Most movies are relatively easy to make, safe studio lots are transformed, and actors and crew are well looked after, but sometimes the elements to combine to create a perfect storm of delays and disasters.
The Oscar-winning cult Vietnam war epic Apocalypse Now! was famously shot in conditions which, at the time, were deemed incredibly challenging. 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of its original release, and on 16th September 2019, STUDIOCANAL will release brand new 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray editions with new artworks and including exclusive new bonus material plus the Hearts of Darkness documentary.
To mark the release, we take a look back at some of the most difficult film shoots in movie history.
TITANIC, James Cameron (1997)
Titanic may have won 11 Academy Awards and ultimately become one of the highest-grossing films in history, however, during production, this story of the biggest passenger-ship disaster in history seemed destined to be the biggest movie disaster in Hollywood history.
With a budget reportedly already out of control before shooting even began, logistical nightmares and massive set pieces to tackle, the grueling shoot in Baja, Mexico was always going to be an epic undertaking, but director James Cameron’s perfectionism and refusal to compromise almost sank the film before it was finished. His alleged famous temper often flared up on the stressful shoot, putting him at odds with his crew and studio execs; the shooting often started in the middle of the night, which continued for months on end; Kate Winslet came down with pneumonia after spending days on end submerged in water and reportedly nearly quit the production; and shooting was also delayed when other cast members came down with colds and kidney infections. To top it all, on the last night of filming, the cast and crew became the victims of a vicious prank. Someone, perhaps a disgruntled crew member, decided it was a good idea to spike the soup that everyone was eating with a hallucinogen – over 80 people got sick and more than 50 were hospitalized with hallucinations. Luckily for all involved, unlike the actual ship, Titanic was unsinkable at the box office.
THE REVENANT, Alejandro G. Iñárritu (2015)
Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio would again get himself in cold water when he signed on to star in director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant. His attempts to finally win an Academy Award saw the actor get in and out of frozen rivers, eat raw bison liver and sleep inside a dead horse carcass. The locations were remote and Iñárritu insisted on using only natural light, so the production dragged on and on (doubling the budget).
Many crew members found the conditions too difficult and quit, or were fired by. In the end, after suffering through the miserable freezing temperatures on the Alberta, Canada set, DiCaprio got his Oscar statuette.
FITZCARRALDO, Werner Herzog (1982)
One of the most famously (or infamously) difficult productions in film history, Fitzcarraldo was Werner Herzog’s ambitious, slightly insane story of real-life rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarraldo. In Peru, Carlos transported a disassembled steamboat over a 500-metre hill to reach a rich rubber territory in the Amazon Basin. When Herzog came to recreate this feat on film, instead of using special effects, he insisted the crew and 700 extras tug a real 320-ton steamship up and over the hill.
Almost everything involved with the production was needlessly complicated, there were various injuries (including one man who was bitten by a poisonous snake and had to cut his own foot off to staunch the venom), dysentery and bad behaviour from the leading man, the legendarily difficult Klaus Kinski. Mick Jagger, who had been cast in a supporting role, quit the production which meant that Herzog had to start the film again from scratch.
THE WIZARD OF OZ, Victor Fleming (1939)
It is difficult to imagine that one of the most treasured and beloved technicolor fantasy adventures would have had such a tortuous production but Dorothy’s journey to Emerald City was chaotic to say the least. Fleming was ultimately credited as the director, but five other directors came and went during the production, not to mention the numerous writers. The original tin man (Buddy Ebsen) was hospitalized because his aluminum powder make-up had coated his lungs and he had to convalesce in an iron lung; his replacement (Jack Haley) then suffered an eye infection; Toto was apparently a pain to work with, and it took more than 12 takes to get the dog to follow the gang down the Yellow Brick Road; Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch) suffered severe burns to her hands and face when her make-up caught on fire; and the actors who portrayed the flying monkeys suffered a pretty serious fall when the winch keeping them afloat snapped, and they plummeted to the ground.
APOCALYPSE NOW, Francis Ford Coppola (1979)
The final result is widely regarded as a masterpiece but Eleanor Coppola’s documentary on the making of Apocalypse Now! ‘Hearts Of Darkness’ allows us to witness all the ill-advised decisions, terrible turns of fortune and bad behaviour that have cemented its reputation as probably the most difficult film shoot in history.
The Philippines stood in for war-torn Vietnam and filming was supposed to take five months but ended up taking over a year. During that time a typhoon wrecked the set, the script was rewritten over and over and leading man Harvey Keitel had to be fired and replaced with Martin Sheen who had both a heart attack and a nervous breakdown while filming. When Marlon Brando arrived on set, he was severely overweight and couldn’t remember his lines. Add to that the heat, the humidity, and Dennis Hopper and the result was a ‘horror’ of a production.
Having ploughed millions of his own money into the production, Coppola would go on to battle further issues in post-production, but Apocalypse Now! went on to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and notched eight Oscar nominations and two wins for Best Cinematography and Best Sound.
APOCALYPSE NOW: FINAL CUT RELEASES ON 4K ULTRA HD & BLU-RAY EDITION ON SEPTEMBER 16.
