Troubled Production/Real Life/Film: Difference between revisions

* A whole load of this led to the utter disaster that was ''[[Caligula]]''. More info [[Caligula/Development History|here]].

* 1976's ''[[The Blue Bird]]'' was a much-ballyhooed family musical, in part because it was the first ever cinematic co-production between the United States and the U.S.S.R. An [[All-Star Cast]] of mostly-American actors had the lead roles while respected director George Cukor helmed the project, shooting in Russia. Alas, the Russian studio and crew was far behind the curve of the American talent (they had to replace the cinematographer because he'd never shot a film in color), and leading ladies [[Elizabeth Taylor]], [[Jane Fonda]], and Cicely Tyson all caused unique sets of problems: Taylor fell ill, Fonda wouldn't stop chatting up the crew about politics, and Tyson warred with the director (in part because she couldn't get proper lighting, due to a Caucasian woman serving as her stand-in). Miscellaneous clashes between the Americans and Russians cropped up, James Coco had to drop out of the film when he suffered a gallbladder attack, and it all went well over schedule and budget. The resultant film was so bad that it not only tanked instantly, but has never had an official home video release in the U.S.

* ''[[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]]''. [[No Budget]], the directors clashing with each other, Graham Chapman 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?tr0767057 rushing back to the hotel after wrapping for the day in order to bathe]...

* ''[[Dersu Uzala]]'', due to [[Akira Kurosawa]] 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.

* ''[[Eraserhead]]'' suffered from this - no studio would fund it due to its unusual plot and [[David Lynch]]'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 [[Mel Brooks]], [[Stanley Kubrick]] and [[John Waters]]), which [[Colbert Bump|kickstarted Lynch's career]].

* ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture]]'': 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). [[Special Effect Failure|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.