Making movies is hard. Pulling together a multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster requires organizing hundreds of people, managing a budget, and dealing with some very big egos.
Major productions generally lean on the experience of their crew to keep things running smoothly. But sometimes shoots have to deal with situations so extreme they threaten to stop the entire project dead in its tracks.
So, here are seven times major movies stared disaster in the face, but somehow pulled it back and ended up with a hit.
Jaws – “I was naive about the ocean”
The 26-year-old Steven Spielberg knew Jaws was a chance to make his name in Hollywood. Wanting to make the action as realistic as possible he chose to shoot much of the movie on the open ocean rather than in a studio tank.
This decision resulted in a nightmare production, with the cast and crew having to deal with the prop sharks repeatedly malfunctioning, the Orca boat almost sinking with the cast inside, the screenwriter nearly being decapitated by a propellor, and Richard Dreyfuss getting trapped underwater in a shark cage.
Principal photography was first planned for 55 days but eventually took 159, with Spielberg suffering panic attacks and later saying “I thought my career as a filmmaker was over.”
But Jaws was an instant hit and (adjusted for inflation) has made $1.3 billion dollars. That said, when it came time to shoot Jaws 2 Spielberg couldn’t face returning to the ocean. In a 2016 interview with EW, he said he would return to the Orca boat used in the movie:
“I used to come out [onto the water] for a couple of years after I made the movie to get over my PTSD. I … would just sit in that boat alone for hours. I would shake, My hands would shake.”
Toy Story 2 – “Oh my god. Unplug the machine”
A movie realized entirely in computers may not have to deal with extreme environments, but that doesn’t mean that calamity isn’t far away. In 1998 an unnamed Pixar employee was doing some routine file clearance and entered the command “/bin/rm -r -f *” on Toy Story 2‘s root folder.
This promptly began scrubbing every single file related to the project from the Pixar computers, with animators and artists quickly realizing their work was being deleted. By the time they yanked the cable out 90% of the last two years of work was gone, and to rub salt into the wound they then discovered the backups weren’t working. The movie was saved thanks to maternity leave, with technical director Galyn Susman working from home in order to take care of her new baby. She had a backup copy on her computer, and this was very carefully transported to Pixar HQ where 90% of the movie was restored.
Ultimately the film was reworked from that point, but even so, it stands as a sobering reminder to be sure anything important is backed up!
Waterworld – “It was starting to balloon into a disaster”
When director Kevin Reynolds began planning Waterworld, Steven Spielberg advised him:
“Do not shoot on water! ”
They decided to shoot on water. After all, what would the guy who made Jaws know about it? Work began in the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii, with sets being constructed at sea. It was all going to plan, right up until a hurricane sent the expensive scenery to the ocean floor.
The trimaran used by Kevin Costner’s character proved especially dangerous and nearly killed the three lead actors, a stunt coordinator suffered near-deadly decompression sickness, Costner’s stunt double almost drowned, and (after three more hurricanes) the budget ballooned.
Waterworld wasn’t a flop and isn’t necessarily a bad movie, but was it worth all that danger? Probably not.
The Passion of the Christ – “People started screaming”
When making a religious movie like Passion of the Christ you probably want to keep an eye out for bad omens, so it’s a little eyebrow-raising that during production star Jim Caveziel was struck by lightning while shooting the “Sermon on the Mount” scene and suffered major injuries.
In an interview, Caveziel said:
“About four seconds before it happened it was quiet, and then it was like someone slapped my ears. I had seven or eight seconds of, like, a pink, fuzzy colour, and people started screaming. They said I had fire on the left side of my head and light around my body.”
He later revealed this incident “nearly killed me”:
“Not many people get struck by lightning; I did. Five and a half months of cold. I had to have two heart surgeries, including open-heart surgery, because of that film.”
This wasn’t even the first time this happened to someone working on the film, with assistant director Jan Michelini being struck by lightning while holding an umbrella, though walked away with light burns to his fingers.
Passion of the Christ 2 is apparently coming. Maybe Mel Gibson should take the hints being sent down from above that this isn’t such a great idea.
Titanic – “You haven’t lived until you’ve been high on PCP”
During production, future megahit Titanic was regularly reported on as an impending cinematic disaster. But for once the most eye-catching disaster didn’t involve the ocean, but a delicious pot of seafood chowder.
Unfortunately for everyone that ate it, someone had spiked it with PCP. Actor Lewis Abernethy reported that soon after eating it “there were people just rolling around, completely out of it. Some of them said they were seeing streaks and psychedelics” and Bill Paxton said “some people were laughing, some people were crying, some people were throwing up.”
Cameron himself rushed to his hotel room and forced himself to throw up, but still suffered the effects. Abernethy said:
“Jim was being loaded into the back of this van. One eye was completely red, like the Terminator eye – a pupil, no iris, beet red. The other eye looked like he’d been sniffing glue since he was four.”
The culprit was never identified, though Cameron later said “we have a pretty strong suspicion who it was” and added “you haven’t lived until you’ve been high on PCP, which by the way, I do not recommend to anyone.”
The Crow – “Nobody ever gets hurt doin’ that stuff”
The Crow was already considered to be a cursed shoot by the cast and crew before that fateful scene was shot. A carpenter had nearly been electrocuted, a crew member pierced his hand with a screwdriver and an angry sculptor drove his car through the studio backlot.
But all that pales in comparison next to the nightmare of March 31, 1993. Star Brandon Lee had almost completed the shoot, with one late scene having him shot by Michael Massie’s character with a .44 caliber revolver. The scene appeared to go as planned, save for Lee falling forward rather than backward. He didn’t get up, and it soon became apparent something was very wrong. Lee was rushed to hospital, but later died after massive blood loss.
It transpired that a dummy bullet had lodged in the chamber and been propelled at Lee, hitting him in the stomach and severing two arteries. After a break to process the incident, the film was completed, with Lee’s stunt double Chad Stahelski (who would later direct the John Wick movies) used as a stand-in for him.
During production one of Lee’s friends had asked him if being shot at on film was dangerous. Lee replied:
“No, man. Nobody ever gets hurt doin’ that stuff. They’ve worked it out.”
Apocalypse Now – “Wait till he hears about the dead bodies”
The stories about the chaotic making of Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now in the Philippines are legendary, involving heavy drug use, mental breakdowns, colossal egos and tropical illnesses. But perhaps the most bizarre moment almost saw the crew hauled off to prison.
A temple scene was strewn with garbage and smelt terrible, with complaints about dead rats stinking up the place. One prop guy heard this complaint and quietly muttered “wait till he hears about the dead bodies”. Co-producer Gray Frederickson overheard the comment and yelled “What?!”.
He was promptly led to a tent at the prop store in which a row of corpses was laid out, ready to be hung upside-down in trees as props. A shocked Frederickson said: “You guys are nuts, where did these come from?! We’ve got to get rid of this immediately!”
The truth was even more bizarre. They were sourced from a man who claimed to supply bodies to medical schools, but who was actually a grave robber. The police arrived and confiscated passports suspecting the shoot may have killed people for the movie. Fortunately, the cops soon arrested the grave robber. And as for the bodies? Soldiers arrived to load them into a truck and said “We’ll dump them somewhere.” Oh, okay.