10 Recent Movies That Were Absolute HELL To Make

10. Monkey Man

Dev Patel's directorial debut Monkey Man was a damn blast - a supremely confident action flick which made it clear that Patel has some serious chops behind the camera as well as in front of it.

But Monkey Man's production was anything but smooth, with Patel himself describing it as "absolute catastrophe."

Shooting was originally scheduled to begin in India in early 2020, but then the pandemic hit, at which point the original production designer and cinematographer left the project, and Patel had to beg his financiers not to shut the entire thing down.

Shooting was ultimately moved to a small island in Indonesia where the entire cast and crew could reside in a bubble in a hotel until production was completed. 

Also due to borders closing during the pandemic, Patel's pool of supporting actors and extras was limited, forcing him to have crew members pull double duty on-screen.

That was just the beginning, though. Patel broke his hand while filming the first action sequence, camera equipment regularly broke and, with closed borders preventing new equipment from being flown in, he had to film some shots on mobile phones and use GoPros instead of sturdier camera rigging.

The scant $10 million budget also proved problematic, enough that a producer had to use his credit card to buy props.

And even once filming was finally completed and Netflix acquired it, the streamer ultimately decided the film's political commentary would put them in a tricky position with the Indian government.

It was only when filmmaker Jordan Peele saw the movie and persuaded Universal to acquire it from Netflix that it was finally dusted off and sent out into the world. What a ride.