Troubled Production: Difference between revisions

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

=== 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.

=== 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.


=== 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.


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[[Category:Creator Speak]]
[[Category:Creator Standpoint Index]]
[[Category:Real Life Writes the Plot]]
[[Category:Real Life Writes the Plot]]
[[Category:Trivia Trope]]
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[[Category:Creator Standpoint Index]]
[[Category:Creator Speak]]
[[Category:Troubled Production]]

Latest revision as of 16:35, 26 July 2021

"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: