History TroubledProduction / FilmSerialOffendersFranchises

** It started when, amidst the [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict war between Israel and Hamas]] that had erupted the prior month, Creator/MelissaBarrera, who had played the protagonist Sam Carpenter in the last two films and was expected to reprise her role here in a film that would conclude the character's arc, became an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian side in the conflict. Creator/SpyglassMediaGroup, the production company behind the series since the fifth film, felt that her comments crossed the line into antisemitism, and [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor fired her]] from the film for it.

** There were controversies when cast members of the original series (most notably Creator/PeterGraves) vented to the press about early plans regarding characters from the original series. Graves was due to have a RemakeCameo, but refused on the grounds of the way his character was treated ([[spoiler:Phelps is revealed to have pulled a FaceHellTurn and become TheMole]]). According to Creator/MartinLandau, there was allegedly an early treatment which brought back the entire original team from [[Series/MissionImpossible the 1960s series]][[note]]presumably the most well-known iteration of the team, including Graves, Landau, Creator/BarbaraBain, Creator/GregMorris and Peter Lupus[[/note]] and [[BackForTheDead killed them all in the first act]] to set up the new team. This was presumably vetoed once the original actors refused to come back, instead changing to a new team that appeared just for the ImpossibleMissionCollapse.

* As noted by Creator/ChristopherMcQuarrie during [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPn0PYCfudI an interview]] promoting ''Film/MissionImpossibleDeadReckoningPartOne'', ''Film/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol'''s production was marred with delays and ExecutiveMeddling. [=McQuarrie=] himself noted that he was "parachuted" into the franchise to rewrite the film more than midway through the production. At that point, a large number of second unit[=/=]exterior shots had been completed, and dialogue and setpieces had to be substantially rewritten to fit in with a new plotline for the film and to cut down on the runtime due to budget overages. (Benji's glib line, "Blue is glue, red is dead," in reference to the climbing gloves, was suggested by [=McQuarrie=] on his first day of involvement in order to functionally avoid a lengthy (and costly) expository sequence.) As a result, major swaths of the plot had to be rewritten to accommodate the participation of the supporting cast. Significant chunks of content involving Brandt (Creator/JeremyRenner) had to be thrown out to accommodate the new plot. Benji's rescue of Brandt during the climax of the film was only added in after [=McQuarrie=] promised Creator/SimonPegg that he would find something exciting for the actor to do, after having to cut down part of the team's scenes during the second act of the film due to budget cuts, and was only accomplished through [=McQuarrie=] convincing Paramount executives (who were ''extremely'' reluctant to give the Benji character any focus) to have the scene added in.

* ''Film/MissionImpossibleDeadReckoningPartOne'':
** The COVID-19 Pandemic has caused major delays in the production several times in a row. It got so bad that Tom Cruise went on a rant against crew members who didn't comply with pandemic time production guidelines, insisting that it was also about ensuring the livelihood of everyone involved. As producer, it was important to Cruise that the production went as smoothly as possible, as a successful shoot could show other studios they could film even under protocols (Cruise even rented a cruise liner — no pun intended — for the crew to quarantine in relative comfort). That rant was recorded and leaked in mid-December 2020. Even after the rant, though, production still wound up pausing due to additional positive COVID tests in the ensuing months.
** The production was looking for a train bridge that would be scheduled for destruction to blow it up onscreen. They found one in Poland... until it turned out it had historical value after all, there was a misunderstanding about it being destined to be destroyed as well as strong opposition to the idea from the locals. So they headed back to the US and built one from scratch.

** The film went into production with a script that wasn't finalized. WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants was in full effect -- Creator/BrianDePalma designed the action sequences but neither David Koepp nor Robert Towne were satisfied with the story that would make these sequences take place. Towne ended up helping organize a beginning, middle and end to hang story details on while De Palma and Koepp worked on the plot. Towne rewrote scenes between takes during filming. And that's not how Koepp got fired before being brought back on.

* ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'' was beset with delays which ran filming overbudget and overschedule, causing Creator/DougrayScott to lose the role of Wolverine in ''Film/XMen1'' and Cruise having to pay for production overruns out of his own pocket. HostilityOnTheSet was [[https://www.vulture.com/article/thandie-newton-in-conversation.html also an issue]] between Cruise and Creator/ThandiweNewton, with Cruise being stressed out over the quality of the script. Then a battle took place between director Creator/JohnWoo and Paramount executives over Woo's initial cut, which was reportedly over three hours long and had content that wouldn't pass a PG-13 rating. This led to Woo being locked out of the editing room (supposedly by Cruise himself), and Stuart Baird was brought in for an uncredited re-edit job that helped earn him the director's chair on ''Film/StarTrekNemesis''.

** It started when, amidst the [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict war between Israel and Hamas]] that had erupted the prior month, Creator/MelissaBarrera, who had played the protagonist Sam Carpenter in the last two films and was expected to reprise her role here in a film that would conclude the character's arc, became an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian side in the conflict. Creator/SpyglassMediaGroup, the production company behind the series since the fifth film, felt that her comments crossed the line into antisemitism, and [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor fired her]] from the film for it. The decision was met with a wide backlash from the franchise fans.
** The blowback was immediate. Early the next day, Creator/JennaOrtega, Barrera's co-star who had played Sam's sister Tara, also left the film, and while she officially cited scheduling conflicts surrounding her commitment to filming season two of ''Series/{{Wednesday}}'', the timing of the announcement led to widespread suspicion that she had quit out of solidarity with Barrera. A month later, Christopher Landon, who had been announced as the film's director (replacing the Radio Silence team), revealed that he was no longer attached to the project either, [[https://twitter.com/creetureshow/status/1738657872349892731 describing it]] as "a dream job that turned into a nightmare." Without its two lead actresses or a director, the film's future is currently in severe doubt.

* After two relatively smooth productions, the series' good luck ran out on November 21, 2023, when the currently-in-preproduction ''Scream VII'' ran into headwinds at least as bad as the Columbine massacre's impact on the third movie.
** It started when, amidst the [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict war between Israel and Hamas]] that had erupted the prior month, Creator/MelissaBarrera, who had played the protagonist Sam Carpenter in the last two films and was expected to reprise her role here in a film that would conclude the character's arc, became an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian side in the conflict. Creator/SpyglassMediaGroup, the production company behind the series since the fifth film, felt that her comments crossed the line into antisemitism, and [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor fired her]] from the film for it.

** Casting began in earnest, with potential leads like Creator/MelGibson and Creator/SylvesterStallone turning down the project. Cameron was also looking to cast the pivotal Kyle Reese character. He was introduced to Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger by Orion co-founder Mike Medavoy... and didn't care for him at all, trying to devise a plan to avoid hiring him in the role. Despite that, he warmed up to the Austrian actor and decided to cast him in the titular role of the robotic killer with human skin. For his part, Schwarzenegger didn't care for the project, and was overheard during an interview for ''Film/ConanTheDestroyer'' that he needed a certain pair of shoes for ''Terminator'', which was "some shit movie I'm doing". Schwarzenegger would later admit as much in his autobiography, ''Total Recall'', claiming that the film was low-profile enough that it wouldn't hurt his career if it bombed. Michael Biehn (who would be cast as Reese) had similar misgivings about the project, but agreed to do it.

* After two relatively smooth productions, the series' good luck ran out on November 21, 2023, when the currently-in-preproduction ''Scream VII'' ran into headwinds at least as bad as the Columbine massacre's impact on the third movie. Amidst the [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict war between Israel and Hamas]] that had erupted the prior month, Creator/MelissaBarrera, who had played the protagonist Sam Carpenter in the last two films and was expected to reprise her role here in a film that would conclude the character's arc, became an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian side in the conflict. Creator/SpyglassMediaGroup, the production company behind the series since the fifth film, felt that her comments crossed the line into antisemitism, and [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor fired her]] from the film for it. The blowback was immediate. Early the next day, Creator/JennaOrtega, Barrera's co-star who had played Sam's sister Tara, also left the film, and while she officially cited scheduling conflicts surrounding her commitment to filming season two of ''Series/{{Wednesday}}'', the timing of the announcement led to widespread suspicion that she had quit out of solidarity with Barrera. A month later, Christopher Landon (who had been announced as the seventh film's director), revealed that he was no longer attached to the project either. Without its two lead actresses or a director, the film's future is currently in severe doubt.

* After two relatively smooth productions, the series' good luck ran out on November 21, 2023, when the currently-in-preproduction ''Scream VII'' ran into headwinds at least as bad as the Columbine massacre's impact on the third movie. Amidst the [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict war between Israel and Hamas]] that had erupted the prior month, Creator/MelissaBarrera, who had played the protagonist Sam Carpenter in the last two films and was expected to reprise her role here in a film that would conclude the character's arc, became an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian side in the conflict. Creator/SpyglassMediaGroup, the production company behind the series since the fifth film, felt that her comments crossed the line into antisemitism, and [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor fired her]] from the film for it. The blowback was immediate. Early the next day, Creator/JennaOrtega, Barrera's co-star who had played Sam's sister Tara, also left the film, and while she officially cited scheduling conflicts surrounding her commitment to filming season two of ''Series/{{Wednesday}}'', the timing of the announcement led to widespread suspicion that she had quit out of solidarity with Barrera. Without its two lead actresses, the film's future is currently in severe doubt.

** The VFX team tried to portray the Xenomorph using a whippet in a costume, but the dog's movements [[SpecialEffectsFailure were too silly-looking]], forcing them to switch to a rod puppet.

** Fincher (depending on which source you believe) either spent the next year attempting to edit the film, or was locked out of the editing suite altogether by the studio. Fox execs wanted the film to be cut down to as short a running time as possible, thereby allowing cinemas to screen it more times per day. The rough cut was screened for the crew, and reportedly made several members throw up due to a graphic autopsy scene, resulting in most of it being cut. The entire subplot wherein the prisoners trap the alien--only for Golic to release it later--was cut, as were several scenes which explored the prisoners' religious beliefs. Executives also didn't like the idea of having the alien burst from a dog and forbade Fincher from shooting it. However, a test screening of the film without it left many viewers wondering where the alien even came from, and thus, the studio permit Fincher to film it. The reshoots reportedly pushed the budget to $65 million and were done in Los Angeles with almost an entirely new crew. This was reportedly the last straw for Fincher, who walked away for good at the end of the reshoots, leaving the crew and studio to finish the editing process on their own. Because of the breakneck pace of the reshoots, composer Elliot Goldenthal only had a single night to create a new piece of music for the reshot finale. The finished film was released in May 1992 to a mixed critical response.

** Eric Red was then brought onboard and quickly penned a new script that had a spaceship discover the remains of the Sulaco crew (who were killed by the xenomorphs), after which the action would be moved to a small city which appears to be on Earth, but would later turn out to be a biodome in space. Said biodome would then get invaded by the aliens--who now have the ability ''to infect technology''--with ''the entire station itself morphing into a giant alien by the end''. Hill, Giler and even Red himself all disliked the script, and the lattermost was ousted. Tentative director Creator/RennyHarlin also left soon afterward, explaining that he could not get passionate about yet another action flick like ''Aliens''. Next, David Twohy came onboard and wrote a new script centered around a prison planet wherein the prisoners were being used by Weyland-Yutani for illegal experiments with the xenomorphs. Hill and Giler liked the script, but Twohy--sensing CreativeDifferences--ended up withdrawing from the project sometime thereafter. (Twohy would take his script idea and eventually make ''Film/PitchBlack'' with it.)
** By this point, nearly four years had passed since pre-production began. Fox soon decided that Ripley was central to the franchise and could not be left out, and Weaver was brought back with a $4 million payday, a co-producer credit and assurance that Ripley would die at the end, as Sigourney didn't want her character to be overused in sequels and was less-than-interested in a potential ''Alien vs Predator'' crossover (this was shortly after ''Film/Predator2'' came out; which had a scene wherein a xenomorph skull appears on a predator ship). Vincent Ward was then hired and wrote a script with John Fasano wherein Ripley crash-lands on a planetoid satellite constructed mainly from wood (with a very thin atmosphere around the surface) and inhabited by ludite monks. The producers all liked the script and Fox--eager to get the film into production--immediately gave the greenlight for sets to be built. Crucially however, they did all this '''before''' the crew began to question whether the whole "wooden planet" idea even made sense or if it was too fantastical for the ''Alien'' universe.[[note]]One of the producers was bewildered as to how and where one would get enough trees to maintain a wooden facility, and David Jones--one of the VFX supervisors--noted that a thin atmosphere made no physical sense because a heavy, miles-deep atmosphere is required in order to create dense enough air for humans to breathe.[[/note]] This means that they either accepted the script without reading it through and learning all the details, or that they were intending to browbeat Ward into changing the wooden planet idea ''during production''. Whichever it was, 1/5 of the planned budget had already been spent by this point, and Fox told Ward to rein in his plans (even prompting then-CEO Joe Roth to state "What the [[PrecisionFStrike fuck]] is going on?" after hearing about one of Ward's proposed ideas being to have Ripley be [[Literature/SnowWhite placed in a cryotube by "seven dwarves"]] in the finale)

** The Xenomorph's host was intended to be an ox and an entire sequence of it bursting from one was filmed. However, when it came time to film a live ox for certain scenes, the animal proved uncooperative and could only be used for a few, undemanding shots. That, and the crew realizing that an ox was too docile and cumbersome a host for such a ferocious creature as the Runner, led them to switch it with a rottweiler. The entire ox subplot was later salvaged for the Assembly Cut using a handful of shots--with Babe's impregnation by facehugger and the prisoners using a herd of oxen to haul the EEV out of the water taking place entirely offscreen.

** Fincher (depending on which source you believe) either spent the next year attempting to edit the film, or was locked out of the editing suite altogether by the studio. Fox execs wanted the film to be cut down to as short a running time as possible, thereby allowing cinemas to screen it more times per day. The above-mentioned rough cut was screened for the crew, and reportedly made several members throw up due to a graphic autopsy scene, resulting in most of it being cut. The entire subplot wherein the prisoners trap the alien--only for Golic to release it later--was cut, as were several scenes which explored the prisoners' religious beliefs. Executives also didn't like the idea of having the alien burst from a dog and forbade Fincher from shooting it. However, a test screening of the film without it left many viewers wondering where the alien even came from, and thus, the studio permit Fincher to film it. The reshoots reportedly pushed the budget to $65 million and were done in Los Angeles with almost an entirely new crew. This was reportedly the last straw for Fincher, who walked away for good at the end of the reshoots, leaving the crew and studio to finish the editing process on their own. Because of the breakneck pace of the reshoots, composer Elliot Goldenthal only had a single night to create a new piece of music for the reshot finale. The finished film was released in May 1992 to a mixed critical response.

** Creator/WilliamFriedkin proved to be a PrimaDonnaDirector who [[BadBoss didn't care much for the cast and crew]] and intentionally made the set as hostile as possible in order to make the actors appear genuinely stressed on camera, even firing guns at random moments to make doubly sure that the actors were constantly on edge. During post-production, he disliked Music/LaloSchifrin's would-be score so much he literally took the tapes and threw them away in the studio parking lot, choosing instead to score the film to pre-existing music (most notably Music/MikeOldfield's "Music/TubularBells").

** The studio then hired Creator/JohnBoorman to direct the film -- an odd choice when you consider that he actually ''disliked'' the first film, and was more interested in the metaphysical aspects of Goodhart's script than any of the actual Christian themes. Boorman and co-writer Rospo Pallenberg then pretty much scrubbed all the remaining Christian elements from the script, leaving it barely recognisable as an ''Exorcist'' sequel. They then had to perform further last-minute rewrites which swapped out Regan's mother Chris for Sharon, the nanny from the first film, after Creator/EllenBurstyn refused to appear as Chris again.
** Filming was where things ''really'' started to go wrong. The production was refused permission to film at just about every location they asked for (including the house from the first film), leading to them having to recreate everything on the studio backlot and inflating the $9,000,000 budget all the way up to $14,000,000. Creator/LindaBlair was already in the midst of her drug habits and constantly turned up late to shooting, to the point where she actually considered it an ''achievement'' that she was only 20 minutes late one day. Co-star Creator/RichardBurton had his own substance issues, as he was constantly drunk on-set and frequently lashed out at Boorman and his co-stars. Boorman was laid low by a serious lung infection for a month, resulting in Pallenberg -- who had never directed a film before -- taking over as director for many key sequences. The crew also had no idea how to realize the swarms of locusts that were required for the climax, resulting in them using a combination of styrofoam "packing peanuts" fired from an air cannon, and actual locusts with their legs clipped, with mixed results. On top of that, the locusts could only survive for a day or two in the American climes, resulting in them having to be constantly replaced at considerable cost.

* ''Film/TheExorcistIII'' had probably the smoothest production of the franchise, though even then there was a lot of friction between writer-director William Peter Blatty and the studio, who forced him to reshoot large sections of the film, scrapping all the footage showing Creator/BradDourif as Father Karras and recasting his original actor, Jason Miller in the role. However, most of the reshot footage was essentially the same script wise (with some segments and bits of dialogue not included such as the Gemini Killer psychologically toying with Kinderman, suggesting he might be the real deal or an accomplice who was never caught or possibly someone with psychic powers who can sense the killings (which ironically sounds similar to an episode of ''Series/TheXFiles'' Dourif was in) and the only major change being the changing of the set of the disturbed ward cell to look more like a modern one as opposed to the medieval torture chamber-esque look they went for in the initial shoot. Jason Miller was also suffering from alcoholism and wasn't able to remember his long lines of dialogue so they brought Dourif back in, switching between Father Karras (Miller) and the Gemini Killer (Dourif) giving the film even more of a SurrealHorror tone. They also added a completely new character called Father Morning, who is somewhat clumsily inserted into the film to show up in the climax to provide an actual exorcism since they obviously couldn't call it an exorcist movie without an exorcism and add some gore shots with horrific hellish visions. The ending was also changed, with the original ending being rather anti-climactic, with Lt. Kinderman simply shooting Karras after the attempt on his daughter's life, but the reshot version made it a much more horrific and disturbing, with the demonic force putting up much more of a fight and also adding a bit more to the end of Kinderman's character arc. The ending burial of Karras was used with a scene that was originally earlier in the film, where they excavated Karras' grave to discover the body within was not his own, and while the original cut has a scene that elaborates on who the body is, it's only briefly addressed in the final film. Blatty also didn't get along too well with star Creator/GeorgeCScott, though for the most part, they were able to put their differences aside and work together without too much trouble.

** While principal photography was completed on time, the production crew realized they needed to go back for additional reshoots after test audiences complained that several of the concepts in the film (including "good and bad slime", Vigo and some of the ghosts) needed better explanations. With only three months before the film was set to hit theatres, Reitman and the crew went back for additional location shooting. According to the ''Ghostbusters: The Complete Visual History'' book, the final confrontation with Vigo was changed, ''literally'' at the last minute - the Art Museum set had already been 3/4 struck, necessitating some very complex shooting around the gaps in the set.

** More than 20 years of false starts, rejected pitches and casting announcements went nowhere after the release of the second film, with attempts by Columbia (and later, Creator/SonyPictures) to push development forward stalling out due to Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis having long-standing veto contracts, which were put in place during the meeting with Ovitz in UsefulNotes/LosAngeles in 1989. As chronicled by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPAklIlov-A Midnight's Edge]], the death of Ramis on February 24, 2014 caused the power balance between the original trio of himself, Reitman and Murray to shift completely, and as detailed in leaked emails from the Sony hack, studio chief Amy Pascal essentially pushed Reitman out of the production process by courting Creator/PaulFeig in secret. Feig gave Pascal a pitch focusing on an all-female Ghostbusters team in a world where ghosts aren't fully known to the public, and Pascal agreed to start development.

** As noted above in the ''Film/Ghostbusters2016'' entry, the idea of a ''Ghostbusters III'' was batted around for nearly three decades, with stories dating back to the 90s (buoyed by comments made by Aykroyd) about bringing on actors such as Creator/ChrisFarley and Creator/AdamSandler as new members of the team. The unused script, ''Hellfire'', had elements transposed into ''VideoGame/GhostbustersTheVideoGame'', and was treated by the surviving cast members as the closest thing to a proper third film up to that point. Plans by Aykroyd and Creator/IvanReitman wouldn't hit their stride until 2019, where Creator/JasonReitman and co-writer Gil Kenan wrote a script that everyone (including the notoriously gun-shy Murray, who was one of the last to sign on to the project) thought honored the history of the franchise.

* ''Film/GodzillaVsGigan'' had a very long and complex production compared to most of the other films in the series, going through at least three distinct phases which each would have resulted in a totally different finished product. From the beginning, the Toho Company planned for the movie to be a return to form after the extremely experimental and disturbing ''Film/GodzillaVsHedorah'' baffled moviegoers and got its director banned from the series. The initial script, labeled ''Godzilla vs. the Space Monsters: Earth Defense Directive'', was going to be epic in scale, featuring three established monsters (Godzilla, Anguirus, and King Ghidorah) alongside three brand new monsters (Gigan, Megalon, and Majin Tuol). Likely for budgetary reasons (making three new suits would have been extremely expensive), the ''Space Monsters'' script was thrown out and the project underwent huge changes to become ''The Return of King Ghidorah.'' This second draft again featured six monsters: Godzilla, Rodan, Ghidorah, and Varan, who were all established, as well as Gigan and Mogu, who were new. However, there was no longer a usable Varan suit, so this would have also required three new suits. The script underwent another huge revision, becoming ''Godzilla vs. Gigan,'' which featured Godzilla, Anguirus, Ghidorah, and Gigan, meaning only one new suit needed to be made. The movie [[ClipShow relied heavily on monster footage from previous films]] in order to pad out its climax, and in general, it features low production values that do not hint at how much Toho had initially had planned for it. Megalon later showed up in the [[Film/GodzillaVsMegalon following film]], which was actually even worse, but none of the other new monsters planned ever made it to the screen.

** Then production began, and the ''real'' problems hit. Shooting in [[UsefulNotes/{{Utah}} Salt Lake City]] proved challenging due to an early winter that frequently interrupted production, and Chappelle and producer Paul Freeman had to rewrite the ending on the fly to meet deadlines. Furthermore, Freeman frequently inserted himself into production, rewriting dialogue and action scenes, removing a number of scenes from the script, taking it upon himself to direct second-unit shots, and sending the crew home when important scenes needed to be shot. Freeman's handling of the production was so inept that Creator/{{Miramax}} eventually stepped in, kicked him off the film, and ordered reshoots. Chappelle, meanwhile, had never been too enthusiastic about the project to begin with, as he found the ''Halloween'' series dull and had actually wanted to direct ''Film/HellraiserBloodline'' (which, in a twist of fate, he got to finish up after original director Kevin Yagher quit; see below for more on that one), leading to him making the reshoots much BloodierAndGorier.

** Creator/RobertShaw had taken the role of Quint mainly to pay off his tax debts, and he frequently flew back and forth to Canada from Martha's Vineyard during filming to avoid further attention from the IRS. While said to be pleasant while sober, his drinking on the set brought out his irascible and competitive worst, and [[HostilityOnTheSet he quickly found an enemy in Richard Dreyfuss]]; Shaw regularly taunted Dreyfuss as cowardly (at one point he dared Dreyfuss to climb to the top of the ship's mast and jump from it) and even sprayed him down with a firehose. Meanwhile, Dreyfuss threw Shaw's drinking glass into the ocean between takes.

** Following the departures of Price and De Jarnatt, Joseph Sargent took over as producer and director, and was only given ''ten months'' from the day he was hired to the film's release date. This resulted in a hastily written, hastily filmed production that Sargent later described as "a ticking time-bomb". Michael de Guzman, who was hired to write the screenplay, had all of five weeks to get the shooting script together, having to juggle not only a list of constantly changing plot elements but also ExecutiveMeddling from Sheinberg, who essentially mandated that de Guzman had to write a romantic comedy with a shark attack subplot. While the process of filming was mostly free of trouble (and unlike prior films, within the budget), it still went over the allotted time due to storms and prevented Creator/MichaelCaine from accepting an Oscar he won for ''Film/HannahAndHerSisters''.

** The film went into production with a script that wasn't finalized. WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants was in full effect -- Creator/BrianDePalma designed the action sequences but neither David Koepp nor Robert Towne were satisfied with the story that would make these sequences take place. Towne ended up helping organize a beginning, middle and end to hang story details on while De Palma and Koepp worked on the plot. Towne rewrote scenes literally between takes during filming. And that's not how Koepp got fired before being brought back on.

* ''Film/MissionImpossibleIII'' went through 15 months of pre-production helmed by Creator/JoeCarnahan, focusing on a different version of the script (including Creator/KennethBranagh, Creator/CarrieAnneMoss and Creator/ScarlettJohansson in supporting roles) before getting into battles with executives over the film's tone, leading him to quit in 2004 (and even filming his departure on-camera). Production was then delayed another year because Creator/JJAbrams had to fulfill contractual obligations on ''Series/{{Alias}}'' and ''Series/{{Lost}}'' before working on the film, leading the aforementioned actors to drop out. And while filming itself went relatively smoothly, the ensuing controversies caused by Cruise hyping up Scientology (running afoul of talk-show hosts in the process) put a damper on the film's reception, leading to Cruise functionally being fired from the franchise until cooler heads prevailed, resulting in his return five years later.

** The COVID-19 Pandemic has caused major delays in the production several times in a row. It got so bad that Tom Cruise went on a rant against crew members who didn't comply with pandemic time production guidelines, insisting that it was also about ensuring the livelihood of everyone involved. As producer, it was important to Cruise that the production went as smoothly as possible, as a successful shoot could show other studios they could film even under protocols (Cruise even rented an entire cruise liner — no pun intended — for the crew to quarantine in relative comfort). That rant was recorded and leaked in mid-December 2020. Even after the rant, though, production still wound up pausing due to additional positive COVID tests in the ensuing months.

* ''[[Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet3DreamWarriors Dream Warriors]]'' was much smoother but still wasn't completely trouble-free. The film began as a satirical meta-film about Freddy haunting the lives of people who worked on the film, but the studio didn't like it (Ironically, this ended up being the basis for ''Film/WesCravensNewNightmare''). Wes Craven was hesitant to return as a writer, as he had vowed never to do another sequel after his thoroughly miserable experience working on ''Film/TheHillsHaveEyesPartII''. Additionally, people weren't fond of the newer cast in the previous film, requiring Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon to return in side roles. Fortunately, when it came to finalizing the script and shooting, things went well for the most part. Producer Robert Shaye also found it hard to supervise filming, due to New Line having expanded into a bona fide studio by this point, eventually forcing him to acknowledge that he was being too much of a control freak and hand most of his producer's duties over to production manager Rachel Talalay. Chuck Russel the director was described by several people as "Not knowing how to talk to people" and it even lead to some tension to the point a crew member basically gave a speech saying "This shit needs to stop" The film thankfully did well at the box office, keeping the franchise running strong and was even seen as the second best of the series. Creator/PatriciaArquette became a star thanks to the film.

** Renny Harlin, then an unknown director from Finland, was incredibly enthusiastic about directing and wanted the job so badly - mainly because he was so impoverished and had a hard time adjusting to life in the US, but also because he was a huge fan of the series. Bob Shaye, on the other hand, didn't want him directing, and was also iffy about a Finnish director getting the job. This may seem like petty xenophobia, but when one considers the first movie was [[BannedInChina banned in Finland]] for a number of years, this was more reasonable. Harlin was so passionate that he absolutely refused to take no for an answer. He went so far as to show up to New Line's office every day and chill with a number of employees ''just to annoy him into letting him direct''. This worked, but considering Shaye had a number of people he wanted to direct the film over Harlin, he let him ''begrudgingly''. Even when Shaye finally did decide to hire Harlin; it was only due to the fact Shaye was unable to find a director and basically just chose Harlin because he felt that due Harlins youth and big frame, he would be able to handle the long hours of shooting. He also admits it was also partially out of pity since by the time of hire, everyone at New Line Pictures noticed Harlin kept wearing the same clothes and started to noticeably smell bad-Shay felt at the very least Harlin would be able to bath after getting the job. Shaye's attitude hiring Harlin amounted to hoping that if worse came to worse, they could simply fix whatever mistakes he would make in post production.

** Shooting was mostly smooth, but the tensions between the two did complicate things. Shaye was more heavily involved in shooting than he was on previous films in the series. He would show up to set every day to monitor Harlin. Harlin was extremely stressed because of this - he showed up to set every day basically "expecting to get fired at any given moment". When it came time to film Shaye's obligatory CreatorCameo, the two were barely even speaking to each other, thus making a small few seconds of film extremely difficult to shoot. Shaye in his brief cameo looks noticeably agitated.

** The idea of Freddy using someone's to-be-born child to get into the real world was an idea that was considered for the third film, which they decided to go with this time simply for the lack of any better ideas. Two writers, John Skipp and Craig Spector were brought in to write a story that had Alice and Dan's unborn child being taken over by Freddy. Producer Rachel Talalay hated their script and brought another writer, Leslie Bohem in, who ended up rewriting almost ''all of it''. The only thing from Skipp's and Spector's script that made it into the final version was Freddy's infamous line "It's a booooooy!!!". The two have since come to regret wasting their time.
** It then turned out that Bohem's screenplay wasn't entirely to Shaye's liking either, and with the writer unavailable for rewrites, William Wisher Jr. came along and did a further draft, which Shaye also didn't like. Yet another writer, David J. Schow was hired and managed to create a screenplay that most of the key players were happy with, though a few further last-minute revisions were done by co-producer Michael de Luca due to Schow having been assigned to work on the screenplay that would eventually become ''Film/LeatherfaceTheTexasChainsawMassacreIII''.[[note]](And just to indicate how torturous the writing process was, the first teaser trailer credited Bohem and Wisher for the story and Schow and de Luca for the screenplay; the finished film, thanks to a combination of legal spats and WGA arbitration, credited Skipp and Spector for the story, and Bohem for the screenplay)[[/note]]

** Shooting itself was a stressful mess. Director Stephen Hopkins had only four weeks to film, and a further four weeks to edit, with only two stages to do it on. Although he did get everything done on time, the experience left him so stressed and burnt out that he almost said no to directing ''Film/Predator2'', despite the higher pay and more relaxed shooting schedule.
** During post-production, test screenings had scenes that were considered so disgusting that they had large chunks of them left on the cutting room floor. The Freddy Bike scene had even more shots of Dan's skin being ripped away graphically, and the infamous scene where Freddy force feeds Greta tons of disgusting food made of her innards had a shot that panned down to reveal Freddy ripping her insides out as she ate. The scenes still haven't shown up on Blu-ray or DVD today. Heavy cutting was needed to keep the film from receiving the then-new NC-17 rating.
** When the film was released, though getting bad reviews from critics was basically expected, fans on the other hand criticized the film heavily for being needlessly mean-spirited and downright cruel in an attempt to be DarkerAndEdgier - to emphasize, the movie begins showing how Amanda Kruger, Freddy's mom, was ''gang-raped'' in the asylum she worked at, and at 25 minutes into the movie, Dan got killed off in a graphic and cruel fashion - which wouldn't have mattered as much ''had he not been the father of Alice's unborn child'', and Freddy kills a bulimic girl by force-feeding her her own innards. Others, on the other hand, found it boring and not nearly as fun as the other films. The film, as a result, was a box office failure - it opened at #3 and disappeared soon after. Despite this, the film still performed better than the [[Film/FridayThe13thPartVIIIJasonTakesManhattan other]] [[Film/Halloween5TheRevengeOfMichaelMyers two]] slasher film instalments that came out that year, but it still was bad enough to make the producers decide to kill Freddy for good in the next one.

** Craven was adamant about filming in the US, as he wanted the setting to look like an all-American, suburban small town. Locations in North Carolina were initially considered, but rejected due to the fact that the sites that looked promising would've required costly modification and repairs to be usable for a film production.

* After two relatively smooth productions, the series' good luck ran out on November 21, 2023, when the currently-in-preproduction ''Scream VII'' ran into headwinds even worse than the Columbine massacre's impact on the third movie. Amidst the [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict war between Israel and Hamas]] that had erupted the prior month, Creator/MelissaBarrera, who had played the protagonist Sam Carpenter in the last two films and was expected to reprise her role here in a film that would conclude the character's arc, became an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian side in the conflict. Creator/SpyglassMediaGroup, the production company behind the series since the fifth film, felt that her comments crossed the line into antisemitism, and [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor fired her]] from the film for it. The blowback was immediate. Early the next day, Creator/JennaOrtega, Barrera's co-star who had played Sam's sister Tara, also left the film, and while she officially cited scheduling conflicts surrounding her commitment to filming season two of ''Series/{{Wednesday}}'', the timing of the announcement led to widespread suspicion that she had quit out of solidarity with Barrera. Without its two lead actresses, the film's future is currently in severe doubt.

* ''Film/Scream4'' was stuck in DevelopmentHell for a long time, and Williamson had repeated clashes with the Weinsteins, resulting in them once again hiring Kruger and Craven for rewrites, and the script varied heavily from the original drafts. Also, Cathy Konrad (who produced the first three films) sued the Weinsteins over not approaching her for the film. Filming itself went relatively smoothly, though it ran on a couple of weeks longer than planned, and there was tension on set between David Arquette and Creator/CourteneyCox, whose real-life relationship (which had ironically started as a RomanceOnTheSet of the first two films) was falling apart (and subsequently ended in divorce). The film was released to mixed reception and disappointing box office, putting Williamson's plans for a new trilogy [[StillbornFranchise on hold]] and leading to the franchise being [[Series/ScreamTVSeries rebooted as a television series]] on Creator/{{MTV}}.

%% NOTE TO EDITORS: The folders are organised chronologically rather than alphabetically for better "narrative flow" regarding the series' history. Please add new entries to the appropriate place in the list.

** Creator/RobertShaw had taken the role of Quint mainly to pay off his tax debts, and he frequently flew back and forth to Canada from Martha's Vineyard during filming to avoid further attention from the IRS. While said to be pleasant while sober, his frequently drinking on the set brought out his irascible and competitive worst, and [[HostilityOnTheSet he quickly found an enemy in Richard Dreyfuss]]; Shaw regularly taunted Dreyfuss as cowardly (at one point he dared Dreyfuss to climb to the top of the ship's mast and jump from it) and even sprayed him down with a firehose. Meanwhile, Dreyfuss threw Shaw's drinking glass into the ocean between takes.

** The script was a messy affair. Creator/RichardMatheson was asked to write the script, but while he was given a co-credit in the final film, Matheson said that a slew of uncredited script doctors had their way with the script and his contributions were rewritten under murky circumstances, and he would disapprove of the final film. The story was credited to Guerdon Trueblood, who had reportedly written an outline for a different film about a shark that was bought out and refitted for this film.

** Universal was in a financial rough patch after a disastrous slate of films during 1986, headlined by ''Film/HowardTheDuck''. CEO Sid Sheinberg, who noted the strong box office of ''Jaws 3D'' despite tepid reviews, ordered a new ''Jaws'' film fast-tracked into production to hopefully give a boost to the company's financial position. However, the originally-assigned producer, Frank Price was forced to resign from Universal in September 1986 due to his having been one of the main advocates for ''Howard the Duck''. This in turn caused the film's original writer-director, Steve De Jarnatt, to quit in favor of trying to get his passion project, ''Film/MiracleMile'' off the ground.
** Following the departures of Price and De Jarnatt, Joseph Sargent took over as producer and director, and was only given ''ten months'' from the day he was hired to the film's release date. This resulted in a hastily written -- Michael de Guzman, who was hired to write the screenplay, had all of five weeks to get the shooting script together, having to juggle not only a list of constantly changing plot elements but also ExecutiveMeddling from Sheinberg, who essentially mandated that de Guzman had to write a romantic comedy with a shark attack subplot -- and hastily filmed production that Sargent later described as "a ticking time-bomb". While the process of filming was mostly free of trouble (and unlike prior films, within the budget), it still went over the allotted time due to storms and prevented Creator/MichaelCaine from accepting an Oscar he won for ''Film/HannahAndHerSisters''.

** Series producer Moustapha Akkad had been intending to make a sixth ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'' film despite the tepid reception of ''Revenge'', meeting with screenwriter and [[PromotedFanboy series super-fan]] Daniel Farrands in 1990. Farrands' ideas stoked Akkad's interest; he had compiled a notebook filled with research on the series, including a timeline, bios for every character, a "family tree" of the Myers and Strode families, and research on the runic symbol of Thorn that had appeared in ''Revenge''. His intent was to bridge the first two films with the fourth and fifth[[note]]For those wondering where the third film fits in: that film, ''[[Film/HalloweenIIISeasonOfTheWitch Season of the Witch]]'', was a non-canon spinoff that featured none of the series' characters and was subsequently ignored, viewed as something of a BlackSheep in the series today.[[/note]], and also to explain why series villain Michael Myers [[NotQuiteDead keeps coming back]]: he had been put under an ancient Celtic curse that compelled him to murder his entire family, one that would be passed on to another young child after he completed his task.

* While [[Film/MissionImpossible the first film]]'s development was relatively tame by production standards, it was a project that spent years in development hell, and went into production with a script that wasn't finalized. And that's not counting one of the writers (David Koepp) who got fired before being brought back on, and controversies when cast members of the original series (most notably Creator/PeterGraves) vented to the press about the film's treatment of the Jim Phelps character. There were also rumors that lead star Creator/TomCruise and director Creator/BrianDePalma didn't get along during filming, fuelled by De Palma excusing himself from media interviews prior the film's release.

** Most of filming was a fairly smooth process, aside from Creator/DennisQuaid's behavior where he tried to pick a fight with an extra and later claimed he was strung out on cocaine during the shoot. The first days of shooting were done using obsolete 3D cameras from the 1950s, though director Joe Alves had anticipated this and stuck to filming shots that could easily be redone. The 3D shots proved to be complicated even with modern technology, with some scenes like the shark's death requiring many reshoots to get right.
** It took a turn for the worse in post-production, however, as the initial effects company had tried creating all the 3D effects shots using video. The results were so poor that the producers to hired another company to hastily redo the effects in the then-traditional manner... only for the new shots to turn out hardly any better than the originals. By this point they had no choice but to release the film as it was, resulting in the film being heavily derided for its clunky 3D effects and general SpecialEffectFailure.

** Universal was in a financial rough patch after a disastrous slate of films during 1986, headlined by ''Film/HowardTheDuck''. CEO Sid Sheinberg, who noted the strong box office of ''Jaws 3D'' despite tepid reviews, ordered a new ''Jaws'' film fast-tracked into production to hopefully give a boost to the company's financial position.
** The problem was that producer-director Joseph Sargent was only given ''ten months'' from pre-production to release date. This resulted in a hastily written, hastily filmed production that Sargent later described as "a ticking time-bomb". While the process of filming was mostly free of trouble (and unlike prior films, within the budget), it still went over the allotted time due to storms and prevented Creator/MichaelCaine from accepting an Oscar he won for ''Film/HannahAndHerSisters''.

* ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'' was beset with delays which ran filming overbudget and overschedule, causing Creator/DougrayScott to lose the role of Wolverine in ''Film/XMen1'' and Cruise having to pay for production overruns out of his own pocket. HostilityOnTheSet was [[https://www.vulture.com/article/thandie-newton-in-conversation.html also an issue]] between Cruise and Creator/ThandiweNewton, with Cruise being stressed out over the quality of the script. Then a battle between director Creator/JohnWoo and Paramount executives over Woo's initial cut, which was reportedly over three hours long and had content that wouldn't pass a PG-13 rating. This led to Woo being locked out of the editing room (supposedly by Cruise himself), and Stuart Baird was brought in for an uncredited re-edit job that helped earn him the director's chair on ''Film/StarTrekNemesis''.

* While [[Film/MissionImpossible the first film]]'s development was relatively tame by production standards, it was a project that spent years in development hell, and went into production with a script that wasn't finalized. And that's not counting one of the writers (David Koepp) who got fired before being brought back on, a controversy that sprung up when original-series actor Creator/PeterGraves refused to appear for a cameo (claiming that his character, Jim Phelps, was being killed off -- [[spoiler:which was only partly true; Phelps is still alive and TheMole, and sold out the rest of his team while faking his own death]] -- and rumors that lead star Creator/TomCruise and director Creator/BrianDePalma didn't get along during filming.
* ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'' was beset with delays and concern over the film's tone, leading to a battle between Creator/JohnWoo and Paramount executives in the editing room over the final cut. (There are claims Woo wanted the film to be R-rated, while Paramount was looking for a PG-13 to maximize audience engagement.)

* Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet2010 is rumored to have had some production issues. Samuel Bayer, a music video director was hired to direct the film and during a interview while making the movie, admitted he wasn't he biggest Elm Street fan and was basically told by the producers from Platinum Dunes after he turned down several of their other movie director job offers previously from them, this would be his last chance to get a movie director job offer. During the production it is rumored that he clashed with the producers over how scenes were to be filmed and his ideas versus their ideas.
** Eric Heisserer original script he had written for the movie was constantly being changed to the point where he stated in this interview http://bloody-disgusting.com/interviews/3398194/nightmare-elm-street-interview/ that when he saw how different it was coming along, he knew it would not turn out well. In the same interview he claimed they were trying to rush out the film to meet the 25th anniversary deadline celebration for the film-which they would end up failing to meet.
** Creator/RooneyMara in this [[http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00046552.html interviews]] revealed she herself was not interested in the movie at all and didn't want to be in it. However she gave too good of a audition that the studio offered her the role and she accepted it. Even when she got the role however, Mara stated she didn't even try to give a good performance and indeed one of the biggest criticism the movie got was Mara's DullSurprise performance. Mara would in that same interview that she almost quit acting after doing this movie.
** Unlike other Elm Street movies that were rushed out but still fared well, this movie wasn't so lucky. While it did have a strong opening week, it was trashed by both the critics and fans and as of this writing has been a Main/FranchiseKiller for this series. Samuel Bayer himself [[DearNegativeReader didn't exactly take the backlash well and wrote some negative things about the people trashing it]] and has yet to direct another movie since.