10 Most Ambitious War Films Ever Made

10. Pearl Habor

The 2000 film, Pearl Harbor, directed by Michael Bay, cost an astounding 140 million dollars to make. The movie actually cost more money to film than the actual Pearl Harbor attack cost. Apparently, Bay wanted even more money to create his drama and walked off the set multiple times due to budget constraints. He eventually took a 4 million dollar pay cut to commit more to the film's budget.

Although Pearl Harbor was one of the earliest movies to take advantage of CGI effects, it actually has more practical effects than you'd imagine. For instance, the film's star Ben Affleck had to take basic flight training. In many of the dogfight scenes, he and other actors are actually flying their planes. The scene featuring the titular attack was also a colossal feat of engineering.

The set of the Pearl Harbor attack was built in Baja, California. The crew actually had to make the world's biggest gimbal so that they could hoist a scale model of the USS Oklahoma's bow to simulate its sinking. Set engineer Nigel Phelps called this one of the biggest set elements ever to be staged.

Alongside this, the film also staged real planes taking off and landing aboard the real-life USS Lexington, a WWII era carrier docked in Texas. They also fitted the Lexington with war era turrets. Disney chairman Dick Cook said of the film, "I think Pearl Harbor was one of the most difficult shoots of modern history."