10 INSANE Reasons Movies Were So Expensive

10. It Went 104 DAYS Over Schedule - Jaws

It's often said not to work with animals or children in Hollywood, but as Steven Spielberg learned while shooting Jaws, shooting on the open ocean with a waterlogged mechanical shark ain't no picnic either.

Spielberg's ground-breaking blockbuster was given a $3.5 million budget with a 55-day shooting schedule, but by the time the masterful thriller was finally in the can, it'd been filming for 159 days.

This left the shoot running three-and-a-half months (!) over schedule, while causing the budget to balloon to $9 million - hardly chump change in 1975.

As the first major movie to be shot on the ocean, nobody was prepared for quite how treacherous it would be, with Spielberg himself even admitting that he was "naive about the ocean."

Shooting at sea caused camera equipment to get water damaged, unwanted boats to sail into frame, crew members to get seasick, and worst of all the mechanical sharks to regularly break down due to their salt water intake. This all contributed to Spielberg being able to shoot just a few hours per 12-hour filming day.

Once filming wrapped, Spielberg assumed his career was over, given that no filmmaker had taken a film so far over-schedule before. 

But of course, Jaws went on to smash box office records, becoming the highest-grossing film ever at the time and vindicating what was nevertheless an utterly roughshod production.