“The 21 Most Insane Movie Shoots”

TotalFilm.com with another movie list: “The 21 Most Insane Movie Shoots”. A few of them:

The Island Of Dr Moreau (1996)

The Movie: A dark, modern take on HG Wells’ classic sci-fi story.

The Madness: Val Kilmer — a handful at the best of times — was going through a divorce, and decided at the last moment he wanted his role to be 40% smaller. The script couldn’t be altered, so instead he swapped roles, handing his heroic part to the ill-fitting David Thewlis.

Original director Richard Stanley was fired days into shooting (Kilmer’s influence is suspected) and with the hiring of John Frankenheimer the script evaporated and was rewritten during production. After production Frankenheimer said there were two things he would never do: climb Mount Everest or work with Val Kilmer again.

Popeye (1980)

The Movie: Robert Altman’s live action musical version of the spinach-popping sailor stories.

The Madness: Huge amounts of money were spent building the fictional seaside town of Sweethaven in Malta, which took 165 workers seven months to complete and required the additional construction of a 250-foot breakwater to prevent it from flooding at high tide.

Rumour has it the delay-struck production was all but bankrupt by the end of filming, which explains the dreadful special effects during a scene in which Popeye punches an octopus.

Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)

The Movie: Herzog’s twisted adventure about a conquistador searching for El Dorado in South America.

The Madness: Herzog clashed violently with his star Klaus Kinski over the portrayal of Aguirre. Like, really violently.

At one point Kinski fired a gun at a hut where members of the crew were playing cards, shooting the top off one extra’s finger, while Herzog once found Kinski attempting to escape the production by boat and threatened to shot him unless he returned.

But the #1 most insane movie shoot has to be:

Apocalypse Now (1979)

The Movie: Coppola’s operatic, ‘Nam-set take on Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness.

The Madness: An insane tropical nightmare. Filming began on March 1, 1976 and, scheduled to last for five months, finished in May 1977.

In between Coppola fired original leading man Harvey Keitel, saw his sets destroyed by Typhoon Olga, had to re-write the film’s ending because Marlon Brando was too fat to play his intended version, and saw replacement leading man Martin Sheen suffer a heart attack.

The superb doc Hearts Of Darkness tells the whole sordid story.

For the entire list, go here.

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