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"We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane."

—Francis Ford Coppola, Hearts of Darkness (a documentary about the production of Apocalypse Now)

Say for example that you're an actor, and there's this part you're interested in. You audition for it and you receive it. You're obviously happy about it and can't wait for the movie's production to start since you come in later.

Then you show up and you see the set's horrible, the special effects are laughably stupid, the director's a Prima Donna Director, all the other actors are arguing with each other and despite only filming for a week, you're two months behind schedule.

Congratulations, your production has gone completely Off the Rails.

Far be it from us to suggest that producing a movie, an album, a TV series or the like are easy, simple processes, but most of the time they're relatively straightforward. Then there are these productions. The ones where it don't ever go smooth, where everybody slams headfirst into Finagle's Law. The expensive sets break down. The Small Name Big Egos end up quarreling with each other. The director's in way over his head. The Record Producer's Phil Spector. What unites them all is that it's gonna be a hellish experience.

These sort of productions tend to range from complete disasters to the slightly more benign ones, but what they always have in common is frayed tempers, patience, screw-ups, delays and breakdowns. Reality Subtext may happen too. Both Protection From Editors and Executive Meddling can exacerbate this phenomenon. Epic Movies are particularly vulnerable to this. This trope always applies to small or start-up studios, due to how little experience the show runners or head businessmen have in running a new one.

Troubled Productions frequently will end up resulting in bloated, overindulgent disasters that become the laughingstock of public imagination, or something really, really awesome. In the former case the completely out-of-control production can serve as an explanation for why said work turned out like it is. And the latter just tends to make people admire the creators even more - hey, look, they went through all this bullshit that would make a normal dude probably give up and still created something great! In some cases, the insanity behind it might actually contribute to the quality of the finished product, in one way or another. It's exceedingly rare for a troubled production to result in a So Okay It's Average product.

A few of those overlap with, and may often lead to, Development Hell and Vaporware, which is having trouble on starting the project. Others enter The Shelf of Movie Languishment after being finished. When concerning the music industry this can overlap with Music Is Politics, where the politics of the industry leads to this trope.

See also Movie-Making Mess, the smaller-scale, amateur version of this.

As mentioned, a lot of the examples here tend to be famous for their quality, good or bad.

Examples of Troubled Production are listed on these subpages:

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 These sort of productions tend to range from complete disasters to the slightly more benign ones, but what they always have in common is frayed tempers, patience, screw-ups, delays and [[Creator Breakdown|breakdowns]]. [[Reality Subtext]] may happen too. Both [[Protection From Editors]] and [[Executive Meddling]] can exacerbate this phenomenon. [[Epic Movie]]s are particularly vulnerable to this. This trope always applies to small or start-up studios, due to how little experience the show runners or head businessmen have in running a new one.
-Troubled Productions frequently will end up resulting in bloated, overindulgent disasters that become the laughingstock of public imagination, or something really, really awesome. In the former case the completely out-of-control production can serve as an explanation for why said work turned out like it is. And the latter just tends to make people admire the creators even more - hey, look, [[Determinator|they went through all this bullshit that would make a normal dude probably give up]] and ''still'' created something great! In some cases, the insanity behind it might actually contribute to the quality of the finished product, in one way or another. It's exceedingly rare for a troubled production to result in a [[So Okay It's Average]] product.
+'''Troubled Productions''' frequently will end up resulting in bloated, overindulgent disasters that become the laughingstock of public imagination, or something really, really awesome. In the former case the completely out-of-control production can serve as an explanation for why said work turned out like it is. And the latter just tends to make people admire the creators even more - hey, look, [[Determinator|they went through all this bullshit that would make a normal dude probably give up]] and ''still'' created something great! In some cases, the insanity behind it might actually contribute to the quality of the finished product, in one way or another. It's exceedingly rare for a troubled production to result in a [[So Okay It's Average]] product.
 A few of those overlap with, and may often lead to, [[Development Hell]] and [[Vaporware]], which is having trouble on starting the project. Others enter [[The Shelf of Movie Languishment]] after being finished. When concerning the music industry this can overlap with [[Music Is Politics]], where the politics of the industry leads to this trope.
@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 As mentioned, a lot of the examples here tend to be famous for their quality, good or bad.
-{{examples}}
+{{examples on subpages}}
-== Real Life ==
-{{subpages|Troubled Production/Real Life}}
-=== Anime & Manga ===
-* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''. [[Creator Breakdown]] and severe depression on behalf of [[Hideaki Anno]], [[Gainax]]'s shifty accounting practices ending in their CEO being arrested for tax fraud, sponsors pulling out in droves once the show dove off the deep end... Yeah, it's amazing that they even ''managed'' to finish that show, even with all the budget-saving [[Limited Animation]] at the end. Do we have another candidate for the ''Apocalypse Now'' of anime?
-** ''[[Rebuild of Evangelion]]'' is also a contender in light of Anno's more recent [[Creator Breakdown]] episodes and a host of various issues, the main one being the disintegration of the original Studio Gainax (with Anno leaving to form Studio Khara for the creation and release of ''Rebuild'' and half of the former Gainax staff founding [[Studio Trigger]]), and the financial head of what remained of Gainax repeatedly refusing to give Anno the rights and royalties from his former work while committing financial fraud ([[History Repeats Itself|notice a pattern here?]]). The resultant clusterfuck caused that the final film of the tetralogy were repeatedly delayed until their announcement of a mid-2020 premiere, ''8 years'' after the third film premiere - in comparison, between the first and the third film only passed 5 years.
-* ''[[Code Geass]]'' for its first season. Reportedly, [[Sunrise (company)|Sunrise]] was wary of trusting a full series to director/co-creator Goro Taniguchi, thanks to his reputation for perfectionism and his other quirks, so he was only handed 25 episodes to begin with. The staff often had to piggyback off of other parts of the studio that were working at the same time (for example, the ''Geass'' staff didn't even have their own photocopier) and the writers were only three or four episodes ahead of the broadcast, about half the "buffer" that most series have. When the series became a runaway success, things went much better, but fans tend to blame the series' being split in half for the perceived drop in quality in the second half.
-* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny]]'' is an example of this, partly because of head writer Chiaki Morosawa's battle with cancer during production, which resulted in her turning her scripts in late, and thus, necessitating the numerous [[Clip Show|clip shows]] throughout the series. Also, although Shinn was supposed to the main character of the series, Kira was thrust back into the spotlight from episode 39 onwards, because of his popularity with the Japanese audience. Finally, there was director Mitsuo Fukuda being demanding on the voice actors on the way how they're supposed to be portrayed (specifically, [[Naomi Shindo]] [the voice of Cagalli] and [[Maaya Sakamoto]] [the voice of Lunamaria]). [[Word of God|This was confirmed]] by [[Rie Tanaka]] (the voice of Lacus and Meer) at her [http://www.animevice.com/news/nyaf08-interview-with-rie-tanaka/78/ 2008 New York Anime Festival appearance], as well as [[Kenichi Suzumura]] (the voice of Shinn) in one of his Twitter posts.
-** Of course, the very first ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' show's production was no picnic, either (as is chronicled in the tongue-in-cheek "Making Of" series ''[[Gundam Sousei]]''). Then came ''[[Zeta Gundam]]'', which suffered fewer financial hardships than the original, but both the TV series and the [[Compilation Movie]]s rather infamously suffered complications as a result of the romantic blunders of various men involved in production with at least three voice actresses.
-*** Most (in)famous of which was the legendary feud between the [[Prima Donna Director]] and scriptwriter [[Yoshiyuki Tomino]] and equally self-important mecha designer Mamoru Nagano. It became doubly notorious because not only both men were feuding over the Beltorchika Irma's [[Seiyuu]] [[Maria Kawamura]],<ref>Nagano won and they still seem to be [[Happily Married]].</ref> but over [[Creative Differences]] as well.<ref>Nagano routinely hated Tomino's style and the direction where he was taking the show, up to the point that [[The Five Star Stories]] basically started as his [[Start My Own]] towards their other collaboration, [[Heavy Metal L-Gaim]].</ref>
-** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam F91]]'' also fell to this. Originally intended to be full series before it was dropped, a lot of compromises were made in order to compress what material Tomino had into a feature-length movie. ''[[Crossbone Gundam]]'' would ultimately resolve many of the plot points from that film.
-** ''[[Mobile Suit Victory Gundam]]'' also became rather notorious. As while it's considered one of the darkest works in the franchise, the series was also made at the height of Tomino's [[Creator Breakdown]], with telling consequences.
-* ''[[The Dream Machine]]'' the final movie of the [[Author Existence Failure|late]] [[Satoshi Kon]] has experienced its share of trouble, having gone from production into [[Development Hell]], back into production only to fall back into development hell. First Kon's death from pancreatic cancer put the film on hold to determine the next course of action. Kon's widow and Studio [[Madhouse]]'s Masao Maruyama told they would finish the film and production resumed. However, at Otakon 2011 Maruyama reported the movie has been put on hold due to financial difficulties. Maruyama is still determined to finish the film eventually with about 600 shots out of 1500 had been animated at that point.
-* For a long time, ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' looked like a happy subversion. Ken Akamatsu wanted to do a shounen-action series from the start, but [[Executive Meddling|his producers]] wanted a [[Harem Genre|harem show]] like his extremely popular ''[[Love Hina]]'' series. Akamatsu ''faked'' a harem series, using the first two volumes to lay down characterization, then slowly segue into the fighter series he wanted from the start. This resulted in an extremely intelligent and popular series known for its [[Amazon Brigade]] and ridiculously badass ten-year old protagonist. However, some three hundred chapters later, the executives tried to take the rights to the series away from him. He responded by ending the series abruptly, with a carefully crafted final chapter that managed to use the [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]] to [[Torch the Franchise and Run|make sure no one else could use his series]]. It remains to be seen if there will be any more releases filling in the unanswered questions.
-=== Comic Books ===
-* David Herbert apparently attracts this kind of production with all his works except [https://web.archive.org/web/20130914230208/http://www.livingwithinsanity.com/index Living With Insanity]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20190717190935/http://www.tnemrot.com/ Tnemrot] was supposed to be a print comic and was written in late 2008, going through seven artists before Tatiana Lepikhina joined and is now a webcomic. [https://web.archive.org/web/20131029150620/http://indyplanet.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3429 Gemini Storm] was also written at the same time, came out in March 2010 and the second issue is still expected to take another month or two before being released. He has also mentioned other projects that haven't gone anywhere due to artists dropping out or simply disappearing.
-* [[The Clone Saga]]. To make a very long story short: a mix of artists wanting to do a bit of [[Continuity Porn]] and a bunch of very profit-oriented directives transformed what was originally to be a short special event leading for a milestone number of ''[[Spider Man|Spiderman]]'' into a slog that seeped for ''two years'' and tens of titles, which was unable to be finished despite the wishes of almost everyone involved because it sold well, but the reason it sold well for a long while was because the fans wanted to see how the writers could [[The Chris Carter Effect|finally tie the immense tangled web of subplots]] they wrote themselves into for editorial mandate to keep going as long as it sells.
-* [[JLA-Avengers|The popular crossover]] between the [[Justice League of America]] and [[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]] languished for 20 years because [[DC Comics]] and [[Marvel Comics]] couldn't decide on ''[[Cavemen vs. Astronauts Debate|who would win in a fight]]''. It was eventually discovered the reasons those decisions took so long was basically [[Executive Meddling]] from Jim Shooter, then the new head of Marvel, whom didn't like the lineup chosen for the crossover (it teamed the [[X-Men]] with the [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]], when he [[Creator's Pet|preferred]] it wouuld have been with the [[Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)|Legion of Super-Heroes]]) and in true temper tantrum blocked every decision he could.
-* Anything that isn't part of the mainstream [[Marvel Comics]] tends to suffer from this. One of the more documented ones was [[The New Universe]]. Touted as "The World Outside Your Window", the franchise fell apart from the beginning - writers tossed in 616-type elements (aliens, powered armors, etc.), financial backers pulled out before it even started, and people were too engrossed by that slogan. Despite canceling half of the franchise and starting a massive storyline that started with the destruction of Pittsburgh, it never got off its feet and died nearly three years later.
-** ''newuniversal'' suffered an equally crushing blow when the files on [[Warren Ellis]]' laptop were lost when his hard drive failed. Marvel shuffled him on to other projects and ''newuniversal'' died an inglorious death.
-** ''[[Marvel 2099]]'', the revisioning of the [[Marvel Universe]] as a [[Cyberpunk]] dystopia, wasn't the greatest, but when Marvel let go its editor-in-chief for that line as a cost-cutting measure thanks to its near-bankruptcy, many creators bailed, leaving the series to limp to its end.
-* The [[Image Comics]]/[[Valiant Comics]] crossover ''[[Death Mate]]''. So much that it served as a [[Creator Killer]] for Valiant.
-* And while we're on that subject, anything done by [[Rob Liefeld]], a master of the [[Schedule Slip]]. One legendary tale about it was that during the ''Death Mate'' debacle an editor went everyday to Liefeld's house just to ensure that his contributions weren't ''a year late''.
-* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' always had a problem when it came to converting video game storylines into its more serious setting. However, two of the biggest screw ups came about via ''[[Sonic Adventure]]'' and ''[[Sonic Adventure 2]]''. For ''Sonic Adventure'', Sega gave Archie a copy of the game... untranslated, so they had to fudge a lot of the story. The original plan was to have the storyline run through then-all three titles - ''Sonic the Hedgehog'', ''Knuckles the Echidna'' and ''Sonic Super Special''. However, just before the storyline started, the ''Knuckles'' comic got cancelled, forcing Archie to cram all of the Knuckles stories into the Sonic issues as back stories.
-** For ''Sonic Adventure 2'''s story, the big problem was that Sega was insistent on Archie creating a tie-in into the game. Archie's solution? Just do enough to whet people's appetite and go get the game. Still was enough to ruin a side-by-side storyline that had a cosmicly-powered Knuckles altering Mobius drastically.
-*** Up until ''Sonic Genesis'', most other adaptation storylines would end up just being teasers with Archie Comics practically saying "Game X happened after this story.".
-* The reason ''[[The Death of Superman]]'' was created was because one of these. The original idea was to marry Clack Kent and Lois Lane in the comics, but then a new [[Superman]] [[Lois and Clark|TV Series]] was greenlighted and its producers convinced to DC to hold the wedding until they did theirs. Faced with losing a year worth of stories, writer Jerry Ordway make the joking suggestion of "why don't kill them all?". It says something about how desperate they were that they ended going along with it. Meanwhile, the TV series didn't actually held their wedding until ''four years later'', which in the comic book was enough time to kill and revive Superman, make him go thorough a [[Dork Age]], and even break up him and Lois, only reconciling them after the series finally had their goddamn wedding.
-=== Conventions, Concerts and other Events ===
-* The infamous 2014 convention Dashcon, [[Tumblr]]-themed and run by fans, became a byword for disastrous events before the event even ended. Most of it was due to horrible organization.
-** The initial name for the convention was "TumblrCon", which has to be changed when Tumblr itself forbade the organizers to use the name of the company due to the event not being directly affiliated to them. This lack of foresight was a prelude of what would come.
-** According [https://web.archive.org/web/20170507175232/http://augustinesycamore.tumblr.com/post/91592502875/here-goes-i-decided-to-write-up-my-personal to people] who [http://lastratstanding.tumblr.com/post/91895213938/this-is-the-last-post-i-will-make-about-the-events were involved] [https://web.archive.org/web/20181204105138/http://lastratstanding.tumblr.com/post/91619974832/this-is-a-very-very-long-post-about-all-that-has in the initial planning stages], the whole thing was disorganized from the get go. Anyone and everyone were welcomed to create committees for a fandom, no experience required. Communication and moderation between and within groups was insufficient to nonexistent. Since most of the committees were fandom themed, many of the ones on small fandoms imploded or dissolved, while the committees for SuperWhoLock, the overlapping fandoms for ''[[Doctor Who]]'', ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', and ''[[Sherlock]]'' were blatantly favored by the organizers.
-** Organization on the event itself proved insufficient, with panelists having to moderate their own panels when the intended moderators didn't appear, invitees not getting refunds on their accommodations, and the vendors in the Artist Alley being mistreated. Security was also very lacking, to the point that a member of [[4chan|/pol/]] managed to enter without identifying himself and filming the con with complete impunity.
-** While the event managed to get an initial funding of $4,000 via a successful [[Kickstarter]] campaign, this amount proved to be insufficient. This lead to numerous invitees not getting paid nor had their expenses reimbursed, and to the infamous drive in the event floor to collect S17,000 from the assistants to pay the hotel bill.
-** The convention claimed to have hired [[Steam Powered Giraffe]], but turned out they actually hadn't booked them. Despite it, they keep promoting their concert until the very last minute, and even changed the rules on money devolution on the fly to deal with angry con-goers. They also promoted a panel with the members of famous podcast ''Welcome to Night Vale'', but the podcast actors bailed out the minute they discovered their weren't going to be paid.
-** Besides the panels, the convention was very lacking in attractions. The most notorious one was a half-deflated ball pit, whose patheticness in pics and use as a bribe to distract angry con-goers ("A free hour in the ball pit!") gained immediate [[Memetic Mutation]]. There were projections, too, and those were also plagued with troubles - and they projected material without express consent of its copyright holders, which is an felony in Illinois, the state where the convention was held.
-** The projected assistance turned out to be extremely off. They expected around 5000, but the estimations on actual people attending was between 500 and 1500 ''at most'', a good chunk of them being teenagers between 13 and 16. Not helped by the fact this con was held one week after the very anticipated Anime Midwest, which was held in the same area.
-** And proving that the organizers learned nothing of this debacle, they decided to polish the turd and rebrand their convention Emoti-Con. This one didn't got to celebrate, though, as the group imploded during the planning stages, but not before getting $120,000 in debt. [http://emoticon-indy.tumblr.com/post/123696489380/so-whatever-happened-to-the-dashcon-team-or-how This post] has all the details.
-=== Fan Works ===
-* ''Unwilling Service'', a ''[[Pokemon]]'' fanfic series currently spanning [http://anime.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600056055 three] [http://anime.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600056056 simultaneous] [http://anime.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600056057 fics], barely managed to see four chapters in total between 2011-14 before author Economy (formerly McKnight, then Searover1986) declared it dead. He revived it in May 2016, to take his focus off of another project that wasn't going anywhere, but while he managed to write up a chapter for each of the three fics in quick succession, his beta-writer, someone calling himself Jake, encountered one problem after another, especially in light of a burglary in October that year, which required him to move back in with his family and endure a hectic lifestyle. Economy continued to hold out on him until he caved in and revealed how he really felt about the story. Things didn't fare much better when Economy took to Upwork, and the resulting frustration led to increasing animosity between him and Jake, whom he had also been friends with for over a decade; most people who proposed to take it up either failed to understand what he expected of them (even after getting Jake to summarize what he did before), went silent, had to back out, or lost interest by the time he got back to them after putting them on hold in favor of those before them. This spanned three attempts before he pulled the plug early in last said attempt and even wrote something on his blog that he retracted upon being called out, but which still led their friendship into a bitter multi-month decline. Even the two and only freelancers who actually did follow through with a chapter or so eventually stopped responding to his messages, leading him to Freelancer instead when he posted the project one last time on Upwork, contacted multiple other Freelancers recommended to him, and had the project taken down for content violations. At this point, Economy has already decided just to commission outright for an initial draft of the whole story instead, whenever he returns to the project at all. (And that wasn't a decision he made lightly; originally, he planned for the project to be some kind of personal game for himself, especially regarding his plans for the Pal Park and both of the Battle Frontiers, having once loved the actual games but since realizing one thing after another about them that rubbed him the wrong way.)
-** One thing also worth noting in particular is their dispute about [[Pokémon Gold and Silver|Jamie]] (now [[The Legend of Thunder!|Jimmy]]) having muscles, towards the end of 2012. The author asked Jake at least three times not to buff him up, which he ignored as he proceeded just to do things his way and then tell him to redo the relevant scenes himself. He did redo some of them after being called out for his disobedience, but not before justifying himself first and arguing with him, and even then, there were still some things left that only muscles could explain (which he only managed to get rid of years later by having someone else do the whole chapter over). Eventually, this was one of the few things he cited when asked multiple times to cite what he came to hate about the story itself.
-*** There is also the issue of the PokéWalker, one of Economy's favorite aspects of a pair of games that Jake very outright ''hates'' to this day.
-** As for the two authors' relationship, [[We Used to Be Friends|it's been dead in the water since February 2018]]. While Jake's bailout marked the beginning of the end between them, actual tensions began when Economy stated a refusal to help him with any of ''his'' fanfiction until he deliver a make-up assignment of some sort. It was not long after that Economy got some answers out of Jake regarding what he actually hated about the story, but even when he offered concessions on two such aspects, things went nowhere from there in terms of winning him back, which led Economy to believe that he just wanted to be catered to and to do whatever he'd damn well please and was now being a poor sport over not having had his way through and through to begin with. Soon thereafter, Economy offered Jake a break from it all, but then impulsively demanded more answers about the situation, going on to tell him on his blog to go fuck himself when he thought he was ignoring him, before he revealed he was actually on a family trip and decided right then and there that that was it. Starting with a botched apology in response, things went on and off for months, and seemed to take a better terms for their friendship itself when Economy offered at least not to talk about his fetishes or [[Lucky Star|a certain show Jake also hates]], before deciding to let more time go by before he'd express his actual issues outside of but related to Jake's departure. Only a month went by as Economy proceeded to elaborate in a WordPad file meant for much later on, before he broke down and expressed the toll such a thing was taking on his mental health, at which point Jake urged him, more out of guilt and despair than frustration, just to forget about him altogether.
-*** And to begin with, [https://dmxrated.dreamwidth.org/720094.html as Economy went on to post onto his blog:]
-{{quote|''What I wanted to make sense of, was why he requested all kinds of stuff to make happen in Unwilling Service if he actually hated it so much. He wanted Mewtwo to Mega Evolve a certain way (can't remember between his X or Y forms), he wanted Dawn to try being a nudist like the protagonists and to participate in the Pal Park, he wanted Jamie to be naked upon meeting each of the Pokemon Idols, and even when he admitted his lack of interest in gym quests, he still went on to suggest ways to make it more interesting, asked to see my first entry about the story, requested a trial run of the Pal Park, and asked that each of the mains have a rival to compete against for that event. All of that, on top of requesting that I go through my blog to tag each entry where I talked about Pokemon, mentioning someone who found the premise amusing, sharing certain things with me like that tabletop game and something about parallel universes, and before I previously abandoned it, asking me to find it within me to care about it again. He even said yes when I asked if he'd ever be interested in a hypothetical visual adaptation of some sort. That's what I mean when I talk about any interest he displayed up until telling me he can't do it anymore, not just because of his lifestyle, but because he couldn't stand all the halfway measures we had to make. Can you say, "two-faced hypocrisy?"''}}
-=== Theater ===
-* ''[[Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark]]'', [[The Musical]] take on the comic book, had a [[wikipedia:Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark#History|hard time just getting to its preview period]] on Broadway...whereupon [[It Got Worse]] due to seemingly endless injuries to its performers, inspiring parodies on ''[[Conan (TV series)|Conan]]'', snarky coverage by [[The Onion]] A.V. Club, and even an episode of ''[[Law and Order: Criminal Intent]]''. With a $75 million budget, it would have had to sell out for five years to break even. The preview period kept getting extended, and finally theater critics had enough and wrote/ran reviews of the February 7, 2011 performance (which, had it not been pushed back ''again'', was supposed to be the official opening date)... most of which were [http://www.avclub.com/articles/spiderman-turn-off-the-dark-terrible-or-make-it-st,51518/ scathing]. In response, the producers (finally!) panicked and brought in script doctors, along with having Bono and The Edge write new music. Director (and famous prima donna) Julie Taymor refused to go along with the changes and was either fired or quit. It finally opened on June 2011.
-** The troubles didn't stop there.  Taymor filed suit against the producers and Bono and Edge, claiming not that she was unjustly fired but that they used her rewrites after they did, without giving her credit.  By the time the show closed in 2014, six members of the cast and crew had suffered injuries, some nearly life-threatening.  It was subject to a veritable tidal wave of parodies and satires in the pop culture.  It never received more than mediocre reviews.   And despite at times astounding box office receipts (it sometimes raked in over a million dollars in a week), it apparently never did break even.
-=== Video Games ===
-* ''[[Action 52]]'' is a [https://web.archive.org/web/20150223061145/http://www.cheetahmengames.com/MYQUESTISOVER.html peculiar case]. All 52 games were shoved out over the course of three months, the programmers contracted to work on the thing (who were reportedly college students at the time according to a number of sources) having no real schedule to speak of. Combined with misguided marketing and pie-in-the-sky hubris far exceeding the producers' actual talents, [[Obvious Beta|the results]] [[So Bad It's Good|speak]] [[So Bad It's Horrible|for themselves]].
-* ''[[Aliens: Colonial Marines]]'' was rife with various issues over its production. This ranged from [[Development Hell]] and Gearbox Software's utter mismanagement of the game's development (which also included outsourcing the game to various other developers before sloppily putting the final touches) to accusations of embezzlement and Gearbox's Randy Pitchford [http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/07/randy-pitchford-defends-aliens-colonial-marines-blames-gamers-for-not-liking-it/ blaming gamers for not liking the game]. It comes as little surprise that the final product looks nothing like what was promised in previews.
-* ''[[Daikatana]]'', as chronicled in [https://web.archive.org/web/20000619155817/http://www.gamespot.com/features/btg-daikatana/index.html Knee Deep in a Dream]. First, Ion Storm had some internal warring because the ''Daikatana'' team felt the development of ''Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3'' was stealing resources and staff. Then, they tried to move from the old ''[[Quake (series)|Quake]]'' engine to the ''[[Quake II]]'' one, a process [[Porting Disaster|much more complicated and time-consuming]] than they thought. During the development of the game, the staff changed completely three times and the game ended up [[Vaporware|delayed]] so much that when it came out, it was already outdated. The resulting product ended up being a complete bust and pretty much [[Creator Killer|ended the fame and career]] of the then-fledging [[John Romero]].
-* Similar issues came up as some of the reasons behind ''[[Duke Nukem Forever]]'''s infamous development, and instead of ruining a single man's career, the issues demolished DNF's development staff. The fourteen-year development hell that ensued was due to switching engines, 3D Realms founder George Broussard publicly insulting DNF's publisher, tons of changes beyond engine switches that would necessitate restarting the entire project, and more. DNF is truly spectacular, in that its production was so troubled that the staff ''had nothing worth publicly showing aside from a couple of screenshots''. In the end, Gearbox Software took over production, and suddenly revealed the game ''[[Saved From Development Hell|would]]'' come out. Gearbox took the code and levels that 3D Realms had "finished"—which were largely conceptual and unrelated—and, in one year, completed the project that 3D Realms couldn't in fourteen.
-* ''Tattoo Assassins'', Data East's (specifically, developed by the US-based Data East Pinball, now known as Stern Pinball) ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' [[Follow the Leader|clone]] is definitely this. [http://www.bunnyears.net/tattoo/ This site] very much tells the story behind the troubled development of the game.
-* ''[[Jurassic Park]]: [[Trespasser]]'': As explained in an [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3339/postmortem_dreamworks_.php online feature] or [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6A3SaRr26M this video] about this [[Obvious Beta|infamous botched]] 1996 FPS, ''Trespasser'' had a host of design and logistical problems that caused its design team to severely scale it back from their initial goals. An ambitious plan to have friendly and hostile dinosaurs that reacted to you through a groundbreaking AI system was largely abandoned because the creatures couldn't decide what mood to pick (the AI was set to maximum hostility as a quick fix). The melee weapons didn't work (so they had all their mass removed, making almost all of them useless), textures were largely scaled back because of compatibility issues and there were serious issues with the game's physics system. A botched licensing deal (they couldn't use [[John Williams]] iconic music in the game, so they had to create their own), mismanagement between the game's design team, and a continuously-delayed release caused the game to be dead on arrival, and it was quickly forgotten.
-* ''[[Metroid Prime]]''. Not counting that producer [[Shigeru Miyamoto]] asked to throw out basically everything during early stages, at a certain point, the Japanese crew was spending most of their year in America overseeing the game and Retro's staff was pulling all-nighters, working 80–100 hours a week neglecting family and [[G-Rated Drug|nourishing on atomic fireball candy]] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20090826172429/http://wii.ign.com/articles/101/1016511p4.html a total of 72 gallons of them among the staff]).
-** Which is just about ''[[Values Dissonance|normal]]'' [[Values Dissonance|schedule for the Japanese developers]].
-* ''[[Splinter Cell]]: Conviction'': It took almost four years from the time the game was announced (via an internal leak of images from the game in mid-2006) to its release because of several major gameplay shifts, including a halfway-finished product that was essentially thrown out midway through production. The original game, helmed by Ubisoft Montreal, featured Sam Fisher (now on the run from Third Echelon) as some type of homeless drifter sporting a beard, hoodie and makeshift weapons and devices, and the gameplay was intended to be a sandbox-type shooter where Sam would investigate various locales to get information (and memories) about his daughter. The game was seen as a serious departure from the franchise, and Ubisoft canned it midway through development over negative fan reaction and claims that its gameplay was too similar to the original ''[[Assassin's Creed]]''. Several features were unceremoniously thrown out (including several abilities that enabled Sam to blend into his environment, move objects around and fight hand-to-hand against enemies), and the game's entire structure was revamped. ''Conviction'' would eventually be released in early 2010.
-* ''[[Gex]]'', as discussed by one of the programmer [http://games.greggman.com/game/gex/ here]. The development team was inexperienced, overworked to the point of doing 12 to 16 hours a day, understaffed and rushed to finish the game for Christmas. A lot of content was cut due to time and manpower constraints, and the Lead Designer was fired after hiding an insulting message that included an employee's actual phone number.
-* The infamous ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game)|E.T. The Extraterrestrial]]'' for the [[Atari 2600]], which was so [[Christmas Rushed|rushed]] that it ended up to be made just in six weeks. Considering that it was made basically by a single person, Howard Scott Warsaw, and that programming for 2600 was notoriously idiosyncratic, it's actually a minor miracle that the game is playable at all. The game was enormously hyped by the Atari's marketing department, so when it turned out to be [[So Okay It's Average]], the failed hopes of the gamers led it to be an enormous flop and to its (somewhat undeserved) reputation of both being So Bad It's Horrible and almost singlehandedly causing [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983]].
-** Nevertheless, it did lead to the [[wikipedia:Atari video game burial|story that Atari secretly buried literally tons of unsold cartridges in a secure New Mexico landfill]], considered for decades an urban legend until the actual burial site was discovered in 2015.
-* Atari's home port of ''[[Pac-Man]]'' was supposedly the demo version, made with great difficulty over six weeks due to the differences in underlying hardware. When the developer showed it to the suits, they said "OK, we're shipping this." It did well on the strength of the title but took a pounding in the media.
-* The [[Sega Saturn]] game ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic X-Treme]]'' is perhaps the most tragic example of all, as unlike the other examples here, the game was never finished. The problems started when the design team decided to use the ''[[NiGHTS Into Dreams|NIGHTS]]'' engine for the game, but Yuji Naka would have none of it and forbade them from using the engine, setting the developers back several weeks, then the publishers decided that they wanted to use the engine in the boss battles for the whole game, causing further delays, Chris Senn ended up doing most of the work himself, tirelessly working 20 hours a day until doctors told him he had 6 months to live, he then realized that there was no chance of finishing the game before the holiday season, so there was no choice but to pull the plug on the game.
-* ''[[L.A. Noire]]'' completely destroyed Team Bondi due to the lead designer having [http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/117/1179020p1.html serious rage issues] and treating it like his [[Magnum Opus]]. In order to get the game back on budget, they hired and chewed up nearly every budding game programmer and artist in Sydney and they were so hostile that publisher Rockstar publicly swore off ever working with them again.
-* [http://hardcoregaming101.net/lastactionhero/lastactionhero.htm Two] [http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/last-action-hero developers] claims this happened to the infamous ''[[Last Action Hero]]'' licensed game. After the planning stage, word from a lawyer came that Arnold Schwarzenegger did not want to be "associated with violence" due to his then-recent involvement in family-friendly comedies, and that the game could not feature him using firearms, completely ruining the original concept. This lead to the game being hastily retooled as the deadline was fixed with no chance for extension. Communications with the legal department was exceptionally slow, leading to the developers being clueless on even basic questions such as whether or not Arnold's character could punch, and the development of the PC version was ground to an halt after the graphic artist refused to do work because of an unrelated payment issue with the publisher.
-* The [[Sega Saturn]] game for ''[[Magic Knight Rayearth]]'' was initially listed as one of the first games for the system. It didn't show up until ''six months'' after support for the system came to an end. What caused this game from [[Working Designs]] to fall this far down? Numerous problems, including:
-** The usual need to translate and dub the voice bits from Japanese to English.
-** The computer holding the data for the game crashing, forcing them to rebuild pieces of it.
-** A fight between WD and Sega over what to name the main heroines (Sega had realized ''Rayearth'' was a good enough series to franchise to the States. However, as it was common at the time, they wanted to give them English names. Both Sega and WD had different names for the girls before they both threw their arms into the air and left them Hikaru, Umi and Fuu.)
-** And after it was all done, hen Sega head honcho Bernie Stolar's draconian policy against third party developers kicked in, leaving them high and dry until the Saturn was dead in the water.
-* The development of the partially crowdfunded ''Star Citizen'' project (which Chris Roberts of ''[[Wing Commander]]'' fame is closely involved in) is among the most contested in recent years, with all sorts of drama and controversy surrounding it ([[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|and that's about as neutral as one can say about it]]). Whichever camp one is regarding the matter however, time will tell what the final results will bring.
-** [https://attackofthefanboy.com/news/star-citizen-backers-no-longer-able-to-get-refunds/ Game] ''[https://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-musings/ Over]''. The project suffered the most ludicrous mission creep possible. Then they stopped publishing its status, but changed ToS so that there will no refunds any more. After that, you can as well throw money into a wishing well.
-* ''Vendetta: Curse of Raven's Cry'' (formerly known simply as ''Raven's Cry'') encountered several troubles over its years-long [[Development Hell]], including being shuffled among various developers and publishers over its production. By the time it was finally released in 2015, it was rife with bugs and [[Obvious Beta|unpolished if not incomplete content]], which its [[Updated Rerelease]] that same year ''[[They Just Didn't Care|never ever corrects]].''
-=== Web Original ===
-* ''Every'' [[That Guy With The Glasses]] anniversary [[Massive Multiplayer Crossover]]s. ''Every one of them''. The extent on ''how'' troubled they actually were was only known during the downfall of the revelations in the famous "Not So Awesome" document created by ex-members of Channel Awesome, and it could be resumed in two tropes: [[No OSHA Compliance]] and [[Pointy-Haired Boss]].
-** The ''First Anniversary Brawl'' didn't really have any true filming troubles, but the camaraderie that it would be shown in later collaborations hadn't been developed yet, and it shows. More notorious were the behind the scenes troubles: as some collaborators later told, the ambient was quite toxic, mostly because a member of the group (implied to be That Aussie Guy, who would later abandon the site and got [[Unperson]]ed) spread untrue rumors about the sexual life of Lindsay Ellis/[[The Nostalgia Chick]].
-** ''[[Kickassia]]''. Almost everyone involved was injured somehow, the worst being cameraman Rob Walker getting a nasty leg injury on the first day, but he was still quite a [[Determinator]] as he kept cramming himself into tight places and waiting until filming was over to seek any medical attention. Also, [[Lord Kat]] twisted both his ankles, which forced his role to be severely reduced, and the extremely tight four day filming schedule meant that the climax had to be significantly trimmed down, with scenes like [[Noah Antwiler|Spoony]] revealing himself to still be Insano never being filmed.  Doug Walker was basically a [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All]] on filming issues, with him having to be informed by both Ellis and Antwiler that when you are filming in Nevada's desert you have to provide food and water to ''all'' the staff, a thing every filming student knows but the Walkers apparently ignored.
-** ''[[Suburban Knights]]'' was even worse, with [[Exposed to the Elements|the weather causing so many problems]] that [[Doug Walker]] was fully prepared to scrap the whole thing, until everyone banded together and convinced him they were willing to get the film done whatever it took. Injures were still an issue as in ''Kickassia'', with [[Bennett the Sage]], Iron Liz and Orlando having stunt injuries; meanwhile, Elisa of Team [[The Nostalgia Chick|NChick]] was duct taped to a wall, was left alone a bit too long and got overheated. Somehow this got interpreted as that she was "crucified upside-down", and when news came of this before the premiere of the special, one of the site's biggest critics used this info to try and ruin TGWTG. While at the time this denounce went nowhere, after later revelations (like how Iron Liz was denied ice for her injuries until she signed a contract absolving TGWTG of responsibility on it, and then was roped into being production assistant and driver without credit nor compensation) it would be yield as yet another proof of the rampant disregard for the well-being of the contributors by the directive.
-** ''[[To Boldly Flee]]'', the Year 4 special, was so troubled and the production was so horrible, whatever camaraderie was remaining between producers ended then and there. To begin with , it had a ''very'' rushed and constrained scheduled (about a week to film enough content for a three hours film), during which Doug Walker was in a yet another depressive mood and got very emotional on his scenes. Because of that, injuries went up rampant. Many contributors were forced to cover the costs of their own costuming and props, and in some cases, like with [[MarzGurl]], the directives tried to directly force them to hand them to the company if they wanted compensation (she prefer to conserve it, at a personal loss). Oh, and the reason Walker was so emotional on his scenes? It was because he was using the film as a send-off of his [[Nostalgia Critic]] character, a thing he didn't bother to inform the other reviewers ''until he handed them the script mere days before the filming''. Given that, at the time, the Nostalgia Critic was the main drawn to the site and the contributors were more or less unable/prohibited to built their audience elsewhere, they were comprehensively apprehensive. There was also an infight between Walker, Ellis, and [[Atop the Fourth Wall (Web Video)|Lewis Lovhaug]] on the scene of Nostalgia Chick being assimilated by Mechakara being written as [[Unfortunate Implications|a very long and very uncomfortable]] [[Rape As Comedy|rape joke]], with the latter two considering it distasteful and OOC respectively (in the final film the scene remains in a toned down form). The hostility only increased when [[Dark Maze Studios|Ed Glaser]] tried to point a blatant violation of basic filming and was disproportionately chew off in response, and whenever the contributors tried to point continuity errors or failure in the camera work, Rob Walkers only answered "Well, [[Plot Hole]]" (as in the [[McGuffin]] of the film). In top of the production being insanely troubled, the ''post-production'' was even more so, with the special effects insertion and edition taking more time than expected (mainly due to the contradictory specs and direction Phelous, the only one remaining to do them, kept receiving), and then the servers refusing to upload the files, having to show the episodes each two days instead of daily as originally announced.  Retrospectively speaking, the mismanagement of this production marked the point of no return for the company, as most of the worse incidents denounced in the Not So Awesome document happened during this production or were consequence of those.
-** Because of all of the above troubles, for the fifth anniversary it was decided that they would instead do an [[Anthology]] project. The resultant effort was ''[[The Uncanny Valley]]'', where the individual pieces had little production troubles by themselves. Behind the scenes, the directive demanded to the contributors to hand shorts with only "exposure" as the payment,; naturally, most of them refused, and the ones who complied were the British team, who at the time were the least popular of the site. In front of the public, the only problems were that some segments were uploaded sightly late, and the perception that [[Welshy]]'s contribution, a mini-documentary called "The Dark Side of Internet" about [[Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things]] because of [[Loony Fan|over-possessive fans]] [[troll]]ing and stalking creators, was [[Roman a Clef|obviously inspired]] by his dealing with his [[Fan Dumb]] and the subsequent burnout he experienced, not helped by him leaving Internet for a while after its release. This anthology was the last site-wide anniversary special since then.
-** And then, when the site was beginning to do plans for another [[Massive Multiplayer Crossover]] in celebration of its 10th anniversary, the scandal known as [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/channel-awesome-implosion-changethechannel the Channel Awesome Implosion] happened, where former and then current contributors began to speak and compare stories on their mistreatment on hands of the directives of the company, culminating on the revelation that some directives and at least one contributor were guilty of sexual abuse and subsequently covered up. This was the last straw for most of the contributors, who jumped ship like peasants fleeing the Black Plague.
-* On a smaller scale, the big crossover review between [[The Nostalgia Critic]], [[The Spoony Experiment|Spoony]] and [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] for ''[[Alone in the Dark]]''. To begin with, Doug Walker had lost his voice the day before Spoony and Linkara arrived in Chicago (hence the use of [[Synthetic Voice Actor|text-to-speech]]). Secondly, construction work was being done outside Doug's house, so they had to film the review in Doug's basement. In addition, they didn't decide which [[Uwe Boll]] movie to review until the day they started writing. Spoony gives the scoop [https://web.archive.org/web/20130815202216/http://spoonyexperiment.com/2009/09/10/alone-in-the-dark-noahs-commentary/ here].
-=== Western Animation ===
-* The 90's [[Incredible Hulk]] [[Animated Adaptation]] is this [http://marvel.toonzone.net/hulk/interviews/sebast/ according to the original producer.]
-* [[Disney]] and [[Pixar]] have had several of these:
-** The very first ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'' was subject to constant [[Executive Meddling]], pushing to make it [[Darker and Edgier|more adult and cynical]]. When a preview cut was declared unwatchable, production was shut down for two weeks, while Lasseter and the others basically rewrote the entire movie.
-** ''[[The Emperor's New Groove|The Emperors New Groove]]'' started as ''Kingdom of the Sun'', a [[Prince and Pauper]] epic directed by ''[[The Lion King]]'''s co-director Roger Allers. Since the writers weren't very successful in adding original material and test audiences weren't reacting well, another director, Mark Dindal, was hired to see if things evolved. As [[Animation Lead Time|the deadline got closer]] and Allers and Dindal were basically working at two movies simultaneously (the former with a drama, and the latter with a comedy), the higher-ups intervened and Allers quit. After a six-month interval where Dindal and some writers reworked the movie, the film became the screwball comedy that eventually saw the light of day. It was all documented in ''The Sweatbox'', a film shot by Trudie Styler (as her husband Sting wrote songs for the movie) that Disney makes sure that never gets released.
-** ''[[Ratatouille]]'' was originally developed in 2001 by Jan Pinkava, but Pixar lost faith in Pinkava and ultimately replaced him with [[Brad Bird]].
-** ''[[Bolt]]'' suffered from this in spades. The film was originally helmed by ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]'' director Chris Sanders, who wanted to make another quirky animated family film. To that end, he envisioned ''American Dog'', which followed a popular television star dog named Henry who (after being knocked out and waking up on a train to Nevada) enlists the help of two other talking animals, including a cat and oversized bunny rabbit, to drive him back home (while believing he's still in a television show). The film went through several different cuts (and suggestions from [[Pixar Regulars|John Lasseter and other Pixar directors]] on how to improve the film), but Sanders reportedly rejected all of the changes. Lasseter then fired Sanders from the project, and the film was drastically reworked (under a constrained timeframe) into the final product. Tellingly, ''American Dog'' is not mentioned anywhere on the film's DVD features, and only receives a passing reference in the making-of book ''The Art of Bolt''.
-* The film version of ''[[Astro Boy]]'' managed to go through no less than three different directors, several different writers and a budget that spiraled out of control due to constant production delays. The bottom fell out when the film's production company went bankrupt a few months before opening. The final product manages to show the chaotic production with its unevenness and lack of direction in terms of plot.
-* ''Family Dog'', a [[Steven Spielberg]] produced animated spin-off of ''[[Amazing Stories (TV series)|Amazing Stories]]'' didn't debut until 1992 seven years after the original "Family Dog" episode of Amazing Stories had aired. Only five episodes of the finished product aired.
-* The CGI filim ''Foodfight'', a production of Threshold Entertainment and directed by Lawrence Kasanoff<ref>The producer of, among others, ''[[Mortal Kombat: Annihilation]]''.</ref>, is a peculiar case in which its [[Troubled Production]] is more fascinating than the movie itself. Originally slated for a Christmas 2003 release and reaching a budget of $45 Million, it faced several setbacks and issues, forcing the studio to constantly postpone the film's release.<ref>In fact, the original animation files even went missing in what's claimed to be an act of "corporate espionage."</ref> The movie eventually did see a mainly [[Direct to DVD]] release in 2012, the final product being an utter trainwreck to the surprise of no one.
-* ''The Emoji Movie'', a CGI film released in 2017, is a peculiar case as its production coincided with, though not directly responsible for the cancellation of [[Genndy Tartakovsky]]'s planned ''[[Popeye]]'' movie, itself a victim of [[Executive Meddling]] prior to its end. The film in question, already one of the worst animated movies of the year upon release, has also gained notoriety for being a virtual "perfect storm" example of [[Executive Meddling|poor and shoddy corporate decision making]]. This is complete with rushed development and its own share of controversy prior to its release, be it questionable marketing or excessively politicized PR. To say nothing of the scorn heaped upon it even before the movie was finished.
-== Fictional ==
-=== Advertising ===
-* A 2011 commercial for the Citi card is told from the perspective of a makeup artist working on a film. This trope seems to be in play if the lead's cell phone going off, rain delay, and demand for a bigger explosion are any indication.
-{{quote|''I thought we'd be on location for three days. It's been three weeks.''}}
-=== Anime ===
-*  ''[[Paranoia Agent]]'': the production of an anime series is increasingly troubled by [[Executive Meddling]], staff infighting, deadlines approaching, supernatural bad vibes everywhere, and the sociopath killing everybody related to the production.
-* The school film directed by [[Haruhi Suzumiya]]. Among the things going wrong are a cast of amateur school kids doubling as  equally inexperienced filming staff, the main actress developing eye powers, doves changing colors, a cat gaining sentience and speech, and Haruhi taking her usual self to higher levers of jerkassery. That they had an actual video at the end of such a disaster of a filming to exhibit at the school festival was a little miracle by itself.
-=== Film ===
-* ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'' parodies this phenomenon, with specific jabs at ''[[Apocalypse Now]]''.
-* A fictional example can be found in [[Werner Herzog]]'s ''Incident at Loch Ness''. To give any details would be ruining it.
-** As the folder for real examples above shows, it is inspired by Herzog's actual career.
-* ''Living In Oblivion'' is a nineties independent flick in which [[Steve Buscemi]] plays the role of a director in a nineties independent flick where everything goes wrong. The movie itself is supposedly based on the director's experience while working on a [[Brad Pitt]] movie called ''[[Johnny Suede]]''.
-* The film within the film for ''[[Singin' in the Rain|Singin in The Rain]]'' (''The Dueling Cavalier'') experienced severe troubled production due to the transition from silent to talkie pictures; the crew was too inexperienced to realize that every sound could be recorded and the actors were unable to adjust to the idea of speaking into microphones, leading the film to be laughed off by audiences at its first screening. This lead to the film being retooled into a campy musical called ''The Dancing Cavalier'' and a complete dub of the female lead's voice.
-* At one point in ''[[Walk Hard]]'', Dewey Cox (under the influence of a number of drugs) attempts to create his bizarre masterpiece "Black Sheep" (a clear parody of the above mentioned Brian Wilson song "Smile"), which leads to [[The Fellowship Has Ended|the band and his wife to break up with him]] and [[Creator Breakdown|his inevitable drug fueled rampage through the city in nothing but his underwear]].
-{{quote|''I need ten thousand didgeridoos!''}}
-* ''[[Shadow of the Vampire]]'' fictionalizes the production of ''[[Nosferatu]]'' highlighting the disagreements between stars and producers, director and crew, and an actual vampire.
-* ''Irreconcilable Differences'' is mainly about young [[Drew Barrymore]] divorcing her parents, but the best parts involve Ryan O'Neal's hilariously overblown ''[[Gone with the Wind]]'' clone spinning out of control.
-* The film-within-a-film of ''[[Scream (film)|Scream]] 3'', based on the 'real-life' Woodsboro murders, is quickly shut down when Ghostface starts targetting the cast.
-=== Literature ===
-* "Coppola's Dracula" by [[Kim Newman]], which is basically ''Hearts Of Darkness … [[Recycled in Space|In]] "[[Anno Dracula]]" [[Recycled in Space|Transylvania!]]''
-* Patrick Quentin's ''Puzzle for players'' consists entirely of this. At one point, the desperate Broadway producer explicitly [[Lampshade Hanging|writes down a list]] of "13 reasons why [[Meaningful Name|''Troubled Waters'']] cannot possibly see the light of day".
-=== Live Action TV ===
-* ''[[Slings and Arrows]]'' has one of these every year. {{spoiler|The first two turn out well; the third one ends with the lead actor dying and everyone else involved in the production being fired}}.
-* Part one of the ''[[Young Indiana Jones]]'' movie ''The Hollywood Follies'' revolves around Indy engaging in a battle of wits with [[Real Life]] primadonna director Erich von Stroheim over ''Foolish Wives''.
-* Pretty much any of Vincent Chase's movies on ''[[Entourage]]'' (''Smokejumpers'', ''Aquaman'', ''Medellin''... pretty much all except ''Gatsby'') fall victim to this trope.
-* The ''[[Community]]'' episode "[[Community/Recap/S3/E08 Documentary Filmmaking Redux|Documentary Filmmaking: Redux]]" depicts the Dean trying to film a 30-second ad for the college and slowly driving himself and all the other characters to madness. The episode is shot as Abed's documentary, which explicitly described as the ''Hearts of Darkness'' to the Dean's ''Apocalypse Now''.
-=== Theater ===
-* ''[[The Producers]]'', when they weren't troubling their own production, were overjoyed with the 'bad luck' that struck it, until the worst disaster: audiences loved "[[Springtime for Hitler]]".
-* The play being performed in ''[[Curtains]]!'' is one big screwed-up mess, thanks to a lot of back-stage drama, an entire number being badly-choreographed, the lead actress giving a terrible performance, and a whole lot of murders happening. Fortunately, the detective investigating said murders is a [[Promoted Fanboy]] who puts just as much time into improving the quality of the play.
-=== Video Games ===
-* In ''[[Fallout 4]]'', you discover that [[Meaningful Name|Hubris Comics]] was trying to make the Silver Shroud radio serials into a successful TV show. Unfortunately, it was rife with infighting, drama, and backroom passions - which proved to be all for naught as the nuclear apocalypse put said show and its creators off the air permanently.
-=== Web Original ===
-* The [[Stylistic Suck|crappy]] student film ''[[Marble Hornets]]'' was called off due to "unworkable conditions," with the director getting increasingly hysterical and paranoid. Later analysis would reveal that in this case, "unworkable conditions" means "driven to near-insanity by the constant presence of a [[Uncanny Valley|creepy]] [[Humanoid Abomination|guy]] [[The Blank|with no face]]."
-=== Western Animation ===
-* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' while filming the Radioactive Man movie.
-* The ''[[Animaniacs]]'' episode "Hearts of Twilight", yet another ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' spoof.
-* ''[[Metalocalypse]]'': Every single in-universe album during the show's run. The first is done underwater in an attempt to sound as "analog" as possible, deafening the producer. But the biggest example of this trope is the second album: the band procrastinated big time getting it out, causing mass panic. When they finally got to it, Nathan demanded to perform in a suit of armor that made recording difficult, Pickles was starved while everyone else ate, Toki and Murderface produced their own song which, due to how bizarre it was, failed to even make it on the album and to top it all off, Guitarist Skwisgaar Skwigelf was forced by feedback to do his guitar parts skydiving, and thanks to Toki deleting the parts, they did it twice.
-* An episode of ''[[What's New, Scooby-Doo?]]'' revolved around director Vincent Wong's attempt to make a re-make of a cheesy spy movie ''Spy Me A River''. Besides the [[The Prima Donna|lead actor]] quitting halfway through, no one reading the script, Mystery Inc. being used as stunt doubles, and a [[Classically-Trained Extra]] with [[The Starscream|eyes on the lead role]], the production was haunted by the Faceless Phantom  {{spoiler|who turned out to be the director who wanted to sabotage the film after realising how awful it was}}.
-* The Wacky Deli episode of ''[[Rocko's Modern Life]]'', in addition to being a parodic take on the creation of an animated show, has the titular show being one complete mess from beginning to end.
 {{reflist}}
+[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
+[[Category:Creator Speak]]
+[[Category:Creator Standpoint Index]]
 [[Category:Real Life Writes the Plot]]
 [[Category:Trivia Trope]]
-[[Category:Creator Standpoint Index]]
-[[Category:Creator Speak]]
-[[Category:Troubled Production]]