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

Directed by Werner Herzog, this film was the story of an Irishman in Peru who makes a lot of enemies trying to monopolize a rubber plantation. After the first star contracted dysentery and bowed out of the film, Herzog called in actor Klaus Kinski. He and Kinski had worked together an on an earlier movie, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, that likely could be on this list itself, which included a time when Kinski fired three shots into a nearby tent, upset by the noise of card-playing extras, and actually shot the finger off one of them.

If we're ignoring that one in favor of this one, you know it's got to be good. In Fitzcarraldo, the titular character wants to transport a ship over a hill to put it on a different, nearby river. The actual Fitzcarraldo performed this by cutting a 30-ton ship into pieces and reassembling it in the other river. But no - Herzog, later calling himself the 'Conquistador of The Useless' - decided to, instead, move an actual 300-ton ship, in one piece, over a hill.

As one might expect, neither Kinski or Herzog were popular. Herzog was initially friendly with the locals - one of the local chieftains even offered to murder Kinski - a suggestion Herzog actually considered before deciding he needed him for the film. But thanks to violations of tribal laws and Herzog's careless decisions resulting in several local tribespeople being killed or maimed, the locals actually burnt down the set and quit the film.