Prepare for a journey into the mysterious and tragic world of cinema! Join us as we explore films that seemed ordinary but carried an eerie shadow over their cast members.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to MissMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the movies whose cast ended
00:09up befalling misfortune or career-damaging scandal during and after production.
00:2310.
00:24Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
00:26Spun off from author J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter franchise, the first installment of
00:31the Fantastic Beasts trilogy was a box office success.
00:35Since its 2016 release, though, three of its key creatives have been mired in controversy.
00:48Johnny Depp's domestic violence allegations and viral court cases related to his marriage
00:52to Amber Heard made him persona non grata.
00:55Mads Mikkelsen later replaced him as Grindelwald.
01:06Ezra Miller, who played the villainous Credence Barebone, became the subject of scandal due
01:11to a series of crimes committed between 2020 and 2022.
01:15Not only that, but original author and co-screenwriter J.K. Rowling has been under fire for increasingly
01:21inflammatory comments directed at transgender people.
01:24Cumulatively, it leaves a cloud over the movie.
01:489.
01:49The Misfits
02:00During the old Hollywood era, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift were
02:05among the biggest stars imaginable.
02:07This 1961 western about a recent divorcee who befriends two cowboys starred all three.
02:13The movie was a pain to make, but the premature deaths of its three stars have tarnished the
02:18film to many.
02:2059-year-old Gable died of a heart attack less than two weeks after the movie finished filming.
02:32Monroe passed away the year following its release.
02:35She was only 36.
02:36Clift, who had become dependent on painkillers after a 1956 car accident, suffered a career
02:42slowdown before passing away in 1966 at the age of 45.
02:518.
02:55Stalker
02:56This deeply philosophical science fiction movie from Soviet master filmmaker Andrei
03:01Tarkovsky sees three men venturing into a ruinous land called The Zone.
03:06The Zone is startling to look at, but even more startling is that its ruinous and surreal
03:11look needed little dressing up.
03:24Defunct hydropower facilities in Estonia stood in for this mysterious place out of time.
03:30Years afterwards, a sound designer on the film insisted that actor Anatoly Solonidzin's
03:35fatal cancer was due to shooting downriver from chemical dumping.
03:39Solonidzin died of lung cancer at 47.
03:42It was the same type of cancer that also claimed the lives of director Tarkovsky and his wife
03:47Larisa.
03:517.
04:00Get Him to the Greek
04:01Russell Brown reprised his role as audacious rock star Older Snow in this raucous comedy
04:07that has not aged well for several reasons.
04:09The first is Brown himself.
04:16The comedian received heat for spreading conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic.
04:22More damning was when several sexual assault allegations against him were extensively investigated
04:27and published by Channel 4 and The Sunday Times.
04:42Co-star T.J. Miller would become the subject of his own scandal when a misconduct allegation
04:46came to light in 2017.
04:48Sean Diddy Combs appears in the film as an egoistic, rageful music executive.
04:54In the various and increasingly disturbing bombshells in the 2024 investigation against
04:59Combs, it makes his appearance in the movie hard to view now.
05:066.
05:10Death on the Nile
05:11Kenneth Branagh's Murder on the Orient Express follow-up originally had a 2019 release date.
05:23Post-production and the ongoing pandemic pushed it nearly three years, but a lot had
05:27changed since then.
05:33Star Armie Hammer was embroiled in a career-ending sexting and abuse scandal involving some bizarre
05:39and truly outlandish preferences.
05:41Gal Gadot had become a laughingstock due to her cringeworthy Instagram video featuring
05:46her and other celebrities singing Imagine when COVID lockdowns began.
05:50Letitia Wright was under fire for sharing conspiracy theories about the virus and its
05:54vaccine, and the trend continued a year after the movie's release, when Russell Brand became
05:59the subject of a Channel 4 investigation for a series of sexual assault allegations.
06:065.
06:10The Conqueror
06:21Any film critic who sat through John Wayne playing Genghis Khan could have told you The
06:25Conqueror was cursed.
06:26But that curse extended far beyond the movie itself.
06:32Producer Howard Hughes decided to shoot the film on location, downwind from nuclear testing
06:37sites.
06:38Not only that, but he had some of the dirt from the site shipped to Hollywood to give
06:42the sets a more authentic look.
06:44By 1979, stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorhead, and Pedro Armendariz had all
06:51passed away due to cancer.
06:53More than 90 casting crew members associated with the production had developed cancer within
06:58that time.
06:59Exposure to radiation during the shoot has long been rumoured to be the cause.
07:064.
07:10The Exorcist
07:22The production behind the blockbusting horror movie was known to be trouble.
07:26Films on and off the set, including the deaths and near-deaths of actors' relatives, had
07:31the cast on shaky ground.
07:43Actor Jack McGowran, whose character dies in the film, died tragically mere days after
07:47completing his scenes.
07:49Six years later, Paul Bateson, a bit player shown in the hospital scenes, was accused
07:54of a real-life murder.
07:56Playing the possessed girl, Linda Blair, sustained chronic injuries.
07:59But her experiences after the movie's release were a curse of their own.
08:04She received death threats and harassment.
08:06This led Warner Bros. to send her on a press tour to quell any rumours that she was somehow
08:11as evil as the demon in the film.
08:233.
08:24The Wizard of Oz
08:25Given its reputation as a Hollywood classic for the whole family, stories from the production
08:30of The Wizard of Oz are shockingly upsetting.
08:46What sets it apart is just how many of those horror stories became known only years later,
08:51when the studio's public relations departments weren't so tight-lipped.
08:55Toxic makeup affected many actors, and even put original Tin Man, actor Buddy Epson, in
09:00the hospital.
09:01Wicked Witch actress Margaret Hamilton was badly burned during production.
09:24Star Judy Garland probably got it the worst.
09:26An already strenuous studio-enforced regimen of pills and back-breaking exercise got worse
09:32when she was required to lose weight to play Dorothy.
09:35This cocktail led to a lifelong substance use disorder that prematurely ended her life
09:40at 47.
09:432.
09:46Rebel Without a Cause
09:57This melodramatic portrait of troubled 1950s teens rocketed its three leads to even greater
10:02heights.
10:03James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo didn't just share a high profile after the movie's
10:08release.
10:09For the next 26 years, the three would meet untimely and suspicious ends.
10:2524-year-old James Dean only starred in one more film before he was killed in a 1955 car
10:30accident.
10:31In 1976, 37-year-old Sal Mineo was the victim of a hit-and-run mugging that turned into
10:37a fatal stabbing.
10:39Then Natalie Wood was found drowned after supposedly falling off of her husband Robert
10:43Wagner's yacht in 1981.
10:46Wagner was named a person of interest by the LA County Sheriff's Department, but the
10:50case itself remains one of Hollywood's infamous unsolved mysteries.
11:06Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified
11:10about our latest videos.
11:11You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
11:15If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
11:201.
11:22Poltergeist Franchise
11:24Upon its release in 1982, the first installment of the Poltergeist trilogy was a massive success,
11:30but the happiness was short-lived for its cast.
11:40Actress Dominique Dunne was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, soon after
11:44the movie opened nationwide.
11:46The movie's supposed curse only grew from there.
11:55Death also found Julian Beck and Will Sampson, two actors in the second movie, with Beck
12:00passing away even before the film was released.
12:03Finally, young star Heather O'Rourke suffered numerous medical issues and passed away in
12:071988.
12:09She was due for reshoots on the third film at the time of her death, which may have affected
12:13the film's final narrative.
12:15Myths surrounding the Poltergeist curse are still circulated among movie lovers.
12:27What cursed casts did we miss?
12:42Here's what's next!