10 Behind-The-Scenes Movie Stories Better Than The Actual Plot

H.G. Wells' seminal 1896 classic deserves the praise it gets. And it can work out in film, proven by the 1932 version called The Island of Lost Souls, which holds a 96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But the 1977 version starring Burt Lancaster didn't pan out well. And the 1996 version starring Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando? A veritable shipwreck.

Of course, any story of Brando has to have the fact that he didn't want to learn his lines - rather he had them fed to him through an earpiece. Things became even more difficult when his daughter, Cheyenne Brando, tragically committed suicide.

The cast and crew were constantly at each other's throats, especially Val Kilmer, who cemented a reputation as toxic and hard to deal with from this film, thanks in part to getting served a divorce as soon as he got on set.

By the second day of filming, after numerous delays, co-star Rob Morrow was so beset by the tension and hostility that he called the chairman of New Line Cinema and tearfully begged to be let go from the movie. On day three, the director, Richard Stanely, was fired - partly for not keeping Brando and Kilmer under control. Female lead Fairuza Balk actually left the set in protest and made it 2,500 km before her agent convinced her the studio would ruin her career if she didn't return. And that, folks, was all within the first week of shooting.