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Getting any movie made is a minor miracle. While the finished film only takes anywhere from 90-120 minutes to enjoy, years of hard work went into making that become a reality.
It begins with the script, obviously, but production can be its own special nightmare, and then various decisions have to be made during post-production to put the film together just right. That’s not to mention the fact that, depending on how the film was produced or financed, you may have 5, 7, or 10 different people “in charge,” each demanding their own tweaks, adjustments, and changes.
So yeah, movie making is hard.
But some films are particularly challenging to put together, and their “making of” stories could result in compelling movies in and of themselves. Below, we go through nine different films that were notoriously difficult to get made. From fired actors to budget overruns to PCP doses (seriously), these nine films were really tough to create, but they all reached the finish line—for better or worse.
SEE ALSO: The 50 best movies of all time, according to critics
"Alien 3"
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Alien 3 was not only David Fincher’s first feature film, it’s also one of the most important films in his entire career. Fincher’s experience making Alien 3 colored how he approached his work from then onward, resulting in a confident attitude that allowed him to craft some truly groundbreaking films within the studio system while refusing to compromise his vision.
Fincher was not the first director on Alien 3. Vincent Ward, the filmmaker behind The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, was the original director attached. His story took place on a wood-centric planet populated by Luddite-like monks, where Ripley’s escape pod crash lands and she becomes the only woman in the monastery. Development began, sets were starting to be assembled, but when Fox executives asked Ward to make significant changes, he balked and left the movie.
So Walter Hill and David Giler were brought on to refine the script while Fincher was tasked with replacing Ward as the director. The basic outline of Ward’s story remained, but the wood planet was turned into an ore refinery and the monks were turned into prisoners. Filming began, but two weeks in cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth—Fincher’s closest ally on the production team—had to depart the project due to Parkinson’s disease, so he was replaced by Alex Thomson.
As production wore on, Fincher started butting heads with producers and studio executives more and more. Not only had he inhabited someone else’s film that had already left the station, but the script was never finished. The notoriously meticulous Fincher was trying to get his shots and craft his film while the script was simultaneously being written (and rewritten) and studio executives and producers were looking over his shoulder, trying to make the film more in line with the previous two Alien movies.
The battles continued into post-production, during which reshoots were ordered and arguments heatedly revolved around the ending. Fincher would oversee the editing, but when he left the room, the film’s editor would recall that producers and/or studio executives would come in and force him to undo or ignore Fincher’s instructions.
By the end of the project Fincher had little control left and all but disavowed the movie. The film was released to negative reviews and little fanfare, and years later Fincher would say, “No one hated it more than me; to this day, no one hates it more than me.”
"The Bourne Identity"
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The Bourne Identity is proof positive that difficulties during production, and even creative differences with the director, doesn’t always equal a bad movie. The spy thriller marked Go and Swingers filmmaker Doug Liman’s biggest film to date and was Matt Damon’s first foray with an “action hero” role, but the two had no interest in making your standard actioner. Indeed, Liman’s almost documentary-like approach to The Bourne Identity adds a visceral quality to the 2002 film that your standard, clean-shaven actioners lacked at that time.
But once filming commenced, Liman and Universal Pictures started butting heads. The studio was unhappy with the film’s pacing and smaller scale action set pieces, and Tony Gilroy and Liman were rewriting the script constantly, causing the film’s release date to push from September 2001 to June 2002. Things were so hectic that Matt Damon later revealed that producer Frank Marshall ended up directing some scenes himself, because it was all hands on deck. A major point of contention was the third act, specifically the sequence set at the farmhouse. Universal wanted it cut, but Liman and Damon argued it was crucial to understanding Bourne as a character, so it went through numerous rewrites and reworks to make both Liman and the studio happy.
All involved assumed the film would be a flop, but of course it wasn’t—it was a huge hit and spawned one of the best action franchises of the 21st century. Still, Liman’s relationship with the franchise and studio was broken, and he was not asked to return to direct the sequel. But his method of figuring out the film on the fly has become standard procedure for A Doug Liman Film, making some anxious but resulting in great movies like The Bourne Identity and recently Edge of Tomorrow.
"Jaws"
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Steven Spielberg is notorious for working quickly, knowing exactly what he wants, and sometimes releasing two masterpieces in the same calendar year. But the filmmaker was almost broken before his career got off the ground. At 26 years old, Spielberg lobbied for the gig to direct an adaptation of Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws. Having just worked with producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown on The Sugarland Express, they opted to take a shot on the up-and-comer, and thus one of the most troubled productions in history began.
Spielberg actually tried to leave Jaws just after signing his contract for fear of becoming typecast after Duel, but Universal exercised its right to veto Spielberg’s planned move over to 20th Century Fox’s Lucky Lady. Unhappy with Benchley’s own adaptation of the novel, Spielberg enlisted a slew of different writers to take a crack at the script, making the characters more likeable and adding more humor. Carl Gottleib was originally contracted to just do some punch-ups, but eventually became the primary screenwriter.
Filming began on a budget of $4 million that quickly ballooned up to $9 million. The reason? One of the biggest issues facing the production was Spielberg’s decision to shoot the film on actual open water rather than in a tank. The filmmaker didn’t realize how difficult this would be, nor was he expecting the mechanical shark—the title character in the film—to be mostly unusable. Indeed the shark, which was nicknamed Bruce, was originally intended to show up much earlier in the film. But since the prop didn’t work, Spielberg had to create suspense and terror in other ways. One fix was the yellow barrels, which ended up being one of the film’s most memorable sequences.
Shooting at sea caused delay after delay, as cast and crew members got sick, cameras malfunctioned, and resetting shots took hours. Spielberg went so far as to estimate that out of a 12-hour workday on Jaws, only an average of four hours were spent actually filming something. Originally scheduled for 55 days, principal photography droned on for 159 days in total, extremely over budget and over schedule.
Spielberg was convinced he’d never work again. That the studio was furious with him. That he had ruined the movie. Instead, he ended up creating one of the best films of all time and singlehandedly crafting the first “summer blockbuster.” All’s well that ends well.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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