Movies are hard to make. Good movies are even harder, and great movies are practically miracles. Even with a talented cast and crew, there can be all kinds of struggles behind the scenes that may make the workplace hell but offerstories that are just as fascinating as the movies that they resulted in.
Fromwild and messy productionsto bizarre connections and coincidences, there are so many crazy or fascinating behind-the-scenes stories that the not-so-simple act of getting a film made has inspired an entire subgenre ofmovies about making movies. With the expansion of the internet and more and more creatives willing to give viewers a peek behind the curtain, behind-the-scenes stories are becoming more and more ubiquitous, but theseten stories from the making of fan-favorite moviesare some of the best.
10’Predator' (1987)
An Actor Needed a Bodyguard…to Protect Everyone Else
The originalPredatoris an action movie banger. It provides the perfect antithesis to the macho ’80s action heroes by teaming up a bunch of the manliest movie men and then turning them into the prey of the titular alien hunter. Filling out a cast of the most masculine mercenaries naturally meant the film’s production hada lot of big personalities and egos, which naturally led to a lot of competition. One of the cast, though, took things just a little too far.
Sonny Landham, who played the tracker Billy, became notorious for his raucous behavior (particularly when alcohol was involved) that the insurance company insisted on hiring him a bodyguard,not to keep him safe but to protect others from him. While there aren’t any stories that have come out about Landham’s bodyguard needing to break up any major conflicts, and directorJohn McTiernanhas insisted that Landham was perfectly professional on set, the mere fact that he needed a professional buffer is just as wild as many of the otherstories from the filming ofPredator.
9’Die Hard' (1988)
Frank Sinatra Could’ve Been John McClane
It’s well known thatDie Hardis based on a novel.Roderick Thorpe’sNothing Lasts Foreveris an action-packed book that was actually a sequel to his previous novel,The Detective, which itself wasadapted into a movie in 1968 starringFrank Sinatra. When producers set out to adapt Thorpe’s sequel, the existence of that previous movie meant they were contractually obligated tooffer the lead role to none other than Ol' Blue Eyes himself.
Sinatra, who was 70 at the time, naturally turned the role down, and the producers would turn to just about every leading man in Hollywood before eventually castingBruce Willis, who was best known for his role on the television seriesMoonlightingat the time. While it all worked out for the best, with Willis clearly being the best possible actor for the role,it’s wild to imagine the senior citizen croonercrawling around air vents in a filthy tank top.
8’The Blues Brothers' (1980)
Dan Aykroyd Saved Carrie Fisher’s Life
The making ofThe Blues Brotherswas a nightmarish, drug-fueled romp, withJohn Belushideep into his drug addiction andDan Aykroydeven once claiming that a portion of the budget was set asidestrictly for cocaine. That the R-rated musical film managed to become a classic is nothing short of astounding.
Not everything was drugs and chaos, though, as there was also a budding romance that began with, of all things, the Heimlich maneuver.Carrie Fisher, who plays the jilted ex of Belushi’sJake, was out to dinner with Aykroyd when she began choking, and the formerSNLstar stepped in and administered aid,saving her life. After that,Aykroyd asked Fisher to marry him, and the two were briefly informally engaged, though Fisher would eventually end the relationship.
The Blues Brothers
7’National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation' (1989)
Chris Columbus Quit So He Wouldn’t Have to Work With Chevy Chase
Christmas Vacationis one of the unequivocally funniestChristmas movies ever made. A big part of its success can be placed on the shoulders ofChevy Chase, whose performance as patriarch Clark Griswold is the heart and soul of theVacationfranchise.Chase is also notorious for being a particularly difficult actor to deal with, andhis hostile behavior towardsChris Columbus, who was the original director of the film, during pre-production caused the director to tell writer-producerJohn Hughesthat he couldn’t handle making a movie with the actor.
Foregoing a massive career opportunity to make his directorial debut with a film that was part of a successful comedy franchise was a difficult decision for Columbus to make, but luckily for him,Hughes offered him an alternate Christmas movie to direct:Home Alone. So any fans of that Macaulay Culkin classic have Chevy Chase and his dickish behavior to thank.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
6’The Exorcist' (1973)
An Extra Would Go On to Become a Murderer
The Exorcistis a terrifying horror movie. The making of William Friedkin’s essential 1973 movie was also terrifying for its cast and crew, with many injuries and accidents occurring, leading many to call it a cursed production. Adding to that mystique is the fact that an extra in the film would go on to commit horrifying crimes in real life.Paul Batesonwas working as a radiology technician at the New York University Medical Center when Friedkin visited to observe some medical procedures he wanted to include inThe Exorcist.
Not only did the procedures appear in the film,but so did the medical professionals who performed them, including Bateson. Years later,Bateson would be arrestedfor the murder of a reporter, and while incarcerated, Friedkin visited him and later claimed that Bateson alluded to being responsible for a series of other murders, which inspired Friedkin to make the notorious filmCruising. Sometimes the truth is far scarier than fiction.
The Exorcist
5’RoboCop' (1987)
Peter Weller Refused to Do Scenes Without Oreos
During the production ofPaul Verhoeven’ssci-fi classicRoboCop, starPeter Wellerwent method for his role, insisting on being referred to as Robo. This devotion led to some conflict on the set, the most outrageous example of which was related by weapons masterRandy E. Moorein the exhaustive documentaryRoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop.
According to Moore, one day on set, while he was giving Weller his signature sidearm, he also happened to have a handful of Oreo cookies.Weller demanded an Oreo by stating, “Robo wants an Oreo,“and steadfastly refused to perform until he was given one. Moore crushed the sandwich cookies in an act of defiance against Weller’s antics, which caused even more delays to shooting and resulted in a specific crew member being designated as the cookie handler to placate the star.Weller himself denies the incident ever took place, but it certainly wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibilities, considering that Weller does admit to being very deep into the character at the time. It also makes one wonder if the real reasonWeller turned downRoboCop 3was because there wasn’t any room in the budget for Oreos.
The Actors Got High For a Scene
Backwoods horror classicThe Evil Deadwas shot on a shoestring budget in a run-down cabin in Tennessee, which meant that the cast and crew sometimes had to get really creative, or sometimes just do things for real, such as using a fully-loaded shotgun to shoot a deadite dummy or,in the case of one unused scene, smoking weed.
In the film’s now-famous scene where the young college characters are sitting around and decide to listen to a very fateful tape recording,the original intent was to have them all pass around a joint. Instead of some fake movie weed, though,they opted for the real McCoy, which the actors, includingBruce Campbell, inhaled and proceeded to get stoned to the point that the scene was virtually unusable. While horror audiences would be deprived of seeing Ash Williams get really groovy, the awesome seriesAsh vs Evil Deadwould eventually make good on the evergreen promise.
The Evil Dead
3’Toy Story 2' (1999)
The Entire Movie Was Deleted
Thanks to a few incorrectly entered keystrokes by an employee clearing out files,almost all the files storingthe entirety ofToy Story 2were permanently deleted. If it weren’t for the fact that technical directorGalyn Susmanhad been working from home to take care of her newborn child and had backups of all the files, the film would have been completely lost. This means that somewhere out there is a 26-year-old who fans can thank for the fact thatToy Story 2ever saw the light of day.
Toy Story 2
2’Casablanca' (1942)
Casablancais one of the best romancesto come out of Hollywood’s Golden Age. It’s a classic film filled with iconic scene after iconic scene, and that includesone of the best endings of all time.Humphrey Bogartsaying goodbye toIngrid Bergmanas her plane waits in the background isone of the most perfect final moments between two characters in loveto ever be filmed. Of course, its power is only somewhat undercut knowing that the airplane inthe background was made of cardboard.
While close-ups of the airplane were filmed on location at Van Nuys Airport, for the rest of the scene, which was shot on a stage, an unconvincing mock-up was made out of cardboard and set behind the two actors.Little people were hired to portray the airport personnelin order to help give scale to the facsimile, and fog was piped into the soundstage to cover it all up.It’s honestly astonishing how well the effect workseven when viewers know to look for it. That’s real movie magic.
Casablanca
1’Raiders of the Lost Ark' (1981)
One of the Most Iconic Moments Was All Due to Diarrhea
Raiders of the Lost Arkis a masterpieceof action-adventure filmmaking, with more iconic moments across its runtime than entire modern franchises have been able to manage. One iconic moment occurs when Indiana Jones, exhausted from running across half of Cairo to find the kidnapped Marion, is confronted by a slick swordsman who shows off his skills to entice Indy into a fight.Indy responds by shooting him.
It’s a moment so funny, satisfying, and inherent to the nature of the character that it feels like it must have been planned that way from the very beginning. The reality is that there was an entire fight sequence that had been planned and practiced between actorHarrison Fordand stuntmanTerry Richards. When it came time to shoot the fight, though,Ford was suffering from severe dysentery, as were the majority of the cast and crew, from eating the local food in Tunisia, and the scene was trimmed to the very abrupt shooting that appears in the movie. Now any viewer can watch one of the most iconic moments from one of the most influential movie adventurers of all time and know that the whole time, he’s trying like hell not to poop his pants.
