10 Great Movies Everybody Hated Making
Mad Max: Fury Road's hellish vision was basically produced in actual hell.
Transcript
00:00 The enormous amount of work that goes into making even a terrible film is undeniable.
00:05 Any completed movie is the result of hundreds of cast and crew members pooling their talents
00:10 to try and create something worthwhile.
00:13 But truly great films are often only achieved through tremendous adversity, enough that
00:17 those who worked on them, both in front of and behind the camera, had an absolutely miserable
00:23 time.
00:24 So, with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, here with 10 Great Movies Everybody Hates
00:29 Accepted Making.
00:31 10.
00:32 Gravity
00:33 Alfonso Cuaron's 2013 sci-fi masterpiece Gravity is an incredible feat of effects-driven
00:40 filmmaking.
00:41 Cuaron originally planned to complete the project within a year, but due to the mind-boggling
00:46 complexity of the visual effects, it ended up taking almost five years of his working
00:50 life, while the shoot itself required absolute precision from its cast and crew.
00:56 Case in point, Robert Downey Jr. was originally signed to star as astronaut Matt Kowalski,
01:01 a role eventually played by George Clooney, but he bailed after it became clear that his
01:05 improvisational acting style clashed with the strict requirements of such a carefully
01:10 controlled project.
01:11 The experience for stars Clooney and Sandra Bullock was uncomfortable, to say the least.
01:16 With most of the film's imagery being computer generated, the actors spent up to 10 hours
01:20 a day inside a 9x9 foot mechanical rig intended to simulate a space shuttle while being directed
01:27 via earpiece.
01:28 Bullock said of the harrowing experience, "It was just frustrating, painful and isolating.
01:33 I wanted to kill producer David Heyman and Alfonso regularly.
01:38 So all of your hate and your anger and your rage, you just give forth in your work and
01:42 hope it translates on screen."
01:44 Ultimately, Gravity went on to win seven Oscars, including Best Director and grossed over 700
01:50 million dollars worldwide.
01:52 9.
01:53 Apocalypse Now
01:55 Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now is arguably the greatest war movie ever made,
01:59 and certainly the one whose production most closely resembles an actual war in its own
02:04 right.
02:05 Enough that a brilliant documentary, Hearts of Darkness, a filmmaker's apocalypse, was
02:09 made about it.
02:11 In Hearts of Darkness, Coppola famously said of the shoot, "We were in the jungle.
02:15 There were too many of us.
02:16 We had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane."
02:21 He's not exaggerating.
02:23 Shot in the Philippines for over a year while going massively over budget, Apocalypse Now
02:28 wore its cast and crew down over the course of production, with Coppola becoming so despondent
02:33 by everything that went wrong that he had a nervous breakdown, lost a terrifying amount
02:38 of weight, and considered suicide.
02:41 In terms of the cast, Martin Sheen had a near-fatal heart attack mid-shoot, which took him out
02:46 of commission for six weeks.
02:48 Marlon Brando showed up to set over weight and without having learned his lines while
02:53 clearly having little desire to be there, and Dennis Hopper found Brando irritating
02:57 enough that he decided to intentionally anger him wherever possible.
03:01 Many other cast and crew members were drunk or high for much of the shoot, and given the
03:06 utterly ramshackle nature of the production, can you really blame them?
03:10 8.
03:11 Wayne's World
03:12 Wayne's World is such an absurdly entertaining and hilarious film that you probably assumed
03:16 it was also a total blast for the cast and crew to make, right?
03:20 Oh, how wrong we all are.
03:23 Several of the key players ended up clashing throughout shooting, namely star Mike Myers
03:28 and director Penelope Spheeris, with Spheeris calling Myers emotionally needy and claiming
03:33 that he got more difficult as the shoot went along.
03:36 Spheeris was torn between the creative needs of Myers, co-star Dana Carvey, and producer
03:41 Lorne Michaels, allegedly resulting in her shooting scenes three different ways on numerous
03:46 occasions in order to keep them all happy.
03:49 Spheeris and Myers also butted heads over the final cut of the film, while Myers battled
03:54 producers who had their own ideas for what Wayne's World should be.
03:58 And yet there's not even a hint of that strained production in the end result, which
04:02 remains one of the most beloved studio comedies of the last 30 years.
04:07 7.
04:08 Total Recall
04:09 Few directors relish a chaotic production quite like the legendary Paul Verhoeven, who
04:15 has thrived on countless disordered shoots, including 1990s Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring
04:20 sci-fi classic Total Recall.
04:22 Due to Verhoeven's decision to shoot the film mostly in sequence while demanding as
04:28 much as 20 takes per scene, the budget ballooned from an initial $30 million to a rumoured
04:33 $80 million by the time it was in the can.
04:37 But the strife came largely through the Mexico City shooting location, with almost the entire
04:42 cast and crew falling ill due to consuming contaminated food and water.
04:46 The only exceptions were Arnold Schwarzenegger, who having previously become sick from eating
04:51 local cuisine while shooting Predator, had his food shipped in from the US, and producer
04:56 Ronald Shusett, who gave himself vitamin B12 shots every day.
05:00 The movie's dusty Mars sets also caused temporary respiratory problems for almost the entire
05:06 cast and crew.
05:07 Elsewhere, Schwarzenegger suffered numerous cuts and broken fingers while performing stunts,
05:12 and Michael Ironside cracked his sternum and separated two ribs, resulting in him having
05:17 to complete the shoot while still recuperating from his injury.
05:20 6.
05:21 The Lighthouse
05:23 Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse was one of 2019's most acclaimed movies, receiving enormous
05:28 praise for Eggers' direction and the phenomenal, arguably career-best performances from both
05:34 Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson.
05:37 And yet, the treacherous location shoot was majorly trying for most everyone involved.
05:42 For starters, the harsh, soggy weather at Cape Fortune, the Canadian fishing village
05:47 where most of the film was shot, caused camera equipment to frequently malfunction and lenses
05:52 to uncontrollably fog up, such that it took 25 takes to capture a clear shot of Pattinson
05:58 walking into the ocean for one scene.
06:00 As for Dafoe and Pattinson, they've both spoken extensively about the physically and
06:05 psychologically trying nature of the shoot, which caused them to barely talk outside of
06:10 filming scenes.
06:11 Given the movie's material, though, this anguish really only ended up enhancing its
06:15 manic, unsettling energy, and the end result was surely worth the 35 days of hell shooting
06:21 it.
06:22 5.
06:23 Blade Runner
06:24 Blade Runner is a cinematic sci-fi monolith beyond compare, and its wonderfully gloomy
06:30 mood might be informed in part by the constant behind-the-scenes discord during shooting.
06:35 For starters, star Harrison Ford didn't work well with either co-star Sean Young or
06:41 director Ridley Scott.
06:43 Ford felt that Young's lack of experience was slowing production, and he also argued
06:47 intensely with Scott over whether or not his character Deckard was a replicant.
06:52 Scott also didn't endear himself much to the film's cast or crew; he regularly demanded
06:56 upwards of a dozen takes for seemingly insignificant camera setups, enough that Warner Bros. almost
07:02 intervened and had him replaced.
07:05 Scott also pissed off the production's American crew members after claiming in an interview
07:09 that British film crews worked harder, prompting American makeup supervisor Marvin G. Westmore
07:14 to create t-shirts mocking Scott's claim.
07:17 Then there's late legendary cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, who had been diagnosed
07:22 with Parkinson's disease the year before shooting started, and his condition debilitated
07:27 enough that he was working from a wheelchair by shoot's end.
07:30 And on top of all this, everyone's moods were worsened by the bulk of the film being
07:35 shot at night, while the continual dousing of fake rain made everyone soggy and tired.
07:41 4.
07:42 Titanic
07:43 James Cameron has proven repeatedly over the years that he thrives when getting wildly
07:47 in over his head, and this has never been truer than during the production of his best
07:52 picture winning smash hit Titanic.
07:55 The issues began early when Cameron personally insisted upon taking a submersible down to
08:00 the actual Titanic's resting place to film footage, with one of his dives resulting in
08:05 a nearly catastrophic collision between the vessel and the Titanic.
08:10 As for principal photography itself, it's no secret that Cameron was a taskmaster, frequently
08:15 chewing out the cast and crew during the high-pressure shoot.
08:18 Kate Winslet suffered numerous injuries while shooting the water scenes, and initially vowed
08:23 to never work with Cameron again, though ultimately decided to re-team with him for the upcoming
08:27 Avatar The Way of Water.
08:30 Other cast members were kept in cold water for egregious amounts of time per shooting
08:34 day, causing widespread illness.
08:36 3.
08:37 The Exorcist
08:38 It's been well documented that director William Friedkin treated his cast with a cavalier
08:43 regard, intentionally creating a deeply uncomfortable atmosphere in order to tease out legitimately
08:49 terrified performances.
08:51 In one instance, he fired a gun near actor Jason Miller to startle him, and had the crew
08:56 yank Ellen Burstyn's harness so hard during a stunt that she received a permanent back
09:01 injury when she collided with a wall - a take that was kept in the film, no less.
09:06 Friedkin also had air conditioning units brought into the McNeil House set to shoot the film's
09:12 climax, which for young Linda Blair, who was wearing a threadbare nightgown, was extremely
09:17 uncomfortable and gave her a lifelong aversion to the cold.
09:21 Despite Friedkin's antagonistic nature on set, he didn't exactly have a picnic making
09:25 the film either.
09:27 Warner Bros. frequently protested his casting choices, and in part because a fire destroyed
09:32 much of the set, production took twice as long and cost twice as much as originally
09:37 planned.
09:38 2.
09:39 Mad Max Fury Road
09:40 The fourth Mad Max film was in development in various forms for the better part of 30
09:45 years before it began shooting, and that's where the issues really started.
09:50 First and foremost, the unforgiving landscape of the Namibian desert was severely detrimental
09:55 to the physical and mental health of the cast and crew, who had to deal with excruciating
10:00 heat, extreme cold at night, and dust storms.
10:03 With the cast and crew suffering so much, including actress Riley Keough catching hypothermia,
10:09 it was decided to give everyone a week's break in the middle of filming.
10:13 But there were also creative issues.
10:15 Charlize Theron bristled with Tom Hardy over his penchant for method acting, and both Theron
10:20 and Hardy had difficulty working with Miller.
10:23 Theron felt that Miller wasn't directing her adequately, while Hardy frequently argued
10:27 with him.
10:28 He said that Miller was visibly weathered by the six-month shoot, losing an enormous
10:32 amount of weight, all while having to contend with the deeply concerned Warner Brothers,
10:37 who sent studio reps to the set to supervise his work.
10:40 Yet Theron and Hardy in particular have since been hugely emphatic in stating their joy
10:45 at the film's reception, with Fury Road receiving near-universal praise while winning
10:50 six of its ten Oscar nominations.
10:53 1.
10:54 The Love Witch
10:55 Anna Billa's 2016 comedy horror film The Love Witch received near-universal acclaim
11:01 for its stylistically on-point parody of 60s horror, and also a terrific performance from
11:07 lead actress Samantha Robinson.
11:09 However, more than a year after its release, director Billa herself tweeted that most of
11:14 the crew "hated" what we were shooting and did not even see the movie after it was
11:18 done.
11:19 She added that numerous Pivotal crew members were swapped out during shooting, and alleged
11:23 that some even attempted to sabotage the production.
11:26 Billa blamed the set's tempestuous atmosphere on both crew members affronted at working
11:30 for a female director and a line producer who set up a bad vibe and then disappeared,
11:36 whatever that means.
11:37 For his part, cinematographer M. David Mullen offered no comment when asked to address the
11:42 controversy.
11:43 And yet the end result feels like such an holistic achievement on Billa's vision that
11:47 you'd never guess there was major behind-the-scenes tension.
11:52 And that concludes our list.
11:53 If you can think of any that we missed, then do let us know in the comments below.
11:56 And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification
12:00 bell.
12:01 Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias
12:04 just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
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12:09 I've been Ellie with What Culture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you