troubled; though not as fatal.
** Herzog and Kinski's highly tempestuous relationship was chronicled in Herzog's documentary on Kinski -- ''My Best Fiend'' (yes, that's spelled correctly). Although the story of Werner forcing Klaus to perform his scenes at the point of a gun is apocryphal, he freely admits they both threatened on numerous occasions to kill each other; and actually attempted it at least once each.
** And, like ''Apocalyspe'', ''Fitzcarraldo'''s trouble production is the subject of its own documentary film, ''Burden of Dreams''. Near the end, Herzog speculates that he should give up filmmaking and go into a mental asylum.
* Oh, ''{{Cleopatra}}''. Where to even begin?
** After Joan Collins bowed out of the lead role in 1958, ElizabethTaylor sarcastically offered to take it for a million dollars - and to her surprise, [[TwentiethCenturyFox Fox]] agreed. The weekly costs that were included in Taylor's fee ballooned out of control when she became gravely ill with pneumonia during initial shooting at Pinewood Studios in England in 1960, putting a halt to filming for many months, and leading her to be paid over $2 million before any usable footage had been shot. Taylor's illness and the resulting delays led to the resignation of the original director (Rouben Mamoulian) and the actors cast as Caesar (Peter Finch) and Antony (Stephen Boyd).
** Even leaving aside Taylor's extended sick leave, few things went as planned during the abortive Pinewood shoot. The producers had frequent clashes with the studio's labour unions, the film crew did not realise until after settling on Pinewood as the venue for indoor filming that there were fewer available soundstages than anticipated and the ceilings were too low to accommodate the sets as originally planned, and the outdoor sets deteriorated rapidly in the cold, wet English weather. The footage shot at Pinewood ended up being discarded as the filming moved to Cinecittà Studios in Rome so the English weather would not impair Taylor's recovery. ([[PropRecycling The sets were still used]] by the producers of the ''CarryOn'' films in 1964's ''Carry On Cleo''.)
** Production in Italy was just as problematic. The costumes and sets had to be completely re-designed and re-built, leading to a shortage of lumber and other building materials throughout Italy. Millions of dollars' worth of props and other equipment were stolen by studio employees, while a group of female extras went on strike as a result of being constantly groped by lecherous male extras. Two construction workers building the Alexandria set were killed by an unexploded World War II land mine. The constant delays and reshoots in filming the epic-scale scene of Cleopatra's entrance on a barge into Rome (started in October 1961, finished the following March) required the recasting of Cleopatra's son as the original child actor had grown significantly taller during the delay.
** When Joseph L. Mankiewicz was brought on board to direct at Taylor's insistence, the film was already nearly a year behind schedule, $5 million over budget, and had ''not a single frame of usable footage'' to show for it. The script was only half completed, and Mankiewicz had to write the rest as filming went along, shooting the script as new scenes were written and editing the resulting footage later rather than editing the script first and then shooting the resulting scenes. The catastrophic budget overruns meant the climactic Battle of Actium sequence had to be re-written to take place almost entirely off camera. So great was the strain of writing and directing that Mankiewicz required injections to both get through each day and sleep at night.
** To complicate matters, the film marked the beginning of ElizabethTaylor and RichardBurton's [[RomanceOnTheSet tempestuous relationship and eventual marriage]] (and subsequent divorce, re-marriage, and re-divorce); as both were already married, the resulting scandal and moral outrage added bad publicity to the already toxic combination of massive delays and cost inflation. However, the affair created enough fascination with the public that Fox decided to assemble a publicity campaign that focused almost entirely on Taylor and Burton, with scant attention at best devoted to Rex Harrison as Caesar.[[note]] Harrison arguably got the last laugh when he became the only one of the film's three stars to receive an Oscar nomination for his performance.[[/note]]
** Things didn't improve during post production. Mankiewicz initially planned to assemble two three-hour films, ''Caesar and Cleopatra'' and ''Antony and Cleopatra'', but Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck believed that the public interest in seeing Taylor and Burton on screen together might fade if the second film were released later, while interest in the first film (in which Burton would only appear in a few scenes) would be minimal, so he [[ExecutiveMeddling ordered the films edited into a single four-hour film]] - requiring ''more'' reshoots to smooth over the changes. Mankiewicz was eventually fired during editing, but had to be re-hired when it became obvious that he was the only person who could make sense of the raw footage.[[note]] Some of the cut footage has been recovered in recent years; the film's fans continue to harbour hope that ''all'' of the cut footage may someday be restored and the film released as Mankiewicz originally intended.[[/note]]
** The film finally staggered into cinemas in June 1963, with a final production cost of $44 million (over $300 million adjusted for inflation) - money Fox knew it had little chance of recovering. Despite lukewarm reviews from critics and audiences, the film had the highest box office take of 1963 and was nominated for ten Oscars (including Best Picture), winning four, but it would not break even until ABC paid $5 million for two television screenings in 1966 (at the time, a record fee for film broadcasting rights). The already financially troubled 20th Century Fox almost went bankrupt, selling parts of its studio lot and needing the successes of films such as ''TheLongestDay''[[hottip:*: in which Roddy [=McDowall=] (who played Octavian in ''Cleopatra'') requested, and received, a small role to alleviate boredom during the endless delays to ''Cleopatra'']] in 1962 and ''TheSoundOfMusic'' in 1965 to offset their losses. ''Cleopatra'' also [[GenreKiller killed interest in the sword and sandal epic genre]] for nearly a generation, and was a key factor in [[FallOfTheStudioSystem the disintegration of the old "studio system"]], as studios passed responsibility for production costs to independent production companies instead of handling said costs themselves.
* ''Film/ManosTheHandsOfFate'' was made when fertilizer salesman Hal Warren befriended and later made a bet with famous screenwriter Stirling Silliphant that he could make a horror film with a low budget. And ''[[MovieMakingMess it shows]]''. The problems included:
** The camera they used was a 16mm Bell and Howell that not only didn't record sound, but only could record ''32 seconds of film''. The sound was later dubbed in in post-production by four members of the crew, Hal included. This explains a number of things, including the bad editing, the long pauses and why a few characters, such as Torgo and the little girl, sound horrible.
** The crew found themselves bemused by how amateur Hal was that they mocked the title of the movie (which was once called "Lodge of Sins") as ''Mangos: The Cans of Fruit''.
** Tom Neyman created a special rigging to give Torgo the illusion that he was a satyr. However, the actor, John Reynolds, set it up wrong and it damaged his knees so badly that he was reportedly taking medication that would lead to an addiction and later suicide.
** Instead of the technique of shooting "day for night", Hal opted to film night scenes ''at night''. Thanks to poor lighting, it gave the accidental illusion of the cops getting out of their car to investigate a gunshot, but decide otherwise.
** The modeling agency that loaned Hal the women to be the Master's wives proved to be a bit of a prima donna, refusing to let the women to be "too skimpy" (that red sash they wear? They were supposed to be ''tails'') and when one of the women broke her leg, Hal was forced to recast her as the other half of the makeout couple that has [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment no real effect to the plot!]]
* ''DersuUzala'', due to Creator/AkiraKurosawa having to work in the USSR as no Japanese studio wanted to fund him at the time. The resulting studio, Mosfilm, clashed with Kurosawa as his perfectionism did not fit the "deliver a certain amount of shot film per day" the company wanted. Union fights were recurrent, and cameramen were changed every week. There was only one interpreter - to a crew of mostly Russians! To make the tiger attack more realistic, a wild one was used instead of a domesticated animal - and needless to say, it wasn't collaborative. No wonder the film took 3 years to get ready.
* ''Film/TheAfricanQueen'' was shot on location in Africa, a rarity in those days. The results weren't pretty: handling the heavy Technicolor cameras was hard, the cast and crew got sick (KatherineHepburn had to keep a bucket beside her while filming the piano scene that opens the film so she could vomit between takes; only HumphreyBogart and director JohnHuston escaped illness, due to consuming nothing but canned goods and whiskey) and had several close brushes with wild animals and poisonous snakes (specially because Bogart got interested in hunting - which even became a ClintEastwood [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100928/ movie]]), the title boat sunk and had to be raised twice, the ship's boiler nearly fell on Hepburn, army ants infested the set...
* It's nowhere near as bad as most of the examples on this page, but the third ''Film/HarryPotter'' movie ran into a problem with rain. While filming on location in Scotland, the rain was so bad that they had to have helicopters fly in gravel to stop the sets from washing away. Fortunately, AlfonsoCuaron and the cinematographer liked the overcast look they ended up with as a result.
* As mentioned on the page quote, ''Film/TheWizardOfOz''. First, changes in both cast (Margaret Hamilton replaced the original Wicked Witch three days before production begun, Tin Man performer Buddy Ebsen quit due to allergic reactions to the make-up) and director (five were used, with credit only to the fourth and responsible for most of the film, Victor Fleming). Then, both filming - which took extended six months and many budget overruns, with incidents such as Hamilton getting burned, and the cast having to work six days a week arriving as early as four or five in the morning to be fitted with makeup and costumes (which were impractical - Hamilton could not eat! - and nearly intolerable due to the heavy lighting required for the Technicolor), not leaving until seven or eight at night - and post-production - three months with many reshoots and complicated effects work, as well as last-minute cuts following a test screening - were chaotic.
* ''Film/TheExorcist'' went over budget and schedule ($4,5 million and 105 days to $12 million and over 200 days plus 6 months of post-production!), and William Friedkin proved to be a PrimaDonnaDirector who [[BadBoss didn't care much for the cast and crew]] (for instance, Ellen Burstyn complained that for the scene Chris is telekinetically thrown against a wall, the stuntmen were pulling her too hard... and Friedkin's response was a take so strong Burstyn injured herself!).To make it worse, there were strange events (such as the interior sets of the [=MacNeil=] residence getting burned) that lead people to consider the film cursed.
* ''Film/RoboCop'' was shot during a very hot summer in Dallas, and Peter Weller's costume not only came in late, but he could barely move in it, rendering his previous mime training useless. In addition, it ran behind schedule and over budget, actors Kurtwood Smith and Ray Wise stole the crew's golf carts during the shooting of one scene and [[ExecutiveMeddling executives kept trying to interfere with the production]] while it was still going on.
** A fair portion of the scheduling delays were caused by difficulties in lighting the Robocop suit properly -- originally, they tried to light it as actors were normally lit, which didn't work because the suit reflected too much light. Eventually, they hit on the solution of lighting it like a car.
** Verhoeven mentions a minor adversity on the commentary track of the Criterion Collection release: Dallas was chosen as the shooting location in part because of the futuristic look it has downtown. Verhoeven especially liked the look of one particular building when it was lit up by external lights at night. Unfortunately, that building was being renovated during the shooting and the lights were shut off. As they were finished in Dallas and were leaving, they literally saw the lights come on through the plane's window...
* Creator/CharlieChaplin's film ''The Circus'' was troubled because of his messy divorce. [[FromBadToWorse Then a fire destroyed most of the set]]. [[RuleOfThree Then the circus wagons were stolen]]. Chaplin [[OldShame left this film out of his autobiography altogether]].
* ''Film/{{Eraserhead}}'' suffered from this -- no studio would fund it due to its unusual plot and DavidLynch's lack of experience, so he had to rely on funds from the AFI, as well as friends and family. Because of these financial troubles, filming was intermittent -- it took five years, and sets had to be repeatedly assembled and disassembled. While its critical reception was initially mixed, the film was praised by several other filmmakers (including, but not limited to Creator/MelBrooks, Creator/StanleyKubrick and JohnWaters), which [[ColbertBump kickstarted Lynch's career]].
* The movie version of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' was rife with problems. The original plan was for them to reveal how Joel got tossed onto the Satellite of Love and built his robot friends -- Crow, Tom, Gypsy and Cambot. The executive liked it, but he didn't want the series' main catch -- the riffing -- to be prominent. This, along with a few other problems, led Joel Hodgson to leave the series halfway through Season 5.\\
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When the movie idea was picked back up, more problems came about - Universal would only let them use movies that they chose and they were stuck with ''ThisIslandEarth''. They were forced to not only cut out movie scenes -- which meant the entirety of the movie was shorter than your normal ''MST3K'' episode -- but lop one host segment and modify the last one, killing a BrickJoke set up from the very beginning. And the killing blow? The company producing this had the option of fully backing either this or ''BarbWire''. [[ItWillNeverCatchOn Guess what they chose?]] (and considering [[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?view=main&yr=1996&wknd=16&sort=avg&order=DESC&p=.htm how high the theater averages were]], who knows how much it would have grossed without InvisibleAdvertising?)
* MadelineKahn was on a talk show, and the hostess quipped that her movies were so funny, she must have a ball working on them. Kahn quipped back "Yeah? And Twinkies are fun to eat, but I doubt the people at the Twinkie factory are having any fun!"
* ''{{Ishtar}}''. Where to begin? They decided to shoot the desert scenes in Morocco instead of the Southwest 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 (they actually had to have some locations 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 Elaine May, the director, supposedly suddenly changed her mind about wanting dunes in a scene and instead 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 Warren Beatty, 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. Dustin Hoffman 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.
* Warren Beatty was at the centre of another troubled production and financial disaster in 2001's ''Town & Country''.
** The script was first brought to Beatty's attention in 1998, with a planned budget of $19 million. However, Beatty commanded a salary of $8 million and demanded numerous script changes. Over $40 million had been spent on actor and writer salaries even before the cameras began rolling.
** British director Peter Chelsom's previous credits consisted mostly of low budget, whimsical comedies, meaning he was ill-suited to direct the big-budget, all-star film and deal with the resulting egos. He and Beatty clashed frequently over various details in the script and the visuals.
** Filming began in 1998 but had to be shut down after five months so that cast members Diane Keaton, Garry Shandling, and Jenna Elfman could honour prior commitments. The shoot did not resume until April 2000 (requiring further increases in the actors' salaries), with the final act of the film still being constantly re-written. A sequence in Sun Valley in which artificial snow was created to make up for the absence of real snow on the ski slopes was re-shot after over a foot of natural snow fell on the resort.
** The final production budget for the film was estimated at around $90 million; it was clear to all involved that it had no hope of breaking even, and just $15-20 million was spent on marketing and distribution for the film's release in April 2001, leading to a paltry domestic box office take of $6.7 million and a worldwide take of $10.4 million. Warren Beatty has not made another film since.
* ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'': Paramount knew it had to let Gene Roddenberry produce, because of the godlike cult of personality he'd built up among the fans, but it had reservations as he'd never produced a feature film before. Robert Wise hadn't directed a sci-fi film of this scope and was getting old (he refused to shoot for more than 12 hours a day, resulting in the film being behind schedule after just two days). [[SpecialEffectFailure The original special effects house blew the job]] and had to be replaced by Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra late in the production. Long before principal photography was even finished the production was way over budget, to the point that Paramount executives were keeping a running tab every day.\\
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According to Jeff Katzenberg, then the Paramount executive in charge of the production, what finally went out to the theaters the weekend of release was a rough cut -- no one at the studio had seen it in its entirety. In fact, the movie's crunch-timing meant that it wasn't edited properly due to being rushed -- editing carried on up until the day of the release, and when the print was delivered for the movie's premiere, it was still wet.
* ''AlteredStates'': Arthur Penn, the original director, quit early on after a dispute with Paddy Chayefsky, who was upset with some of the changes he'd wanted to make. John Dykstra quit as well, and Bran Ferren had to do the special effects on a lower budget ([[SpecialEffectsFailure it shows]]). Once Ken Russell was hired to actually finish the film, he was in a situation where, if he changed so much as one word of the script, he would have been sued, so he resolved it by having the actors deliver some of the more pretentious dialogue very rapid fire. Chayefsky didn't sue, but was still pissed enough to petition the Writers' Guild to use his given name, Sidney Aaron, in the credits as his pseudonym. The experience of shooting some of the scenes was very trying physically for the actors. Columbia, who had started the film, washed their hands of it and Warner Brothers picked it up. The producer was nonetheless upset that they decided to shove it into the [[OscarBait Christmas season rush]] rather than wait until the spring when he there would be less competition for that kind of film.
* ''{{Tootsie}}'' was frequently referred to this way during shooting. Dustin Hoffman and Sydney Pollack feuded so intensely that Hoffman finally resolved it by suggesting Pollack play his agent and get that tension into the actual film. The script was still being rewritten as filming began (so many writers appeared before the Writers' Guild panel seeking to be credited that the arbitration over it delayed the release), and it took Elaine May to come up with Bill Murray's character as a much-needed foil for Michael. In the end, it actually worked out well, becoming one of the best comedies of the 1980s.
* ''Film/JohnCarter'': There were reservations at Disney about letting Andrew Stanton direct the film, despite his strong sentimental attachment to the material, because he'd never directed a live-action feature before. But, since he'd made ''WesternAnimation/{{WALL-E}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'' into hits, they let him do it even though he warned them, "I'm not gonna get it right the first time, I'll tell you that right now." Indeed, the film required extensive double reshoots. Throughout production, he ignored the advice of the crewmembers who were live-action veterans in favor of his Pixar friends, back in their offices. Rich Ross (fired over this) and the other studio executives at Disney likewise had little experience with feature films, since most had come from television.\\
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Then, it came time to market the film, which was already handicapped in that department by having no big stars in the cast. A trailer shown at a Disney con did not go over well, and Stanton refused to take any advice from the studio's marketing department. He insisted on using Music/LedZeppelin's "Kashmir" in the trailer even after it was pointed out to him that a 30-year-old classic-rock song was not likely to resonate with the younger male audience the film was intended for. The movie also went through last-minute retitling, dropping "Princess" and "Mars" from the title because those were thought to turn off the male and female segments of the youth audience respectively.
* While it's obvious from all the on-screen mayhem why ''TheBluesBrothers'' cost so much to make (they actually dropped the Ford Pinto from a mile up, requiring a special FAA permit), there were also the days they more or less lost completely waiting for John Belushi to show up, hours after unit call. And all the money that went up Belushi's (and everyone else's) noses. Fortunately the movie was a box-office smash that has since become a CultClassic.
* [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/brad-pitt-world-war-z-production-nightmare-336422 By all accounts]], the [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] of ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' has shaped up into one of these.
** It started with director Marc Forster, producer and star BradPitt's personal choice to direct the film -- and a man whose only experience making big-budget tentpole films was the lavish yet fairly straightforward [[Film/JamesBond Bond]] film ''Film/QuantumOfSolace''. It was hoped that he would be able to focus on story and characters while his crew could guide him on action and effects, but not only was he unable to bring his usual team with him, the lack of a strong leader at the head of the project produced a muddled vision for what the film would be like. As late as three weeks before shooting was to begin in June 2011, Forster hadn't even decided yet on what the zombies would look like or how they would behave.
** Several key crew members, including line producers and SFX workers, were replaced, sometimes multiple times. Cinematographer Richard Richardson asked more than once to leave the project, and struggled to keep the crew under control, often antagonizing them in the process. Overall, on-set morale crumbled over the course of shooting.
** Pitt's schedule conflicted with his commitment to starring in the crime drama ''Killing Them Softly''. Worse, Pitt also took time off to spend time with his family, pushing production back even further.
** During shooting in Budapest in October, the crew found out the hard way that their 85 "prop" assault rifles were in fact fully-functional weapons when a Hungarian anti-terrorism unit raided their warehouse and seized the guns.
** In June 2012, Paramount ordered, depending on the source, anywhere from five to seven weeks of reshoots, as well as a third-act rewrite by Damon Lindelof, who later brought in his old ''Series/{{Lost}}'' buddy Drew Goddard to help him give the script a thorough overhaul after determining that it had much deeper problems. This pushed the film's release from December of that year to June 2013. By this point, the budget had ballooned to $170 million, and the filmmakers had [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/brad-pitt-world-war-z-keanu-reeves-47-ronin-362103 only 52 minutes' worth]] of continuous footage cut together (and a few minutes of other scenes) to show to the studio.
** During reshoots, Forster and Pitt [[http://www.vulture.com/2012/07/brad-pitt-not-talking-to-world-war-z-director.html?mid=383376&rid=422642111 reportedly]] weren't on speaking terms -- Forster's notes for Pitt had to be relayed through an intermediary.
* ''DaysOfThunder'', per [[http://books.google.com/books?id=0OSXeiTCfLAC&pg=PA40 this old ''Spy'' article]]. Everyone thought getting the producers of ''TopGun'' (Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer), its director (the late Tony Scott) and star (TomCruise) together, with a script by the legendary Robert Towne about a trendy sport (stock-car racing) couldn't miss. It was a commercial success indeed, despite bad reviews, but none of them ever worked all together again, because:
** Simpson, Bruckheimer and sometimes Towne (a sometime director himself) often started their days on set having arguments with Scott (sometimes ganging up on him, sometimes three-way) over how to shoot scenes. Meanwhile, the crew sat around getting paid, sometimes for 20 hours a day. Some later said that they had made so much overtime on the film that they could have gone on vacation for ''four full months'' after the wrap date.
** However, the effect of all that sitting around watching the producers, director and writer fight with each other was that the said wrap date kept getting pushed back. At one point the production schedule was revised three times in a single day, leading the unit production manager (the studio's on-set financial liaison) to have a "What the Hell, Producers?" moment with Simpson and Bruckheimer. In response, they told him "Screw the schedule." It went from February 1990 to the end of May, severely jeopardizing its chances of making its expected summer release date (it came out a month later). Unsurprisingly, the budget almost doubled over this wasted time too, requiring that the movie make a then-astronomical $100 million merely to break even.
** Robert Towne (the ''writer'', mind you) had a barn built to his specifications while the production was filming outside Charlotte. He didn't like it and they didn't use it. When the crew moved down to Daytona for scenes there, another barn was built. Towne didn't like it either, and most of the barn scenes he had envisioned were thus dropped from the script.
** The cars being assembled in a barn were just one of [[GretzkyHasTheBall many inaccurate depictions of NASCAR]] in the film. Why this happened given the official cooperation of NASCAR and several racing teams, Tom Cruise's personal interest in racing as a hobby and the research he and Towne did is a matter of some artistic license, almost lampshaded in the movie itself by Cole Trickle's constant expressions of surprise that he's gotten this far in the sport despite limited experience. But it seemed on the set as if Scott and a lot of the actual crew [[TheyJustDidntCare just didn't care]]. So much so that, reportedly, only after principal photography wrapped did someone review the footage and find that they had neglected to shoot Cole Trickle's car crossing the finish line ... only the climactic shot of the entire movie.
** One reason why Simpson and Bruckheimer may not have cared about the accuracy (as if they ever did): they were too busy realizing the potential of the movie to get chicks. They spent $400,000 of the studio's money having an empty storefront in their hotel building converted into ''their private gym''. And ''then'' putting up a huge eight-foot-high neon sign with the name of the movie in the window. They threw a special welcome party for the crew at a local nightclub with minimal food and drink and no music ... but plenty of hookers they flew in, most of whom they limited to a roped-off VIP area with themselves and Cruise.
* ''The Roots of Heaven'', a "save the African elephant" film from 1958 directed by JohnHuston for Twentieth Century Fox, is a lesser known but brutal example of a troubled production.
** William Holden was initially cast in the lead role, attracting a supporting cast that included Creator/OrsonWelles, ErrolFlynn, Paul Lukas, Herbert Lom, Eddie Albert, and Fox studio boss Darryl Zanuck's then-girlfriend Juliette Greco. However, with location shooting about to begin (on an inflexible schedule), Holden was informed that he was still under contract to Paramount, and in a desperate scramble to fill the role, Huston cast British character actor Trevor Howard. Howard's lack of marquee power prompted the promotion of Errol Flynn to the top of the bill, despite his character's secondary role.
** Location shooting was done in Fort Lamy, French Equatorial Africa (now N'Djamena, Chad). As Darryl Zanuck (who was present for the shoot, perhaps out of concern at leaving Greco unsupervised on a shoot with noted womanisers Huston and Flynn) recalled when appearing as a mystery guest on ''WhatsMyLine'', temperatures soared to over 130 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and only cooled to 95 degrees at night. Moreover, as had happened during shooting of ''TheAfricanQueen'', almost every person involved contracted amoebic dysentery except for Huston and Flynn, who had brought copious amounts of alcohol which kept the sickness at bay. Eddie Albert also developed an almost fatal case of sunstroke. A total of 920 sick calls were made by the 130-person cast and crew. During the lengthy delays, Huston would often disappear on big game hunts.
** Errol Flynn's alcoholism had become a round-the-clock problem, and he was frequently at odds with John Huston. At one point, he provoked Huston into a fight; while Flynn was a former amateur boxer, the years of fast living had taken a heavy toll on him, and Huston, himself a former professional boxer, flattened Flynn with a single punch. The film was Flynn's last major Hollywood project; he died the following year. Huston, meanwhile, cited the film, which was a hit with neither critics nor audiences, as an example of how some of the worst shoots can result in the worst films.
* Coming right off his best film, ''RideTheHighCountry'', Sam Peckinpah reworked the script of ''Film/MajorDundee'' from a basic Western adventure story to a ''MobyDick''-esque study of the title character, an officer who would do anything for glory. Everyone who read the final version thought he had another masterpiece in the pipeline—including Charlton Heston, who eagerly accepted the title role. With him attached, filming began in Mexico.
** And that's where things began to fall apart. Columbia [[ExecutiveMeddling kept changing things]]—the shooting schedule, the budget, the film's final running time—much to Peckinpah's chagrin. So he started drinking. Heavily, even by his standards. And then showing up this way on set. He began firing people for the most insignificant things, and threatening everyone else to the point that Heston frequently had to pull his costume's cavalry sabre on the director repeatedly.
** Word of this got back to the studio, which aggravated matters by moving the wrap date up a full month. They were reportedly going to fire Peckinpah as well until Heston saved his friend's job by making the ultimate sacrifice—he said he would forego his salary and do the whole film for free. Even so, Peckinpah's drinking [[FromBadToWorse got even worse]]. This time he often wandered away from the set, and Heston reportedly directed much of the later scenes.
** When principal photography was finally over, Columbia broke its contract with Peckinpah and hired editors itself to put the film together. Critics regarded the finished film as an interesting failure; Peckinpah recovered enough to make ''TheWildBunch'', which is sort of a semi-remake of this film. For years there was a debate as to how much the released version represented what Peckinpah had really wanted to do, and only in 2005, two decades after his death, was a version released that tried to be true to his original vision.
* The remake of ''Film/RedDawn2012'' was originally meant to be released in 2010. MGM was hit with financial difficulties which halted production for a while. Distributors refused to pick up the film for fear that the Chinese antagonists would anger the Chinese government, which has the power to censor films in China and cut a film's box office take. After resuming production MGM spent an additional one million dollars to turn the Chinese villains into [[NorthKoreansWithNodongs North Koreans]] by digitally altering images and dubbing dialogue. The film is scheduled to be released November 2012, and only then with Film District, a surprisingly small distributor for such a big film.
* ''{{Gigli}}'' wasn't as troubled as some of the other productions here, at least not during the early stages. The script was rewritten from a straightforward mob movie to a romantic comedy in order to take advantage of the "Bennifer" media circus surrounding the RomanceOnTheSet between the film's leads, Creator/BenAffleck and JenniferLopez. Martin Brest, the director, had no problem with this -- after all, he'd made ''BeverlyHillsCop'' a hit under similar circumstances. And there were no reports of strife on the set. Things blew up between Brest and the studio during post-production, though, as they fought for a long time over the final film. It was roundly panned as one of the worst films ever when finally released[[note]]Let's put it this way. The DVD box had no quotes from reviews on it. None at all. Even most bad movies have at least one blurb from some middle-of-nowhere TV station or newspaper that the studio paid for. The fact that they couldn't even get ''that'' says something.[[/note]], and Brest, a fine comic director with ''GoingInStyle'' and ''MidnightRun'' also to his credit, has [[CreatorKiller not made another film since]].
* BetteDavis' last film, ''Wicked Stepmother'', became troubled very early on. A week into principal photography, Davis, the star of the movie, took a leave of absence for a dental appointment...and never came back. [[note]]Filmmaker LarryCohen perceived her exit as a result of her never fully appreciating his directing style; the fact that she was dying didn't help, either.[[/note]] Now without its leading lady, the part was nearly recast with LucilleBall, but her illness led her to back out. Then the director came up with a plan. In the script, Davis magically turns her cat into a human played by Barbara Carrera. Instead, the finished product has Davis turning ''herself'' into Carrera. Now all the footage of Bette could be salvaged, for a film that was ultimately buried in its theatrical release.
* ''Film/TheWagesOfFear'' was beset by a series of misfortunes as life imitated art. Where to begin?...
** It all started well. The director, Henri-Georges Clouzot, managed to secure the rights for the novel's adaptation and then-rising star, Yves Montand, in the leading role. Next, Clouzot started scouting appropriate locations in Spain. Just when he found one, after a few months of searching, Montand refused to go there (his then-wife, Simone Signoret, was strongly opposed to Francisco Franco's politics). The crew managed to make an exhaustive photodocumentation and the small town was meticulously rebuilt in southern France. Then, Jean Gabin suddenly pulled out (he thought that his fans would dislike his part as a 'coward'); Charles Vanel was hired at the last minute.
** The shooting started in late August of 1951. And the troubles came ''en masse''. The September of 1951 was particularly capricious: many days were lost due to rain, and sometimes a sunny day could turn into a heavily rainy one within a few minutes, endangering the equipment and electrics. The two trucks, playing a central role in the movie, were initially quite solid and dependable, but after some raining they started bogging down. The rains made the ground wet, causing camera cranes to suddenly collapse and damage the sets several times. Just when the crew managed to get some control over everything, lead actress Vera Clouzot was admitted into the ICU (she suffered from major heart problems which, unfortunately, claimed her life in 1960). Just as she was released from the hospital, Henri-Georges Clouzot broke his ankle. Adding Clouzot's trademark perfectionist attitude and multiple retakes, it is no surprise that the production already was 50 million francs over budget and way over schedule when they had to quit shooting as the autumn rains set in. During the next few months, Clouzot managed to secure some funds and the shooting continued in the summer of 1952. This time, the only major accident occurred when both Montand and Vanel ended up in the hospital due to conjunctivitis after a few days of filming in the pool of crude oil.
** It all paid off when the movie, finally released after months of editing in the spring of 1953, turned out to be a major hit both critically and commercially (it was the first picture to win both the Golden Bear in Berlin and the Palme d'Or in Cannes). It was initially less enthusiastically received in the US due to the movie being re-cut (some key plot points were eliminated because they were considered 'anti-American'), but the complete version was one of the most critically acclaimed pictures of 1950s.
* ''RadioFlyer'' was a red-hot script when it was picked up by Columbia Pictures and initially was directed by its screenwriter, David Mickey Evans (who later did ''The Sandlot''). But after a week of shooting, he was fired and production was shut down until Richard Donner was brought in to replace him. In the process, the production budget more than doubled from $15 million to $35 million. While it was initially supposed to be Columbia's big movie for the summer of 1991, the release date was constantly shuffled due to reshoots, production delays, and finally bad test screenings -- the premise of "two boys build a flying machine to escape child abuse" ''was'' an infamously awkward one. Eventually, the film was quietly released in February 1992 and was a critically-savaged BoxOfficeBomb.
* ''ShockTreatment'' underwent a long and tumultuous process between its initial conception as a sequel to ''TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' to a musical about television with little connection to its predecessor. Originally written as a direct sequel (initially titled ''Curse of the Baby'', and later ''Rocky Horror Shows His Heels''), the story would have started with Janet finding herself pregnant after the sex-filled night at Frank's castle. Meanwhile, Brad decides he is gay, and joins Rocky (who somehow escaped the castle alive) and also-gay Dr. Scott in finding virgin blood to revive Frank, who proceeds to turn the town of Denton into transsexuals while requiring further transfusions. Eventually, Janet has her baby, but it's promptly kidnapped by Riff Raff and Magenta while Frank meets his demise again. Fox rejected the script because it was just plain terrible.
** The script having been rejected by both Fox and his RHPS behind-the-scenes collaborators, Richard O'Brien tossed it but kept the songs for a new script provisionally titled ''The Brad and Janet Show'' and only featuring them and Dr. Scott as returning characters. Production was to take place in Denton, Texas - an idea which never progressed beyond location scouting due to the 1980 Screen Actors Guild strike.
** In a last-ditch attempt to get a second movie to the ''Rocky'' fanbase, Richard rewrote the new script as ''Shock Treatment'', which drastically simplified the story to take place inside a television studio, with the citizens of Denton as a brain-dead studio audience entertained by whatever on-set activities occurred in front of them. The role of "fake cripple" now went to sleazy game show host Bert Schnick, with Dr. Scott written out. Even with the production scaled down as much as possible, the film *still* struggled, as casting proved difficult.
** Susan Sarandon, now a genuine movie star, would only reprise her role as Janet for a fee far beyond what the film's miniscule budget would allow. The role went to cult actress Jessica Harper, whose version of Janet seemed to be an exact carbon copy of Phoenix, her character from ''PhantomOfTheParadise'', rather than Susan's take. (Allegedly, Susan has never actually seen ''Shock Treatment'' to this day.)
** Barry Bostwick was involved in other projects and could not reprise his role as Brad. The next potential actor was Tim Curry (no kidding), who felt that he couldn't pull off an American accent. In the end, Cliff de Young played both Brad [[spoiler: and his evil twin brother Farley]]; and like Janet, Cliff's version of Brad bears no resemblance to Barry's, leaving some fans to question if they're even meant to be the same characters. In the end, ''Shock Treatment'' was a complete box office failure, and despite gaining a small cult following over time has been disowned by Richard O'Brien. It's usually considered the unloved bastard sequel to ''Rocky Horror''.
* Another movie affected by the Screen Actors Guild strike of 1980 was ''Heartbeeps'', due to the strike causing production to go on hiatus for over two months mid-shoot. But even when it was shooting, the sci-fi RomanticComedy that was intended both as a big-screen vehicle for AndyKaufman and Universal's big Christmas release for 1981 was troubled: The weather at the Colorado shooting location caused StanWinston's elaborate robot makeups (which took several hours to apply) to gradually wilt in the heat, limiting how much footage could be shot in a day. Director Allan Arkush, who had never helmed a big-budget project before, staged scenes at a glacial pace that frustrated everyone ''but'' him. Kaufman, increasingly bored and frustrated with the proceedings and having no friends to goof off with between takes (his friend/co-conspirator Bob Zmuda was specifically prohibited from the shoot), began acting out. Universal executives were horrified by the cut the director presented them with, and their final cut was a mere 79 minutes with credits. The movie grossed only a fifth of its budget, proving to be both Kaufman's StarDerailingRole and an OldShame.
* ''KinDzaDza'', a late 80s Soviet surrealist SciFi comedy by the renowned comedy director GeorgiDanelia was this from the start. Between the filming in the desert with no infrastructure to speak of (and this being the 80es SovietUnion really is something), the railway losing ''all'' prepared sets (they were eventually found after the filming on the different end of the country) in shipping, which forced the team to cobble them together from scrap in-place,[[note]]Wef's cap is actually the codpiece from the discarded fighter pilot's suit, and pepelats was just threwn together from scrap iron from the nearest dump welded together by a local plumber.[[/note]] the relentless ExecutiveMeddling from the authorities, script changes [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_Russian_Empire_and_the_Soviet_Union#Gorbachev_prohibition_campaign due to the Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign]], and half of the film actually being ad-libbed, it's a major miracle that it was just completed, much less becoming the instant cult classic that it is.
* Although the ambitious settings of such David Lean films as ''TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'', ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'', and ''Film/DoctorZhivago'' were not without their problems, even the Irish love story ''Ryan's Daughter'' turned into a severely troubled production.
** The weather was so unco-operative that many of the beach scenes in the film were shot near Cape Town in South Africa rather than near the specially constructed village on the Irish coast. Ironically, Lean had to wait for a year for a suitably dramatic storm to strike the Irish coast for a pivotal scene. Actor Leo [=McKern=], who played the title character's father, nearly drowned and nearly lost his glass eye to the rough seas, and was so frustrated by the slow pace of filming that he swore he would never act again (his "retirement" ultimately only lasted a few years).
** Lean also had trouble casting most of the film's major roles (except for Sarah Miles as Rosy Ryan and John Mills as mute village idiot Michael). He initially offered the role of Catholic priest Father Collins to Alec Guinness, but Guinness, himself a devout Catholic, sent the script back with a long list of objections to the character's portrayal (his negative experience working with Lean on ''Doctor Zhivago'' may also have contributed to his reluctance to take the role). Lean thanked him for his suggestions and offered the role instead to Trevor Howard. The role of Rosy's husband, schoolteacher Charles Shaughnessy, was intended for Paul Scofield, but he was in the middle of a theatre contract; the role went instead to Robert Mitchum, who was undergoing a personal crisis at the time (he had even been contemplating suicide) and described working with David Lean as "like constructing the Taj Mahal out of toothpicks". Mitchum planted marijuana trees behind the hotel accommodating the cast, giving many cast and crew members (and locals) their first experience of the drug.
** But the most troublesome role proved to be that of Rosy's lover, ShellShockedVeteran Major Randolph Doryan. The role was originally offered to MarlonBrando, but he was forced to drop out when production of ''Burn!'' lagged behind schedule. Lean finally cast American actor Christopher Jones on the strength of his performance in ''The Looking-Glass War''... not realising until production began that the film had been shot to hide Jones' diminutive stature and that his high-pitched voice had been dubbed; Jones was also emotionally distraught by the murder of his close friend Sharon Tate during production, so his mind was not entirely on his work. Jones and Lean clashed frequently, with Lean finding Jones' voice and performance so unsuited to the square-jawed soldier he had envisioned that he had Doryan re-written as traumatised into near silence by his trench experiences, with his aide-de-camp, Captain Smith (Gerald Sim), given the extra lines. Jones' voice was ultimately dubbed by Julian Holloway.
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* ''Film/{{Jaws}}''. Richard Dreyfuss basically summed it up as follows: "We started the film without a script, without a cast and without a shark." The full model mechanical shark sank to the bottom of the ocean on its first day, forcing a team of divers to retrieve it, and all three models frequently malfunctioned due to exposure to salt water. Add to that the occasionally soaked cameras, ruined takes because unwanted sailboats drifted into frame, and that one time the ship began sinking with the actors aboard. While these disasters did force Creator/StevenSpielberg to be creative and contributed to the film's success (famously, he only [[NothingIsScarier hinted at the shark's presence]] for most of the film), ''Jaws'' still wound up $5 million over budget (that was a lot back in 1974) and behind schedule - what was initially meant to be a 55-day shoot ended up at 159 days. Spielberg even thought he would never work again because of how screwed the thing was!
* And the other daddy of {{Summer Blockbuster}}s, the original ''StarWars'' (AKA: "Episode IV: ANewHope"). They had the bad luck of starting filming in the Tunisian desert just as it rained. The props and equipment had their obligatory malfunctions and breakdowns. The crew didn't really care about or understand the movie. Lucas clashed with cinematographer Gilbert Taylor and the movie ended up so badly behind schedule the crew had to split into three units and meet deadlines or else face shutdown. Post-production fared little better despite a delayed release date, as Lucas had to call in two editors (including his then-wife, Marcia Lucas) to salvage the movie after his first cut was a complete disaster and ILM was forced to complete a year's work in six months. And did we mention how ILM initially spent half their budget on four shots that turned out to be completely worthless? When the studio asked for a teaser trailer, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gvqpFbRKtQ this]] was basically slammed together from the footage available at the time.
* ''TheEmpireStrikesBack'', while less brutal, did run into troubles too. New director Irvin Kershner spent a lot more time for takes, which had the film lag behind and producer Gary Kurtz allowed production to go way over budget (triple that of the original in fact). Lucas wanted to keep the film out of any studios hands and financed it himself, but he was forced to take out a loan with 20th Century Fox as his security. The crew arrived in UsefulNotes/{{Norway}} to film the Hoth scenes to be greeted by the worst winter storm in years. (How bad? The scene where Luke escapes from the Wampa lair was achieved by opening the door to their hotel and filming Mark Hamill running outside.) And the various locations used, knowing it was a ''Star Wars'' film, overcharged the production for their services. This was the reason Kurtz was changed for ''ReturnOfTheJedi'' which had the least angsty production of all the original movies, in fact.
* ''AmericanGraffiti'': Although the shoot finished on time and on budget, it was no small miracle that it managed to do so:
** The day before shooting was due to begin, a key crew member was arrested for growing marijuana, and setting the cameras up for location shooting on the first day took so long that they did not start shooting until 2am, putting them half a night behind before a single scene had been shot.
** After a single night of outdoor filming in San Rafael, the city revoked their filming permit after a local bar owner complained that the road closures were costing him business, forcing them to move filming twenty miles away to Petaluma. On the second night, a local restaurant caught fire, and the noise of the fire engine sirens and the resulting traffic jams made filming impossible.
** Inevitably for a film featuring so many driving scenes, the cars and equipment required to film them in motion seldom behaved as planned. An assistant cameraman was run over after he fell off the back of the camera truck during filming of a road scene, while filming of the climactic drag race was hampered when one of the cars broke an axle, then broke the replacement axle, and then nearly ran over two cameramen lying in the road to film its approach.
** Among non-technical problems, Paul [=LeMat=] (who played John Milner) had to be rushed to hospital after suffering a walnut allergy flare-up, and Richard Dreyfuss had his forehead gashed after [=LeMat=] threw him into a swimming pool the day before his closeups were to be filmed.
** And when the film was screened for a test audience, Universal Studios representative Ned Tanen told Lucas the film was unreleaseable, prompting an outraged FrancisFordCoppola (the film's producer) to offer to buy the film from Universal and release it himself while Lucas, burned out from the chaotic film shoot, could only watch in shock. Instead, Universal offered a compromise whereby they could [[ExecutiveMeddling suggest modifications to the film before release.]] It was not until 1978, after the success of ''StarWars'', that Lucas was able to re-edit and release the film as he originally intended.
* JamesCameron seems to be a lightning rod for this trope.
** He ended up directing ''Film/{{Piranha}} II: The Spawning'' after the original director abandoned the project. While filming in Rome, Grand Cayman and Jamaica, Cameron had to struggle with a crew made up of Italians who didn't speak English and [[ExecutiveMeddling overbearing producer]] Ovidio Assonitis. At one point he reportedly broke into the Rome editing room to cut his own version of the film, but Assonitis re-cut it again. Still, the two good things were that he got the idea for ''TheTerminator'' during production and reused some of the models for ''Aliens'' later. Lesson learned: if the producer's name is [[MeaningfulName Assonitis]], the filming may hit a few snags.
** ''Film/{{Alien}}s'' was one of his worse productions, and one of the few times when his JerkAss demeanour is kind of understandable. To wit: the English crew thought Cameron was [[TyrantTakesTheHelm a tyrannical and incompetent substitute]] for RidleyScott, and Cameron's workaholism clashed with their regular tea breaks and relaxed attitude towards production. The crew insulted his wife Gale Anne Hurd, implying that [[NeverASelfMadeWoman she was only getting producer's credit because she was married to him]], and he had to contend with a walkout after firing original cinematographer Dick Bush who wouldn't light the alien nest the way he wanted (Bush was a very old school DP, who lit the scenes to his content, while Cameron was a very visually involved director) and was then replaced by Adrian Biddle (who had never DP'ed a feature before). Michael Biehn ended up replacing James Remar as Hicks shortly into production.\\
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Unsurprisingly, production wound up behind schedule and the crew had to work at breakneck pace to finish the film in time for its July 1986 release date. This fell particularly hard on JamesHorner, who had to write the score without access to the film (that was still being filmed and edited) and record it in four days in an outdated studio. In turn, Cameron and editor Ray Lovejoy had to hack it in places to match the film without his input. Horner swore off working with Cameron for the next 11 years.
** ''TheAbyss'' had 40% of live-action photography take place underwater. It was filmed in two specially constructed tanks in an abandoned nuclear plant in South Carolina[[note]]"abandoned" as in "its construction was never finished", not as in "it was used and decommissioned"[[/note]], requiring experimental technology and equipment to allow the underwater scenes to be filmed right. Over six months of 6-day, 70-hour work weeks ensued, and the production had to be delayed when on the first day the main water tank sprung a leak, requiring dam-repair experts to fix it. And later, the crew were forced to only film at night after a lightning storm tore up the tarpaulin covering the main tank.\\
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It's significant that Cameron himself declared this the worst production he was ever involved in. It's the only production where he had to spend most of his time hanging upside down in decompression tanks from filming underwater -- he even said he had to review the footage in this position. He also almost drowned Ed Harris through EnforcedMethodActing, which resulted in the one and only time an actor has ever actually punched him. Cameron himself nearly drowned during production, too, when his diving suit malfunctioned while he was weighed down at the bottom of the giant water tank during filming.
** And then came ''{{Titanic}}'', the film that cemented his reputation as Hollywood's biggest JerkAss, so much so that the crew claimed he had a [[JekyllAndHyde psychotic alter ego named]] "[[SdrawkcabName Mij]]". Apart from terrorizing the film's two lead actors (KateWinslet suffered bruises so impressive that the makeup artists took photos to use for reference later), driving it insanely over budget and schedule and having to deal with cast members who came down sick from a shitload of hours spent in cold water, Cameron and about 50 other guys fell victim to an almost DeadlyPrank when a crew member put PCP in their soup, forcing them to spend a night in hospital. The movie stands as possibly his last completely OffTheRails Production, as he's mellowed out quite a bit since.
* ''Alien³''. Before production even started, several scripts were written and several directors were hired (including Renny Harlin and Vincent Ward), but all of them ran into resistance from FOX executives who were unwilling to have a film that didn't feature the Ellen Ripley character. Filming begun with $7 million already spent on sets (including a monastery set built before the setting was changed to a prison -- but still kept, as a church inside the facility), and no finished script.\\
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Finally, DavidFincher was brought in late in production, but even then, [[ExecutiveMeddling he was stymied at every turn by executives who attempted to stop him from shooting important scenes]]. After a disastrous industry screening and test screenings in California (featuring, according to actor Ralph Brown, young teenagers who didn't understand the film at all), scenes had to be filmed months after filming wrapped. And after all that, executives rode in again and recut the film without asking Fincher. Though Fincher never [[AlanSmithee took his name off the film]], he's otherwise [[CreatorBacklash disowned the film and doesn't list it on his resume]] (not even the [[DirectorsCut "Assembly Cut"]] that restored over half an hour of footage).
* FrancisFordCoppola's ''Film/ApocalypseNow'', a case so famous that it has its own documentary dedicated to it, ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Darkness:_A_Filmmaker%27s_Apocalypse Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse]]''. Coppola himself summed it up by saying "My film is not about Vietnam, it ''is'' Vietnam" and famously explained that "We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane." Let's see, where do we start?
** The film took a total of four years to complete. Filming in the Philippines went on for a year, going nine months behind schedule and $17-19 million over budget[[note]]The initial budget was projected at $12-14 million; it wound up coming in at $31.5 million.[[/note]] for reasons detailed below. Coppola took two further years in post-production to deliver the final product. To put it into perspective: LaurenceFishburne lied about his age to get cast as a 17-year old in the movie when he was actually 14. By the time the movie was released, he was actually 17 years old.
** MarlonBrando was cast as Colonel Kurtz, being his usual prima donna self. He showed up to the set morbidly obese rather than the muscular physique that was called for, leading to the decision to film Kurtz solely from the shoulders up. Worse, when he arrived on set he had read neither the script nor Joseph Conrad's ''Literature/HeartOfDarkness'' like he had been told to.
** President Marcos disrupted production by recalling the military equipment he lent to Coppola to fight against the Communist insurgents in the South. The reason he had to use Philippine military equipment in the first place is because the United States military refused to [[BackedByThePentagon lend him anything]], due to the order to "Kill Colonel Kurtz" (Coppola refused to change it to a DeadlyEuphemism).
** A scene that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to film was thrown out.
** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Pacific_typhoon_season#Typhoon_Olga_.28Didang.29 Typhoon Olga]] in May 1976, combined with constant rainfall, destroyed most of the sets and totally ground production to a halt for six weeks.
** The ending had to be re-written on the fly and the script was frequently discarded for improvisation.
** Martin Sheen drunkenly cut his hand open shattering a mirror and, in an unrelated incident, later suffered a heart attack and had to struggle a quarter-mile to get help. The latter of these two meant that some of his scenes had to filmed from the back, using his brother, Joe Estevez, as a body double.
** For that matter, many cast and crew members were drunk or stoned while filming. Dennis Hopper got a teenaged LaurenceFishburne addicted to heroin.
** Coppola lost 100 pounds, threatened suicide several times, and attempted it once.
** Even post-production was no walk in the park. For one thing, the Philippines had no professional film laboratories at the time, meaning the raw camera negatives had to be shipped to the US to be processed. Coppola never saw a shot on film until ''after'' returning to California. The entire movie was shot blind. For another thing, Coppola had to edit through several ''miles'' of film to create the final cut. On top of that, Sheen was unavailable to provide the voice-over narration, so, once again, Coppola had to turn to Joe Estevez.
* And on a less successful note, ''One from the Heart'' was initially meant to be a small $2 million movie for Coppola to chillax after the sheer hell of ''Apocalypse''. It wound up ballooning to $25 million due to his insistence on shooting on sound stages exclusively, and failed so badly it led him to declare bankruptcy and spend the rest of his career in TheEighties and TheNineties making movies just to recover the debts he incurred from this. [[Website/{{Cracked}} Yes, One from the Heart was responsible for freakin' Jack]].
* And in a minor case compared to both, ''Film/TheGodfather''. On set wasn't as troubled (apart from a delay due to AlPacino twisting his ankle, and Coppola arguing with the cinematographer). But Coppola's relationship with the Paramount executives was really chaotic - they hated the casting, the lighting, the writing, the music, the length...
* Though numerous troubled productions have resulted in body counts, few are as infamous in this respect as ''The Cotton Club'' - and a gangland-style execution is just the tip of the iceberg of the shoot's problems.
** Former Paramount studio chief Robert Evans (a nemesis of Coppola during filming of ''Film/TheGodfather'') had the idea of producing and directing a film about the 1920s Harlem speakeasy in 1980, but struggled to spark interest among backers in Mario Puzo's script (early donors included Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, whose money Evans had to return after rejecting his suggested script changes). Through Miami drug dealer Lanie Jacobs, he was introduced to New York impresario Roy Radin, who offered to help raise the necessary funds. However, Jacobs expected a share of the profits and a production credit for her efforts, which Radin refused. In June 1983, Radin's bullet-riddled corpse was found in the desert outside Los Angeles, and Jacobs was later convicted of ordering his murder and sentenced to life without parole. Though suspicions also fell on Evans, his involvement was never proven. In his memoir ''The Kid Stays In the Picture'', Evans says that experience made the early years of the '80s, in which he was arrested for trying to smuggle a large quantity of cocaine into the country and required to organize antidrug events with the big stars he knew as community service, the "good half" of the 1980s for him.
** Radin's murder alone would render ''The Cotton Club'' a troubled production, but as efforts to tweak the script continued to founder, Evans brought in his former foe FrancisFordCoppola to work on the script, and ultimately gave him the reins of director. Coppola, already reeling from the troubled productions and financial failures of ''Rumble Fish'' and ''One from the Heart'', saw the film as an opportunity to get his career as a director back on track, just as Evans hoped to do the same for his career as a producer following the troubled productions of ''Film/{{Popeye}}'' and ''Urban Cowboy''. This inevitably set the stage for an epic battle of egos between the old enemies, who had drastically different creative visions for the story, characters, and visuals of the film.
** Enticed by a script by Mario Puzo and the promise of funding from Las Vegas casino-owning brothers Edward and Fred Doumani, Paramount offered Evans the talents of Richard Gere as leading man and access to their studio facilities along with further production funds. However, determined to re-establish his reputation as a major player in Hollywood, Evans turned down the latter offer in favour of the services of Orion Pictures - who were in the business of marketing and distributing films rather than producing them, meaning that Evans would need to raise more production money and find a studio in which to shoot the film, causing further delays and adding to the already bloated budget.
** Upon being appointed director, Coppola added to the budgetary woes by firing the film crew Evans had assembled ''en masse'' (in some cases requiring large payoffs) and hiring his own crew members, including a music arranger who commuted via Concorde between the shoot in New York and a regular engagement in Switzerland. His quasi-improvisational approach to directing the actors meant the script was in a constant state of flux, and actors would frequently spend all day on set without shooting a single frame of film. There were frequent clashes between Coppola and Richard Gere, who insisted on showing off his (modest) skills on the cornet in the film, and seemed more concerned about possible damage to his reputation than about the film itself.
** Filming finished in March 1984 with a final budget of $47 million (nearly three times initial estimates), and the battle between Evans and Coppola continued during post-production. A lawsuit filed by Evans against Coppola, the Doumani brothers, and Orion resulted in Evans being given a flat fee and a producer credit, but yielding complete creative control over the film to Coppola. The film was released in December 1984, and although Series/SiskelAndEbert both named it one of the year's ten best films, most critics were more muted in their enthusiasm, and its final domestic gross was just $25.9 million. Although Evans and Coppola continued to produce and/or direct films, their careers as major players in Hollywood were over.
* Creator/TerryGilliam is a lightning rod for this type of thing.
** ''The Man Who Killed Don Quixote'' faced this problem, without anyone in the cast or crew being difficult at all - the production was faced by nothing but disasters, from the weather (as in the Star Wars example, it freakishly rained in a desert location, ruining several days of filming). The actor who played Don Quixote faced several health problems, and was told by doctors to stop filming. In the end, the film stopped production completely, ruining Gilliam's dream project. At least we got a [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308514/ good documentary]] about it.
** ''TwelveMonkeys'' was in danger of going over budget until BruceWillis decided to free up some cash by [[DoingItForTheArt doing the movie for free]].
** After filming ''Film/{{Brazil}}'', Gilliam protested the extreme ExecutiveMeddling by releasing a full-page ad criticizing the production company. He ultimately managed to block the "love conquers all" re-cut of the film.
* ''Film/CasinoRoyale1967''. ''Literature/CasinoRoyale'' was the only IanFleming novel EON Productions failed to secure the rights to due to a bunch of legal issues, and it ended up with Charles Feldman. Unable to get EON on board and do a straight movie, he turned it into an insane, psychedelic parody of spy films with an AllStarCast. There were multiple directors, none of them working with a finished script but all working independently, and there were also [[TooManyCooksSpoilTheSoup numerous screenwriters]]. PeterSellers argued with OrsonWelles, and the former was eventually fired ''despite playing the lead character''. Many of the other actors were brought in to make up for this, many of whom assume the 007 moniker at some point. The editor seemed to be instructed to put the film together in the most disjointed, nonsensical fashion possible. And Website/TheAgonyBooth has recapped it [[http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Casino_Royale_1967.aspx here]].
* ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'' had to undergo a RidiculouslyFastConstruction because the producers had already set a release date, and they had to face problems such a boat of cameras sinking into the Bosphorus and a helicopter falling into a lake (with the director inside!) while location scouting; and ''Film/OnHerMajestysSecretService'' had a few stuntmen accidents, and leading man George Lazenby had conflicts with the director and the producers.
* ''Film/{{Superman}}'' had a few problems, mainly producer-director clashes (which generally involved the director rejecting the campy, slapstick parts the producers wanted), special effects problems (not that many breakdowns, but a lot of money to make them work), and getting way behind schedule - they filmed both ''Superman'' and its sequel simultaneously without much of a clear schedule in the first place. The film was a hit, but the lost profits to the producers over this led to RichardDonner being fired before the second movie was completed and replaced by RichardLester.
* The production of the fifth ''Superman'' movie definitely qualifies, especially if one considers all the different versions it went through on the road to becoming ''SupermanReturns'' (which actually had a calm production). TheOtherWiki has a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_%28film_series%29#Proposals_for_fifth_film very exhaustive listing]], but the best-known facet is that later stages were essentially a battle between two sides. On one hand we had writers like KevinSmith (who wittily recounts his experiences on the project [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYhLIThTvk here]]) who wanted to produce a faithful, respectful treatment of Superman's mythos. On the other we had producer Jon Peters, who said Supes's red-and-blues looked "too faggy", wanted to give Brainiac a robot sidekick described as "a gay [[StarWars R2-D2]] with attitude", and demanded that Superman battle a [[SpiderTank giant robot spider]], which has become a RunningGag among Superman fans, while Peters himself has become a symbol for incompetent ExecutiveMeddling.
* ''Film/BladeRunner'' was a victim of this. RidleyScott's drive for perfection often led to double-digit takes of a single scene, eating up film in the process. This, coupled with his confrontational relationship with the film crew (which at one point had them wearing anti-Scott T-shirts on set), time constraints caused by filming at night and expensive, time-consuming effects shots quickly caused the shoot to run behind schedule and over budget. The final scene was shot literally ''hours'' before the producers were due to take creative control away from Scott.
* A whole mess of this led to the utter disaster that was the notorious 1979 historical epic/porn film ''Caligula''. To make a very long story short:
** Most of the problems stemmed from the endless feuding between writer GoreVidal, director Tinto Brass, and producer Bob Guccione (of ''Penthouse'' magazine fame). Vidal wanted the film to stay true to his script, to the point of claiming in a ''Time'' magazine interview that directors were "parasites" living off writers, and that the director need only follow the directions as provided by the writer of the screenplay. Brass, not amused in the slightest, threw Vidal out of the studio. Guccione, meanwhile, wanted to incorporate hardcore sex into the film in order to promote his magazine, which caused female lead Maria Schneider to withdraw from the film (she was replaced by Teresa Ann Savoy) and no shortage of disagreements with Brass.
** The aggressive shooting schedule developed by the inexperienced producers Guccione and Franco Rossellini was unrealistic for a film of such scope. Art director Danilo Donati had to scrap some of his more elaborate original ideas for the sets and replace them with such surreal imagery as bizarre matte paintings, blacked-out areas, silk backdrops and curtains. This resulted in significant script changes, with Brass and the actors improvising scenes written to take place in entirely different locations, and sometimes shooting entirely new scenes (such as the frolicking scene that opens the film) in order to show progress while the incomplete or redone sets were unavailable.
** As the film entered post-production, Guccione took control of the film footage and fired Brass for running up huge costs (Guccione claims Brass shot enough film to "make the original version of ''BenHur'' about 50 times over"), casting actual criminals as Roman senators, and using what Guccione considered "fat, ugly, and wrinkled old women" in the sex scenes instead of his Penthouse Pets. Guccione hired his friend Giancarlo Lui to reedit the film. Lui was instructed to refashion the film into something more in keeping with what Vidal had first scripted, while delivering the sexual content demanded by Guccione; they shot and added hardcore scenes. With much footage improvised and rewritten from the original draft of the film, Lui further scrambled, re-cut, and deleted scenes altogether. Many of the disturbing sexual images shot by Brass were removed, replaced by approximately six minutes of hardcore sex shot by Guccione and Lui. In the end, the final cut of the film had strayed far afield from what Brass had intended. Ironically, perhaps, it bore little resemblance to what Vidal had scripted as well.
** In the unpleasant aftermath, both Brass and Vidal launched independent tirades against the film and lawsuits against Guccione, delaying the release of ''Caligula''. Vidal, who was paid $200,000 for his script, agreed to drop his contractual claim for 10% of the film profits in exchange for [[AlanSmithee having his name removed]] from the title of the film (original billing was to have been ''Gore Vidal's Caligula''). In 1981, Anneka Di Lorenzo, who played Messalina, sued Guccione, claiming that he damaged her career by using hardcore sexual scenes in the final cut of ''Caligula'' without her knowledge, thereby associating her with a pornographic film. After a protracted litigation, in 1990 a New York state court awarded her $60,000 in compensatory damages and $4,000,000 in punitive damages, but on appeal, the punitive damages were determined to be not recoverable and the court vacated the award.
* 1976's ''TheBlueBird'' was a much-ballyhooed family musical, the first-ever cinematic co-production between the United States and the U.S.S.R. An AllStarCast of mostly American actors had the lead roles while respected director George Cukor helmed the project, shooting in Russia. The first problem was that the U.S. side originally promised the participation of MarlonBrando (in what role, it isn't known), but he backed out. This was resolved amicably when ElizabethTaylor was brought in to play ''four'' parts, though her attempt to get DavidBowie in the cast (probably as Fire) didn't pan out once he read the script; for that matter, Katherine Hepburn and Shirley [=MacLaine=] also backed out of the film by the time it was set to go.\\
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The real trouble started in Russia. The Russian studio and crew were far behind the curve of the American talent (they had to replace the cinematographer because he'd ''never shot a film in color'') and the on-set translators weren't up to the task of making sure both sides could communicate clearly. Leading ladies Taylor, JaneFonda and Cicely Tyson all caused unique sets of problems: Taylor fell ill with amoebic dysentery, Fonda wouldn't stop chatting up the crew about politics, and Tyson warred with the director (among other things, she couldn't get proper lighting with a Caucasian woman serving as her stand-in). The American and Russian composers argued over the direction the score should take, James Coco (cast as Tylo the dog) had to drop out in mid-shoot when he suffered a gallbladder attack, the filmmakers couldn't find real bluebirds to use or import for the title figure and resorted to dyeing ''pigeons'' (and their handlers were actually accused of '''eating''' some of them), and so on and so forth. The resultant $12 million film was so bad that it tanked instantly; in the U.S. it still hasn't had a legit video release after 30+ years, and the financial figures related to it were rendered a '''state secret''' in Russia. There has never been another coproduction between the two countries.
** George Cukor told the Soviet studio head how honored he was to be filming in the same studio where Sergei Eisenstein had filmed ''Film/TheBattleshipPotemkin'' in 1925. "Yes," said the studio head, "and with the very same equipment."
* The 1996 ''TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau'' had two directors because dealing with prima donnas Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando (who were both going through bad days: the former, a divorce; the latter, a daughter killing herself) proved too much for Richard Stanley, who left for John Frankenheimer to take over (he faced the two on the same coin: [[http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,292752_3,00.html apparently]] once he replied Kilmer with "I don't give a fuck. Get off my set!"). Co-star David Thewlis had such a terrible time making the film that he skipped the premiere and has vowed to never watch it. The final result shows how bad it was.
* The ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' [[TwoPartTrilogy sequels]] -- more specifically, the second. Writing wasn't finished by the time it started, ships had to be built, the small island where it was filmed wasn't ready to receive the huge crew, and Hurricane Wilma devastated the Bahamas set.
* ''Film/{{Predator}}'' was shot in the Mexican jungle on a rough terrain, cold temperatures, and had every member of the cast and crew but Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger [[MemeticBadass (of]] [[NighInvulnerable course)]] and director John [=McTiernan=] getting Montezuma's Revenge due to unclean hotel water. The shoot was further delayed due to the creature's original design not working well enough and having to be scrapped and replaced - and the actor found the suit difficult to wear because it was heavy and off-balance, and he could not see outside the mask.
* The 2004 parody remake of ''TheStepfordWives'' underwent massive reshoots, script rewrites that created gaping plot holes, John and Joan Cusack pulling out of the film (and NicoleKidman, who played the main character, considering it after she saw the changes to the script), and fighting on set between director Frank Oz and his stars. It all built to an [[GainaxEnding utterly incoherent]] final product that bombed at the box office and was savaged by critics.
* Infamous flop ''HudsonHawk'' gathered bad reaction before its release due to a disastrous production - egos running rampant, constant rewrites, clashes between director and star, you name it.
** Richard E. Grant dedicated a chapter about the nightmare that was making ''HudsonHawk'' in his book ''With Nails''.
* Albert Pyun's 1989 ''Film/{{Cyborg}}'' was actually born out of it rather than suffering from this. The extremely troubled production of Cannon Film's ''{{Spider-Man}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{He-Man|AndTheMastersOfTheUniverse}}'' film projects eventually caused both to [[DevelopmentHell collapse under their own weight]]. With $2 million invested already on pre-production and very early production, Pyun was brought to, literally, make something out of both (now) failed projects. After coming up with the story for Cyborg in a single weekend, $500,000, and 24 days of hectic and rushed filming and editing, ''Cyborg'' was released and made a little more than $10,0000,000 on the box office, becoming one of Pyun's most commercially successful films and indeed saving Cannon Films from imminent bankruptcy.
** Cannon Films went bankrupt some time later, though.
** ''Film/{{District 9}}'' has a similar origin, coming out of the failed ''{{HALO}}'' movie.
* ''Film/{{Waterworld}}''. Budget overrun (from $100 million to the then-record $175 million), director Kevin Reynolds leaving and leading KevinCostner [[WagTheDirector to further take over the film]], a hurricane destroying the sets, stuntmen getting lost or drowned... and ExecutiveMeddling kicked in to order cuts and reshoots.
* JacquesTati envisioned ''Playtime'' as his MagnumOpus, and for that [[EpicMovie the film had to be somewhat more than ordinary]]. This grand social satire and ode to classic slapstick could not be done on any ordinary set. Rather, it required a set for which ''two full-size modernistic buildings'' had to be constructed on the outskirts of Paris, along with several smaller models, a full-size road, and its own working electrical system powered by a small plant. The development of the film would then necessitate numerous script rewrites and continuous maintenance of the set.\\
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Filming in itself lasted '''three years''', during which Tati had to take out numerous loans in order to continue production. In order to further accommodate his immense vision, the film was shot on 70mm film and edited for a stereophonic sound setup. These decisions would eventually cause difficulties in finding theatres that could properly screen the film. When the project was finally completed and released in 1967, it flopped pitifully. The official budget has gone unreported, but the failure of ''Playtime'' led Tati to file for bankruptcy and pay off the film's debts for the rest of his life. [[VindicatedByHistory Fortunately the film's reputation has improved since its release and is now considered Tati's masterpiece.]]
* ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail''. NoBudget, the directors clashing with each other, Creator/GrahamChapman either getting drunk or suffering from withdrawal on set, getting a location veto shortly before filming began, actors [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/trivia?tab=tr&item=tr0767057 rushing back to the hotel after wrapping for the day in order to bathe]]...
* ''Film/EasyRider''. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda were constantly at odds with each other, the bikes were stolen (Fonda's declared motivation for his delivery of "We blew it") and Hopper proved to be a PrimaDonnaDirector, eventually leading to the studio sending him on a paid vacation while they recut the film in his absence to a more manageable length (Hopper's original cut was ''220 minutes'' long).
* Sadly, this was a hallmark of most of the films of OrsonWelles after ''Film/CitizenKane'', mostly due to his difficulties in raising funds and sometimes simple crappy luck (a film called ''The Deep'' was shelved after star Laurence Harvey died).
** ''The Deep'' would later be remade (and completed) as ''Dead Calm'' (which didn't suffer through a troubled production).
* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' already suffered badly with their series, as an entry below shows... but the movies were worse!
** With ''Film/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'':
*** The directors of the movie, not having seen the actual series, pretty much did a quick "fast-fowarding" run of the series, pretty much ensuing things would go wrong.
*** When the Ranger suits were developed, the helmets were designed without visors or mouth pieces, intending on the heroes showing fear or worry. It wasn't until a little while later that they realized that they were meant to be a fearless force to be reckoned with and they remolded the helmets to include those missing pieces.
*** Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, the original and final choice for Dulcea, was replaced partway by Mariska Hargitay. However, after filming her scenes, which included a training sequence, they felt she wasn't the right one for the job and they rehired Gabrielle, dumping all of those scenes.
*** The filming for the final scene where the team is thanked turned into a disaster area when local radio shows caught wind of it and tried to turn it into a "Meet the Power Rangers" contest.
*** Originally, Ivan Ooze was meant to mutate a bunch of rats for the Rangers to fight. However, the rat costumes proved to be too low budget even for the actual series, leading to the creation of the Ooze Men. However, the suits were spared and used in "The Return of the Green Ranger" three-parter.
*** Delays in the series forced the cast to remain in Australia for filming, forcing Saban to make the aforementioned "The Return of the Green Ranger" episode.
** ''[[Series/PowerRangersTurbo Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie]]'' was just as bad. Initially envisioned as a reunion of the original MMPR cast teaming up with the new Turbo team, it fell apart when Walter Jones and Thuy Trang refused to give up their Guild membership cards to film. The explanation of the Turbo powers was dropped when David Yost left near the end of ''Series/PowerRangersZeo''. The original cut was actually over ''three hours long'' and they were forced to trim it down to under two. Beyond all of that, it was no wonder the movie flopped!
* ''Film/HeavensGate''. Planned budget: $11.6 million. Actually spent money at the end: More than $44 million. To top it all off, it also tanked at the box office, [[CreatorKiller ruining]] director Michael Cimino's career.
** The production is the subject of an entire book, ''Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of ''Heaven's Gate, by Stephen Bach, one of the (former, unsurprisingly) studio executives involved.
* ''Film/DoctorDolittle''. [[TwentiethCenturyFox Fox's]] 1967 family musical was envisioned as a FollowTheLeader title in the steps of ''MyFairLady'' and ''Film/TheSoundOfMusic'' following years of legal battles with Creator/HughLofting's family and writing difficulties. Hundreds of animals were trained for the film... in California, making them essentially unusable for location shooting in England and St. Lucia. Said location shoots were disasters, forcing additional studio lot reshoots. Rex Harrison frequently made a nuisance of himself by dismissing the screenwriter, his younger co-stars and the songs, all while suffering with personal issues.\\
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Despite initial optimism from producer Arthur Jacobs (who had a heart attack during production), the final budget was considered to be in the then-outrageously high $18 million area. Often cited as a GenreKiller for the family musical; though {{Warner|Brothers}}'s ''Theatre/{{Camelot}}'' was actually released first, both opened to a negative critical reception and general lack of interest.
* Pretty much any collaboration between Creator/WernerHerzog and KlausKinski was guaranteed to be this; most notably ''Film/{{Fitzcarraldo}}'', which took the problems of ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' and turned them UpToEleven. Among the many problems with the production was that, instead of using special effects to replicate the feat of towing a huge boat up and over the side of a mountain, Herzog insisted in doing it for real. Numerous serious injuries and at least one death resulted. ''Film/AguirreTheWrathOfGod'' was almost as troubled; though not as fatal.
** Herzog and Kinski's highly tempestuous relationship was chronicled in Herzog's documentary on Kinski -- ''My Best Fiend'' (yes, that's spelled correctly). Although the story of Werner forcing Klaus to perform his scenes at the point of a gun is apocryphal, he freely admits they both threatened on numerous occasions to kill each other; and actually attempted it at least once each.
** And, like ''Apocalyspe'', ''Fitzcarraldo'''s trouble production is the subject of its own documentary film, ''Burden of Dreams''. Near the end, Herzog speculates that he should give up filmmaking and go into a mental asylum.
* Oh, ''{{Cleopatra}}''. Where to even begin?
** After Joan Collins bowed out of the lead role in 1958, ElizabethTaylor sarcastically offered to take it for a million dollars - and to her surprise, [[TwentiethCenturyFox Fox]] agreed. The weekly costs that were included in Taylor's fee ballooned out of control when she became gravely ill with pneumonia during initial shooting at Pinewood Studios in England in 1960, putting a halt to filming for many months, and leading her to be paid over $2 million before any usable footage had been shot. Taylor's illness and the resulting delays led to the resignation of the original director (Rouben Mamoulian) and the actors cast as Caesar (Peter Finch) and Antony (Stephen Boyd).
** Even leaving aside Taylor's extended sick leave, few things went as planned during the abortive Pinewood shoot. The producers had frequent clashes with the studio's labour unions, the film crew did not realise until after settling on Pinewood as the venue for indoor filming that there were fewer available soundstages than anticipated and the ceilings were too low to accommodate the sets as originally planned, and the outdoor sets deteriorated rapidly in the cold, wet English weather. The footage shot at Pinewood ended up being discarded as the filming moved to Cinecittà Studios in Rome so the English weather would not impair Taylor's recovery. ([[PropRecycling The sets were still used]] by the producers of the ''CarryOn'' films in 1964's ''Carry On Cleo''.)
** Production in Italy was just as problematic. The costumes and sets had to be completely re-designed and re-built, leading to a shortage of lumber and other building materials throughout Italy. Millions of dollars' worth of props and other equipment were stolen by studio employees, while a group of female extras went on strike as a result of being constantly groped by lecherous male extras. Two construction workers building the Alexandria set were killed by an unexploded World War II land mine. The constant delays and reshoots in filming the epic-scale scene of Cleopatra's entrance on a barge into Rome (started in October 1961, finished the following March) required the recasting of Cleopatra's son as the original child actor had grown significantly taller during the delay.
** When Joseph L. Mankiewicz was brought on board to direct at Taylor's insistence, the film was already nearly a year behind schedule, $5 million over budget, and had ''not a single frame of usable footage'' to show for it. The script was only half completed, and Mankiewicz had to write the rest as filming went along, shooting the script as new scenes were written and editing the resulting footage later rather than editing the script first and then shooting the resulting scenes. The catastrophic budget overruns meant the climactic Battle of Actium sequence had to be re-written to take place almost entirely off camera. So great was the strain of writing and directing that Mankiewicz required injections to both get through each day and sleep at night.
** To complicate matters, the film marked the beginning of ElizabethTaylor and RichardBurton's [[RomanceOnTheSet tempestuous relationship and eventual marriage]] (and subsequent divorce, re-marriage, and re-divorce); as both were already married, the resulting scandal and moral outrage added bad publicity to the already toxic combination of massive delays and cost inflation. However, the affair created enough fascination with the public that Fox decided to assemble a publicity campaign that focused almost entirely on Taylor and Burton, with scant attention at best devoted to Rex Harrison as Caesar.[[note]] Harrison arguably got the last laugh when he became the only one of the film's three stars to receive an Oscar nomination for his performance.[[/note]]
** Things didn't improve during post production. Mankiewicz initially planned to assemble two three-hour films, ''Caesar and Cleopatra'' and ''Antony and Cleopatra'', but Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck believed that the public interest in seeing Taylor and Burton on screen together might fade if the second film were released later, while interest in the first film (in which Burton would only appear in a few scenes) would be minimal, so he [[ExecutiveMeddling ordered the films edited into a single four-hour film]] - requiring ''more'' reshoots to smooth over the changes. Mankiewicz was eventually fired during editing, but had to be re-hired when it became obvious that he was the only person who could make sense of the raw footage.[[note]] Some of the cut footage has been recovered in recent years; the film's fans continue to harbour hope that ''all'' of the cut footage may someday be restored and the film released as Mankiewicz originally intended.[[/note]]
** The film finally staggered into cinemas in June 1963, with a final production cost of $44 million (over $300 million adjusted for inflation) - money Fox knew it had little chance of recovering. Despite lukewarm reviews from critics and audiences, the film had the highest box office take of 1963 and was nominated for ten Oscars (including Best Picture), winning four, but it would not break even until ABC paid $5 million for two television screenings in 1966 (at the time, a record fee for film broadcasting rights). The already financially troubled 20th Century Fox almost went bankrupt, selling parts of its studio lot and needing the successes of films such as ''TheLongestDay''[[hottip:*: in which Roddy [=McDowall=] (who played Octavian in ''Cleopatra'') requested, and received, a small role to alleviate boredom during the endless delays to ''Cleopatra'']] in 1962 and ''TheSoundOfMusic'' in 1965 to offset their losses. ''Cleopatra'' also [[GenreKiller killed interest in the sword and sandal epic genre]] for nearly a generation, and was a key factor in [[FallOfTheStudioSystem the disintegration of the old "studio system"]], as studios passed responsibility for production costs to independent production companies instead of handling said costs themselves.
* ''Film/ManosTheHandsOfFate'' was made when fertilizer salesman Hal Warren befriended and later made a bet with famous screenwriter Stirling Silliphant that he could make a horror film with a low budget. And ''[[MovieMakingMess it shows]]''. The problems included:
** The camera they used was a 16mm Bell and Howell that not only didn't record sound, but only could record ''32 seconds of film''. The sound was later dubbed in in post-production by four members of the crew, Hal included. This explains a number of things, including the bad editing, the long pauses and why a few characters, such as Torgo and the little girl, sound horrible.
** The crew found themselves bemused by how amateur Hal was that they mocked the title of the movie (which was once called "Lodge of Sins") as ''Mangos: The Cans of Fruit''.
** Tom Neyman created a special rigging to give Torgo the illusion that he was a satyr. However, the actor, John Reynolds, set it up wrong and it damaged his knees so badly that he was reportedly taking medication that would lead to an addiction and later suicide.
** Instead of the technique of shooting "day for night", Hal opted to film night scenes ''at night''. Thanks to poor lighting, it gave the accidental illusion of the cops getting out of their car to investigate a gunshot, but decide otherwise.
** The modeling agency that loaned Hal the women to be the Master's wives proved to be a bit of a prima donna, refusing to let the women to be "too skimpy" (that red sash they wear? They were supposed to be ''tails'') and when one of the women broke her leg, Hal was forced to recast her as the other half of the makeout couple that has [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment no real effect to the plot!]]
* ''DersuUzala'', due to Creator/AkiraKurosawa having to work in the USSR as no Japanese studio wanted to fund him at the time. The resulting studio, Mosfilm, clashed with Kurosawa as his perfectionism did not fit the "deliver a certain amount of shot film per day" the company wanted. Union fights were recurrent, and cameramen were changed every week. There was only one interpreter - to a crew of mostly Russians! To make the tiger attack more realistic, a wild one was used instead of a domesticated animal - and needless to say, it wasn't collaborative. No wonder the film took 3 years to get ready.
* ''Film/TheAfricanQueen'' was shot on location in Africa, a rarity in those days. The results weren't pretty: handling the heavy Technicolor cameras was hard, the cast and crew got sick (KatherineHepburn had to keep a bucket beside her while filming the piano scene that opens the film so she could vomit between takes; only HumphreyBogart and director JohnHuston escaped illness, due to consuming nothing but canned goods and whiskey) and had several close brushes with wild animals and poisonous snakes (specially because Bogart got interested in hunting - which even became a ClintEastwood [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100928/ movie]]), the title boat sunk and had to be raised twice, the ship's boiler nearly fell on Hepburn, army ants infested the set...
* It's nowhere near as bad as most of the examples on this page, but the third ''Film/HarryPotter'' movie ran into a problem with rain. While filming on location in Scotland, the rain was so bad that they had to have helicopters fly in gravel to stop the sets from washing away. Fortunately, AlfonsoCuaron and the cinematographer liked the overcast look they ended up with as a result.
* As mentioned on the page quote, ''Film/TheWizardOfOz''. First, changes in both cast (Margaret Hamilton replaced the original Wicked Witch three days before production begun, Tin Man performer Buddy Ebsen quit due to allergic reactions to the make-up) and director (five were used, with credit only to the fourth and responsible for most of the film, Victor Fleming). Then, both filming - which took extended six months and many budget overruns, with incidents such as Hamilton getting burned, and the cast having to work six days a week arriving as early as four or five in the morning to be fitted with makeup and costumes (which were impractical - Hamilton could not eat! - and nearly intolerable due to the heavy lighting required for the Technicolor), not leaving until seven or eight at night - and post-production - three months with many reshoots and complicated effects work, as well as last-minute cuts following a test screening - were chaotic.
* ''Film/TheExorcist'' went over budget and schedule ($4,5 million and 105 days to $12 million and over 200 days plus 6 months of post-production!), and William Friedkin proved to be a PrimaDonnaDirector who [[BadBoss didn't care much for the cast and crew]] (for instance, Ellen Burstyn complained that for the scene Chris is telekinetically thrown against a wall, the stuntmen were pulling her too hard... and Friedkin's response was a take so strong Burstyn injured herself!).To make it worse, there were strange events (such as the interior sets of the [=MacNeil=] residence getting burned) that lead people to consider the film cursed.
* ''Film/RoboCop'' was shot during a very hot summer in Dallas, and Peter Weller's costume not only came in late, but he could barely move in it, rendering his previous mime training useless. In addition, it ran behind schedule and over budget, actors Kurtwood Smith and Ray Wise stole the crew's golf carts during the shooting of one scene and [[ExecutiveMeddling executives kept trying to interfere with the production]] while it was still going on.
** A fair portion of the scheduling delays were caused by difficulties in lighting the Robocop suit properly -- originally, they tried to light it as actors were normally lit, which didn't work because the suit reflected too much light. Eventually, they hit on the solution of lighting it like a car.
** Verhoeven mentions a minor adversity on the commentary track of the Criterion Collection release: Dallas was chosen as the shooting location in part because of the futuristic look it has downtown. Verhoeven especially liked the look of one particular building when it was lit up by external lights at night. Unfortunately, that building was being renovated during the shooting and the lights were shut off. As they were finished in Dallas and were leaving, they literally saw the lights come on through the plane's window...
* Creator/CharlieChaplin's film ''The Circus'' was troubled because of his messy divorce. [[FromBadToWorse Then a fire destroyed most of the set]]. [[RuleOfThree Then the circus wagons were stolen]]. Chaplin [[OldShame left this film out of his autobiography altogether]].
* ''Film/{{Eraserhead}}'' suffered from this -- no studio would fund it due to its unusual plot and DavidLynch's lack of experience, so he had to rely on funds from the AFI, as well as friends and family. Because of these financial troubles, filming was intermittent -- it took five years, and sets had to be repeatedly assembled and disassembled. While its critical reception was initially mixed, the film was praised by several other filmmakers (including, but not limited to Creator/MelBrooks, Creator/StanleyKubrick and JohnWaters), which [[ColbertBump kickstarted Lynch's career]].
* The movie version of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' was rife with problems. The original plan was for them to reveal how Joel got tossed onto the Satellite of Love and built his robot friends -- Crow, Tom, Gypsy and Cambot. The executive liked it, but he didn't want the series' main catch -- the riffing -- to be prominent. This, along with a few other problems, led Joel Hodgson to leave the series halfway through Season 5.\\
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When the movie idea was picked back up, more problems came about - Universal would only let them use movies that they chose and they were stuck with ''ThisIslandEarth''. They were forced to not only cut out movie scenes -- which meant the entirety of the movie was shorter than your normal ''MST3K'' episode -- but lop one host segment and modify the last one, killing a BrickJoke set up from the very beginning. And the killing blow? The company producing this had the option of fully backing either this or ''BarbWire''. [[ItWillNeverCatchOn Guess what they chose?]] (and considering [[http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?view=main&yr=1996&wknd=16&sort=avg&order=DESC&p=.htm how high the theater averages were]], who knows how much it would have grossed without InvisibleAdvertising?)
* MadelineKahn was on a talk show, and the hostess quipped that her movies were so funny, she must have a ball working on them. Kahn quipped back "Yeah? And Twinkies are fun to eat, but I doubt the people at the Twinkie factory are having any fun!"
* ''{{Ishtar}}''. Where to begin? They decided to shoot the desert scenes in Morocco instead of the Southwest 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 (they actually had to have some locations 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 Elaine May, the director, supposedly suddenly changed her mind about wanting dunes in a scene and instead 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 Warren Beatty, 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. Dustin Hoffman 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.
* Warren Beatty was at the centre of another troubled production and financial disaster in 2001's ''Town & Country''.
** The script was first brought to Beatty's attention in 1998, with a planned budget of $19 million. However, Beatty commanded a salary of $8 million and demanded numerous script changes. Over $40 million had been spent on actor and writer salaries even before the cameras began rolling.
** British director Peter Chelsom's previous credits consisted mostly of low budget, whimsical comedies, meaning he was ill-suited to direct the big-budget, all-star film and deal with the resulting egos. He and Beatty clashed frequently over various details in the script and the visuals.
** Filming began in 1998 but had to be shut down after five months so that cast members Diane Keaton, Garry Shandling, and Jenna Elfman could honour prior commitments. The shoot did not resume until April 2000 (requiring further increases in the actors' salaries), with the final act of the film still being constantly re-written. A sequence in Sun Valley in which artificial snow was created to make up for the absence of real snow on the ski slopes was re-shot after over a foot of natural snow fell on the resort.
** The final production budget for the film was estimated at around $90 million; it was clear to all involved that it had no hope of breaking even, and just $15-20 million was spent on marketing and distribution for the film's release in April 2001, leading to a paltry domestic box office take of $6.7 million and a worldwide take of $10.4 million. Warren Beatty has not made another film since.
* ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'': Paramount knew it had to let Gene Roddenberry produce, because of the godlike cult of personality he'd built up among the fans, but it had reservations as he'd never produced a feature film before. Robert Wise hadn't directed a sci-fi film of this scope and was getting old (he refused to shoot for more than 12 hours a day, resulting in the film being behind schedule after just two days). [[SpecialEffectFailure The original special effects house blew the job]] and had to be replaced by Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra late in the production. Long before principal photography was even finished the production was way over budget, to the point that Paramount executives were keeping a running tab every day.\\
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According to Jeff Katzenberg, then the Paramount executive in charge of the production, what finally went out to the theaters the weekend of release was a rough cut -- no one at the studio had seen it in its entirety. In fact, the movie's crunch-timing meant that it wasn't edited properly due to being rushed -- editing carried on up until the day of the release, and when the print was delivered for the movie's premiere, it was still wet.
* ''AlteredStates'': Arthur Penn, the original director, quit early on after a dispute with Paddy Chayefsky, who was upset with some of the changes he'd wanted to make. John Dykstra quit as well, and Bran Ferren had to do the special effects on a lower budget ([[SpecialEffectsFailure it shows]]). Once Ken Russell was hired to actually finish the film, he was in a situation where, if he changed so much as one word of the script, he would have been sued, so he resolved it by having the actors deliver some of the more pretentious dialogue very rapid fire. Chayefsky didn't sue, but was still pissed enough to petition the Writers' Guild to use his given name, Sidney Aaron, in the credits as his pseudonym. The experience of shooting some of the scenes was very trying physically for the actors. Columbia, who had started the film, washed their hands of it and Warner Brothers picked it up. The producer was nonetheless upset that they decided to shove it into the [[OscarBait Christmas season rush]] rather than wait until the spring when he there would be less competition for that kind of film.
* ''{{Tootsie}}'' was frequently referred to this way during shooting. Dustin Hoffman and Sydney Pollack feuded so intensely that Hoffman finally resolved it by suggesting Pollack play his agent and get that tension into the actual film. The script was still being rewritten as filming began (so many writers appeared before the Writers' Guild panel seeking to be credited that the arbitration over it delayed the release), and it took Elaine May to come up with Bill Murray's character as a much-needed foil for Michael. In the end, it actually worked out well, becoming one of the best comedies of the 1980s.
* ''Film/JohnCarter'': There were reservations at Disney about letting Andrew Stanton direct the film, despite his strong sentimental attachment to the material, because he'd never directed a live-action feature before. But, since he'd made ''WesternAnimation/{{WALL-E}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'' into hits, they let him do it even though he warned them, "I'm not gonna get it right the first time, I'll tell you that right now." Indeed, the film required extensive double reshoots. Throughout production, he ignored the advice of the crewmembers who were live-action veterans in favor of his Pixar friends, back in their offices. Rich Ross (fired over this) and the other studio executives at Disney likewise had little experience with feature films, since most had come from television.\\
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Then, it came time to market the film, which was already handicapped in that department by having no big stars in the cast. A trailer shown at a Disney con did not go over well, and Stanton refused to take any advice from the studio's marketing department. He insisted on using Music/LedZeppelin's "Kashmir" in the trailer even after it was pointed out to him that a 30-year-old classic-rock song was not likely to resonate with the younger male audience the film was intended for. The movie also went through last-minute retitling, dropping "Princess" and "Mars" from the title because those were thought to turn off the male and female segments of the youth audience respectively.
* While it's obvious from all the on-screen mayhem why ''TheBluesBrothers'' cost so much to make (they actually dropped the Ford Pinto from a mile up, requiring a special FAA permit), there were also the days they more or less lost completely waiting for John Belushi to show up, hours after unit call. And all the money that went up Belushi's (and everyone else's) noses. Fortunately the movie was a box-office smash that has since become a CultClassic.
* [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/brad-pitt-world-war-z-production-nightmare-336422 By all accounts]], the [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] of ''Literature/WorldWarZ'' has shaped up into one of these.
** It started with director Marc Forster, producer and star BradPitt's personal choice to direct the film -- and a man whose only experience making big-budget tentpole films was the lavish yet fairly straightforward [[Film/JamesBond Bond]] film ''Film/QuantumOfSolace''. It was hoped that he would be able to focus on story and characters while his crew could guide him on action and effects, but not only was he unable to bring his usual team with him, the lack of a strong leader at the head of the project produced a muddled vision for what the film would be like. As late as three weeks before shooting was to begin in June 2011, Forster hadn't even decided yet on what the zombies would look like or how they would behave.
** Several key crew members, including line producers and SFX workers, were replaced, sometimes multiple times. Cinematographer Richard Richardson asked more than once to leave the project, and struggled to keep the crew under control, often antagonizing them in the process. Overall, on-set morale crumbled over the course of shooting.
** Pitt's schedule conflicted with his commitment to starring in the crime drama ''Killing Them Softly''. Worse, Pitt also took time off to spend time with his family, pushing production back even further.
** During shooting in Budapest in October, the crew found out the hard way that their 85 "prop" assault rifles were in fact fully-functional weapons when a Hungarian anti-terrorism unit raided their warehouse and seized the guns.
** In June 2012, Paramount ordered, depending on the source, anywhere from five to seven weeks of reshoots, as well as a third-act rewrite by Damon Lindelof, who later brought in his old ''Series/{{Lost}}'' buddy Drew Goddard to help him give the script a thorough overhaul after determining that it had much deeper problems. This pushed the film's release from December of that year to June 2013. By this point, the budget had ballooned to $170 million, and the filmmakers had [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/brad-pitt-world-war-z-keanu-reeves-47-ronin-362103 only 52 minutes' worth]] of continuous footage cut together (and a few minutes of other scenes) to show to the studio.
** During reshoots, Forster and Pitt [[http://www.vulture.com/2012/07/brad-pitt-not-talking-to-world-war-z-director.html?mid=383376&rid=422642111 reportedly]] weren't on speaking terms -- Forster's notes for Pitt had to be relayed through an intermediary.
* ''DaysOfThunder'', per [[http://books.google.com/books?id=0OSXeiTCfLAC&pg=PA40 this old ''Spy'' article]]. Everyone thought getting the producers of ''TopGun'' (Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer), its director (the late Tony Scott) and star (TomCruise) together, with a script by the legendary Robert Towne about a trendy sport (stock-car racing) couldn't miss. It was a commercial success indeed, despite bad reviews, but none of them ever worked all together again, because:
** Simpson, Bruckheimer and sometimes Towne (a sometime director himself) often started their days on set having arguments with Scott (sometimes ganging up on him, sometimes three-way) over how to shoot scenes. Meanwhile, the crew sat around getting paid, sometimes for 20 hours a day. Some later said that they had made so much overtime on the film that they could have gone on vacation for ''four full months'' after the wrap date.
** However, the effect of all that sitting around watching the producers, director and writer fight with each other was that the said wrap date kept getting pushed back. At one point the production schedule was revised three times in a single day, leading the unit production manager (the studio's on-set financial liaison) to have a "What the Hell, Producers?" moment with Simpson and Bruckheimer. In response, they told him "Screw the schedule." It went from February 1990 to the end of May, severely jeopardizing its chances of making its expected summer release date (it came out a month later). Unsurprisingly, the budget almost doubled over this wasted time too, requiring that the movie make a then-astronomical $100 million merely to break even.
** Robert Towne (the ''writer'', mind you) had a barn built to his specifications while the production was filming outside Charlotte. He didn't like it and they didn't use it. When the crew moved down to Daytona for scenes there, another barn was built. Towne didn't like it either, and most of the barn scenes he had envisioned were thus dropped from the script.
** The cars being assembled in a barn were just one of [[GretzkyHasTheBall many inaccurate depictions of NASCAR]] in the film. Why this happened given the official cooperation of NASCAR and several racing teams, Tom Cruise's personal interest in racing as a hobby and the research he and Towne did is a matter of some artistic license, almost lampshaded in the movie itself by Cole Trickle's constant expressions of surprise that he's gotten this far in the sport despite limited experience. But it seemed on the set as if Scott and a lot of the actual crew [[TheyJustDidntCare just didn't care]]. So much so that, reportedly, only after principal photography wrapped did someone review the footage and find that they had neglected to shoot Cole Trickle's car crossing the finish line ... only the climactic shot of the entire movie.
** One reason why Simpson and Bruckheimer may not have cared about the accuracy (as if they ever did): they were too busy realizing the potential of the movie to get chicks. They spent $400,000 of the studio's money having an empty storefront in their hotel building converted into ''their private gym''. And ''then'' putting up a huge eight-foot-high neon sign with the name of the movie in the window. They threw a special welcome party for the crew at a local nightclub with minimal food and drink and no music ... but plenty of hookers they flew in, most of whom they limited to a roped-off VIP area with themselves and Cruise.
* ''The Roots of Heaven'', a "save the African elephant" film from 1958 directed by JohnHuston for Twentieth Century Fox, is a lesser known but brutal example of a troubled production.
** William Holden was initially cast in the lead role, attracting a supporting cast that included Creator/OrsonWelles, ErrolFlynn, Paul Lukas, Herbert Lom, Eddie Albert, and Fox studio boss Darryl Zanuck's then-girlfriend Juliette Greco. However, with location shooting about to begin (on an inflexible schedule), Holden was informed that he was still under contract to Paramount, and in a desperate scramble to fill the role, Huston cast British character actor Trevor Howard. Howard's lack of marquee power prompted the promotion of Errol Flynn to the top of the bill, despite his character's secondary role.
** Location shooting was done in Fort Lamy, French Equatorial Africa (now N'Djamena, Chad). As Darryl Zanuck (who was present for the shoot, perhaps out of concern at leaving Greco unsupervised on a shoot with noted womanisers Huston and Flynn) recalled when appearing as a mystery guest on ''WhatsMyLine'', temperatures soared to over 130 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and only cooled to 95 degrees at night. Moreover, as had happened during shooting of ''TheAfricanQueen'', almost every person involved contracted amoebic dysentery except for Huston and Flynn, who had brought copious amounts of alcohol which kept the sickness at bay. Eddie Albert also developed an almost fatal case of sunstroke. A total of 920 sick calls were made by the 130-person cast and crew. During the lengthy delays, Huston would often disappear on big game hunts.
** Errol Flynn's alcoholism had become a round-the-clock problem, and he was frequently at odds with John Huston. At one point, he provoked Huston into a fight; while Flynn was a former amateur boxer, the years of fast living had taken a heavy toll on him, and Huston, himself a former professional boxer, flattened Flynn with a single punch. The film was Flynn's last major Hollywood project; he died the following year. Huston, meanwhile, cited the film, which was a hit with neither critics nor audiences, as an example of how some of the worst shoots can result in the worst films.
* Coming right off his best film, ''RideTheHighCountry'', Sam Peckinpah reworked the script of ''Film/MajorDundee'' from a basic Western adventure story to a ''MobyDick''-esque study of the title character, an officer who would do anything for glory. Everyone who read the final version thought he had another masterpiece in the pipeline—including Charlton Heston, who eagerly accepted the title role. With him attached, filming began in Mexico.
** And that's where things began to fall apart. Columbia [[ExecutiveMeddling kept changing things]]—the shooting schedule, the budget, the film's final running time—much to Peckinpah's chagrin. So he started drinking. Heavily, even by his standards. And then showing up this way on set. He began firing people for the most insignificant things, and threatening everyone else to the point that Heston frequently had to pull his costume's cavalry sabre on the director repeatedly.
** Word of this got back to the studio, which aggravated matters by moving the wrap date up a full month. They were reportedly going to fire Peckinpah as well until Heston saved his friend's job by making the ultimate sacrifice—he said he would forego his salary and do the whole film for free. Even so, Peckinpah's drinking [[FromBadToWorse got even worse]]. This time he often wandered away from the set, and Heston reportedly directed much of the later scenes.
** When principal photography was finally over, Columbia broke its contract with Peckinpah and hired editors itself to put the film together. Critics regarded the finished film as an interesting failure; Peckinpah recovered enough to make ''TheWildBunch'', which is sort of a semi-remake of this film. For years there was a debate as to how much the released version represented what Peckinpah had really wanted to do, and only in 2005, two decades after his death, was a version released that tried to be true to his original vision.
* The remake of ''Film/RedDawn2012'' was originally meant to be released in 2010. MGM was hit with financial difficulties which halted production for a while. Distributors refused to pick up the film for fear that the Chinese antagonists would anger the Chinese government, which has the power to censor films in China and cut a film's box office take. After resuming production MGM spent an additional one million dollars to turn the Chinese villains into [[NorthKoreansWithNodongs North Koreans]] by digitally altering images and dubbing dialogue. The film is scheduled to be released November 2012, and only then with Film District, a surprisingly small distributor for such a big film.
* ''{{Gigli}}'' wasn't as troubled as some of the other productions here, at least not during the early stages. The script was rewritten from a straightforward mob movie to a romantic comedy in order to take advantage of the "Bennifer" media circus surrounding the RomanceOnTheSet between the film's leads, Creator/BenAffleck and JenniferLopez. Martin Brest, the director, had no problem with this -- after all, he'd made ''BeverlyHillsCop'' a hit under similar circumstances. And there were no reports of strife on the set. Things blew up between Brest and the studio during post-production, though, as they fought for a long time over the final film. It was roundly panned as one of the worst films ever when finally released[[note]]Let's put it this way. The DVD box had no quotes from reviews on it. None at all. Even most bad movies have at least one blurb from some middle-of-nowhere TV station or newspaper that the studio paid for. The fact that they couldn't even get ''that'' says something.[[/note]], and Brest, a fine comic director with ''GoingInStyle'' and ''MidnightRun'' also to his credit, has [[CreatorKiller not made another film since]].
* BetteDavis' last film, ''Wicked Stepmother'', became troubled very early on. A week into principal photography, Davis, the star of the movie, took a leave of absence for a dental appointment...and never came back. [[note]]Filmmaker LarryCohen perceived her exit as a result of her never fully appreciating his directing style; the fact that she was dying didn't help, either.[[/note]] Now without its leading lady, the part was nearly recast with LucilleBall, but her illness led her to back out. Then the director came up with a plan. In the script, Davis magically turns her cat into a human played by Barbara Carrera. Instead, the finished product has Davis turning ''herself'' into Carrera. Now all the footage of Bette could be salvaged, for a film that was ultimately buried in its theatrical release.
* ''Film/TheWagesOfFear'' was beset by a series of misfortunes as life imitated art. Where to begin?...
** It all started well. The director, Henri-Georges Clouzot, managed to secure the rights for the novel's adaptation and then-rising star, Yves Montand, in the leading role. Next, Clouzot started scouting appropriate locations in Spain. Just when he found one, after a few months of searching, Montand refused to go there (his then-wife, Simone Signoret, was strongly opposed to Francisco Franco's politics). The crew managed to make an exhaustive photodocumentation and the small town was meticulously rebuilt in southern France. Then, Jean Gabin suddenly pulled out (he thought that his fans would dislike his part as a 'coward'); Charles Vanel was hired at the last minute.
** The shooting started in late August of 1951. And the troubles came ''en masse''. The September of 1951 was particularly capricious: many days were lost due to rain, and sometimes a sunny day could turn into a heavily rainy one within a few minutes, endangering the equipment and electrics. The two trucks, playing a central role in the movie, were initially quite solid and dependable, but after some raining they started bogging down. The rains made the ground wet, causing camera cranes to suddenly collapse and damage the sets several times. Just when the crew managed to get some control over everything, lead actress Vera Clouzot was admitted into the ICU (she suffered from major heart problems which, unfortunately, claimed her life in 1960). Just as she was released from the hospital, Henri-Georges Clouzot broke his ankle. Adding Clouzot's trademark perfectionist attitude and multiple retakes, it is no surprise that the production already was 50 million francs over budget and way over schedule when they had to quit shooting as the autumn rains set in. During the next few months, Clouzot managed to secure some funds and the shooting continued in the summer of 1952. This time, the only major accident occurred when both Montand and Vanel ended up in the hospital due to conjunctivitis after a few days of filming in the pool of crude oil.
** It all paid off when the movie, finally released after months of editing in the spring of 1953, turned out to be a major hit both critically and commercially (it was the first picture to win both the Golden Bear in Berlin and the Palme d'Or in Cannes). It was initially less enthusiastically received in the US due to the movie being re-cut (some key plot points were eliminated because they were considered 'anti-American'), but the complete version was one of the most critically acclaimed pictures of 1950s.
* ''RadioFlyer'' was a red-hot script when it was picked up by Columbia Pictures and initially was directed by its screenwriter, David Mickey Evans (who later did ''The Sandlot''). But after a week of shooting, he was fired and production was shut down until Richard Donner was brought in to replace him. In the process, the production budget more than doubled from $15 million to $35 million. While it was initially supposed to be Columbia's big movie for the summer of 1991, the release date was constantly shuffled due to reshoots, production delays, and finally bad test screenings -- the premise of "two boys build a flying machine to escape child abuse" ''was'' an infamously awkward one. Eventually, the film was quietly released in February 1992 and was a critically-savaged BoxOfficeBomb.
* ''ShockTreatment'' underwent a long and tumultuous process between its initial conception as a sequel to ''TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'' to a musical about television with little connection to its predecessor. Originally written as a direct sequel (initially titled ''Curse of the Baby'', and later ''Rocky Horror Shows His Heels''), the story would have started with Janet finding herself pregnant after the sex-filled night at Frank's castle. Meanwhile, Brad decides he is gay, and joins Rocky (who somehow escaped the castle alive) and also-gay Dr. Scott in finding virgin blood to revive Frank, who proceeds to turn the town of Denton into transsexuals while requiring further transfusions. Eventually, Janet has her baby, but it's promptly kidnapped by Riff Raff and Magenta while Frank meets his demise again. Fox rejected the script because it was just plain terrible.
** The script having been rejected by both Fox and his RHPS behind-the-scenes collaborators, Richard O'Brien tossed it but kept the songs for a new script provisionally titled ''The Brad and Janet Show'' and only featuring them and Dr. Scott as returning characters. Production was to take place in Denton, Texas - an idea which never progressed beyond location scouting due to the 1980 Screen Actors Guild strike.
** In a last-ditch attempt to get a second movie to the ''Rocky'' fanbase, Richard rewrote the new script as ''Shock Treatment'', which drastically simplified the story to take place inside a television studio, with the citizens of Denton as a brain-dead studio audience entertained by whatever on-set activities occurred in front of them. The role of "fake cripple" now went to sleazy game show host Bert Schnick, with Dr. Scott written out. Even with the production scaled down as much as possible, the film *still* struggled, as casting proved difficult.
** Susan Sarandon, now a genuine movie star, would only reprise her role as Janet for a fee far beyond what the film's miniscule budget would allow. The role went to cult actress Jessica Harper, whose version of Janet seemed to be an exact carbon copy of Phoenix, her character from ''PhantomOfTheParadise'', rather than Susan's take. (Allegedly, Susan has never actually seen ''Shock Treatment'' to this day.)
** Barry Bostwick was involved in other projects and could not reprise his role as Brad. The next potential actor was Tim Curry (no kidding), who felt that he couldn't pull off an American accent. In the end, Cliff de Young played both Brad [[spoiler: and his evil twin brother Farley]]; and like Janet, Cliff's version of Brad bears no resemblance to Barry's, leaving some fans to question if they're even meant to be the same characters. In the end, ''Shock Treatment'' was a complete box office failure, and despite gaining a small cult following over time has been disowned by Richard O'Brien. It's usually considered the unloved bastard sequel to ''Rocky Horror''.
* Another movie affected by the Screen Actors Guild strike of 1980 was ''Heartbeeps'', due to the strike causing production to go on hiatus for over two months mid-shoot. But even when it was shooting, the sci-fi RomanticComedy that was intended both as a big-screen vehicle for AndyKaufman and Universal's big Christmas release for 1981 was troubled: The weather at the Colorado shooting location caused StanWinston's elaborate robot makeups (which took several hours to apply) to gradually wilt in the heat, limiting how much footage could be shot in a day. Director Allan Arkush, who had never helmed a big-budget project before, staged scenes at a glacial pace that frustrated everyone ''but'' him. Kaufman, increasingly bored and frustrated with the proceedings and having no friends to goof off with between takes (his friend/co-conspirator Bob Zmuda was specifically prohibited from the shoot), began acting out. Universal executives were horrified by the cut the director presented them with, and their final cut was a mere 79 minutes with credits. The movie grossed only a fifth of its budget, proving to be both Kaufman's StarDerailingRole and an OldShame.
* ''KinDzaDza'', a late 80s Soviet surrealist SciFi comedy by the renowned comedy director GeorgiDanelia was this from the start. Between the filming in the desert with no infrastructure to speak of (and this being the 80es SovietUnion really is something), the railway losing ''all'' prepared sets (they were eventually found after the filming on the different end of the country) in shipping, which forced the team to cobble them together from scrap in-place,[[note]]Wef's cap is actually the codpiece from the discarded fighter pilot's suit, and pepelats was just threwn together from scrap iron from the nearest dump welded together by a local plumber.[[/note]] the relentless ExecutiveMeddling from the authorities, script changes [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_Russian_Empire_and_the_Soviet_Union#Gorbachev_prohibition_campaign due to the Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign]], and half of the film actually being ad-libbed, it's a major miracle that it was just completed, much less becoming the instant cult classic that it is.
* Although the ambitious settings of such David Lean films as ''TheBridgeOnTheRiverKwai'', ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'', and ''Film/DoctorZhivago'' were not without their problems, even the Irish love story ''Ryan's Daughter'' turned into a severely troubled production.
** The weather was so unco-operative that many of the beach scenes in the film were shot near Cape Town in South Africa rather than near the specially constructed village on the Irish coast. Ironically, Lean had to wait for a year for a suitably dramatic storm to strike the Irish coast for a pivotal scene. Actor Leo [=McKern=], who played the title character's father, nearly drowned and nearly lost his glass eye to the rough seas, and was so frustrated by the slow pace of filming that he swore he would never act again (his "retirement" ultimately only lasted a few years).
** Lean also had trouble casting most of the film's major roles (except for Sarah Miles as Rosy Ryan and John Mills as mute village idiot Michael). He initially offered the role of Catholic priest Father Collins to Alec Guinness, but Guinness, himself a devout Catholic, sent the script back with a long list of objections to the character's portrayal (his negative experience working with Lean on ''Doctor Zhivago'' may also have contributed to his reluctance to take the role). Lean thanked him for his suggestions and offered the role instead to Trevor Howard. The role of Rosy's husband, schoolteacher Charles Shaughnessy, was intended for Paul Scofield, but he was in the middle of a theatre contract; the role went instead to Robert Mitchum, who was undergoing a personal crisis at the time (he had even been contemplating suicide) and described working with David Lean as "like constructing the Taj Mahal out of toothpicks". Mitchum planted marijuana trees behind the hotel accommodating the cast, giving many cast and crew members (and locals) their first experience of the drug.
** But the most troublesome role proved to be that of Rosy's lover, ShellShockedVeteran Major Randolph Doryan. The role was originally offered to MarlonBrando, but he was forced to drop out when production of ''Burn!'' lagged behind schedule. Lean finally cast American actor Christopher Jones on the strength of his performance in ''The Looking-Glass War''... not realising until production began that the film had been shot to hide Jones' diminutive stature and that his high-pitched voice had been dubbed; Jones was also emotionally distraught by the murder of his close friend Sharon Tate during production, so his mind was not entirely on his work. Jones and Lean clashed frequently, with Lean finding Jones' voice and performance so unsuited to the square-jawed soldier he had envisioned that he had Doryan re-written as traumatised into near silence by his trench experiences, with his aide-de-camp, Captain Smith (Gerald Sim), given the extra lines. Jones' voice was ultimately dubbed by Julian Holloway.
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