Making movies is no walk in a park, that much is for sure.
There are time constraints, tight budgets to stick to, and diva actors and actresses to keep happy.
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Some movies have been harder to make than others. Some dealt with typhoons, on-set hostility, and even near death.
Here are 10+ movies that were the hardest to film.
1. *Jaws*
Everything that could go wrong did go wrong with this Steven Spielberg film. First, problems with the three mechanical sharks blew the budget out of the water.
Then, while filming the final scene out at sea, the movie’s boat began to sink.
“I thought my career as a filmmaker was over,” Spielberg once said about those days.
Thankfully, the movie was a major hit at the box office.
It earned back the money from the budget, which had increased from four million to nine million.
2. *Titanic*
A disgruntled crewmember spiked the team’s soup with a hallucinogen. This ended up sending over 50 people to the hospital.
Many also came down with colds and kidney infections from the cold, wet conditions.
3. *Cleopatra*
Things got off to a bad start for this 1963 film.
That’s because the director burned through four million before a single frame had been shot. To put things into perspective, the budget of the film was two million.
In the end, the film cost $44 million to make (!!).
While the film was a hit — it starred big names like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton — it nearly bankrupted the studio.
It was also plagued with drama, as the two actors began an affair.
4. *The Abyss*
Director James Cameron had to tread carefully while making this underwater film.
On the first day of shooting, a tank filled with 150,000 gallons of water started to leak. This was the same tank that Cameron almost drowned in.
The actors didn’t have it any easier.
They all had to become certified divers to be in the film, in addition to working grueling 12 hours days spent underwater.
This caused actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio to suffer an emotional breakdown.
5. *Apocalypse Now*
It truly felt like an apocalypse trying to film this movie.
Since Francis Ford Coppola shot it in the Philippines to make it look as close to Vietnam as possible, it took double the time to make. A typhoon even destroyed the set.
6. *The Conqueror*
Things were a lot different in Old Hollywood .
This movie was filmed near a nuclear testing site, which caused a whole host of unsuitable working conditions for the cast and crew.
Something like that would definitely not fly today. Tragically, many of the cast and crew later developed cancer.
According to a People magazine article, 91 people out of the 220 cast and crew contracted cancer due to the leftover radiation.
7. *No Country for Old Men*
It’s difficult to film two action movies near each other.
Since There Will Be Blood was filming a scene that featured a huge smoke cloud , it caused production delays for the thriller.
8. *Blade Runner*
On-set hostility between the cast and director, Ridley Scott, caused major issues on set. All of this was even captured in the documentary Dangerous Days .
When Scott told a UK paper that he preferred working with US crews, it led to a protest.
9. *Gremlins*
“We were inventing the technology as we went along, as well as deviating from the script as we discovered new aspects of the Gremlin characters,” Joe Dante director told Den of Geek .
“The last three months of shooting was only Gremlins [effects shots]. It really did get maddening after a while. And as I said, the studio wasn’t especially supportive.”
The scene where Gizmo is pelted with darts even happened to satisfy the crew who were annoyed with him.
10. *American Graffiti*
The rowdy actors are to blame for this George Lucas movie being hard to film.
Harrison Ford got arrested in a bathroom fight, a crewmember got arrested for growing marijuana, and someone set George Lucas’ hotel room on fire.
11. *Toy Story 2*
Pixar movies are already extremely difficult to make without almost deleting the entire movie.
This all happened due to one line of code.
“First, Woody’s hat disappeared. Then his boots. Then he disappeared entirely,” recalled Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull in his book, Creativity Inc.
“Whole sequences—poof!—were deleted from the drive.”
“To reassemble the film would have taken thirty people a solid year,” Catmull recalled.
Thankfully, Galyn Susman, Toy Story 2’s supervising technical director, saved the day since she kept a file of the film at home.
12. *The Wizard of Oz*
A near-death experience caused a casting change to the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz .
Buddy Ebsen was the original Tin Man, but the aluminum dust from the makeup almost killed him . Talk about a hazardous working environment.
He was replaced by Jack Haley, but the damage was done.
Ebsen suffered breathing issues for the rest of his life.
Margaret Hamilton, the actress who played The Wicked Witch of the West, was also burned during the filming of a Munchkinland scene.
