10 Craziest Cinema Demands Made By Hollywood

8. Peter Weir Wanted to Turn The Truman Show’s Cameras on His Audience

michael bay
Warner Bros.

Whilst it's certainly not the first film to explore the concept of reality television and the inherent ethical implications, The Truman Show tackled those themes in a broad, accessible commercial comedy. It grossed over $264 million in the global box office, and is still well-regarded today for how prescient it was about celebrity culture.

After all, what is social media but us peering into the daily tedium of famous people's lives? Director Peter Weir wanted to push the film's themes further still and seriously considered an innovation that would break the fourth wall between the world of the film and the audience in the cinema.

The plan was to have The Truman Show stop at a particular moment, where the projector would switch to something else entirely - Live footage of the audience, staring back at themselves.

To achieve this, Weir would have arranged for special cameras to be fitted into each participating auditorium that was screening the film. It's a neat gimmick, but due to the logistical and technical headaches presented by the concept, it was eventually abandoned before the film's release.

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Citizen of the Universe, Film Programmer, Writer, Podcaster, Doctor Who fan and a gentleman to boot. As passionate about Chinese social-realist epics as I am about dumb popcorn movies.