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Making a movie is complicated even when everything goes according to plan. When it doesn’t, a production can quickly turn into an expensive nightmare involving ballooning budgets, endless reshoots, dangerous working conditions, creative battles, or all of the above. Sometimes the chaos somehow produces a great movie anyway. Other times, everyone involved endures months or even years of trouble only to watch the finished product get torn apart by critics or ignored by audiences. Hollywood history is filled with ambitious projects that became cautionary tales long before they reached theaters, including a few where simply abandoning the whole thing might have saved everyone considerable trouble. Here are 15 movies that went so wrong they probably would have been better off not making them.
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The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)
Richard Stanley was fired only days into filming and replaced by John Frankenheimer, but that hardly restored order. Script changes, difficult working conditions, and clashes involving stars Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer helped turn the production into a notorious mess before critics demolished the finished movie.
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Sorcerer (1977)
William Friedkin’s ambitious thriller required an extraordinarily difficult shoot in the Dominican Republic, with illness, injuries, unpredictable weather, and enormous logistical problems. Its centerpiece suspension bridge sequence alone became a production nightmare when the river beneath the set began drying up, forcing the filmmakers to relocate and rebuild it.
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Super Mario Bros. (1993)
The first major live-action adaptation of Nintendo’s games became infamous for creative disagreements, constant rewrites, and a dark interpretation that barely resembled the colorful source material. Bob Hoskins later openly regretted making it, and the movie’s critical and commercial failure kept Mario away from theaters for decades.
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Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Werner Herzog wanted the story of a man dragging a steamship over a mountain to feel authentic, so his production actually attempted the feat with a real vessel in the Peruvian Amazon. Injuries and difficult conditions compounded the chaos, while Jason Robards’ illness forced Herzog to replace his leading man with Klaus Kinski and reshoot substantial material.
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Cutthroat Island (1995)
This pirate adventure suffered from production troubles and an enormous budget that reportedly approached $100 million. It ultimately earned only a fraction of that amount at the box office, becoming such a notorious financial disaster that it helped bring production company Carolco Pictures to an end.
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The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
Brian De Palma had Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, a major budget, and one of the decade’s biggest novels to adapt. Somehow, the ingredients never came together, with casting controversies and creative compromises contributing to a movie that became both a critical disappointment and an expensive box-office failure.
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Town & Country (2001)
A seemingly straightforward romantic comedy somehow became an extraordinarily expensive production after delays, rewrites, and extensive reshoots stretched the process out for years. Its budget reportedly climbed toward $90 million before the Warren Beatty movie arrived in theaters and earned only a tiny fraction of that back.
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Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
Following one of the most successful horror movies ever made turned into a surprisingly chaotic undertaking. Production problems included script changes and director John Boorman becoming seriously ill, only for the finished sequel to receive a famously hostile response when it finally reached theaters.
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Cats (2019)
The unusual digital fur technology was already attracting attention before Cats opened, but the situation became even stranger after its release. Universal sent theaters an updated version with improved visual effects while the movie was still playing, an almost unheard-of move that couldn’t prevent it from becoming a critical and financial disappointment.
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The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
This Eddie Murphy sci-fi comedy reportedly cost around $100 million, an astonishing amount for a movie that ultimately earned only a small fraction of that worldwide. Years of development and an expensive futuristic setting produced one of the most notorious box-office bombs of the early 2000s.
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The Abyss (1989)
James Cameron’s determination to film extensive sequences underwater resulted in an exhausting production inside a massive unfinished nuclear power plant containment structure converted into a tank. Cast members later described the physically and emotionally punishing shoot, although all that misery at least resulted in a movie that eventually developed a devoted following.
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Roar (1981)
The premise involved actors interacting with dozens of largely untrained lions, tigers, and other big cats, and the predictable result was an astonishing number of injuries. Cast and crew members were bitten, scratched, and otherwise hurt during the years-long production, making the movie’s behind-the-scenes story far more famous than the film itself.
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The Conqueror (1956)
John Wayne playing Genghis Khan was already a questionable creative decision, but the location eventually became the movie’s much darker legacy. Parts were filmed in Utah downwind from nuclear testing in Nevada, and the large number of cancer cases later recorded among cast and crew fueled lasting concern about their possible exposure, although a direct causal link has never been established.
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Movie 43 (2013)
It took years to assemble the bizarre anthology’s enormous cast, which included Oscar winners and some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. After all that effort, Movie 43 was savaged by critics, leaving behind the considerably more interesting question of how so many famous people ended up participating in it.
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Heaven’s Gate (1980)
Michael Cimino’s Western became synonymous with unchecked Hollywood excess as repeated takes, elaborate sets, delays, and obsessive attention to detail sent costs soaring. The movie’s disastrous initial release reportedly lost tens of millions of dollars and contributed to the collapse of United Artists as an independent studio, turning its troubled production into Hollywood legend.
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