10 Famous Movies That People Still Believe Are Cursed

4. The Conqueror

John Wayne doesn't exactly seem like a perfect choice to play Mongolian conqueror Genghis Khan but that's exactly who producer Howard Hughes cast in awful 1956 epic The Conqueror. Things started badly for the troubled production when a flash flood narrowly avoided the set. It would have wiped them out, had it hit them. Then Susan Haywood was attacked by a black panther. The most serious part of the curse, however, was the fact that 91 out of 202 crew members were diagnosed with cancer in the years following the film's release. Under normal circumstances, only around 30 should have gotten cancer. So what caused these abnormally high levels? Well, the actors and crew were exposed to nuclear fallout from atomic bomb tests in nearby Yucca Flats, Nevada for thirteen weeks. The Conqueror was filmed in Snow Canyon, Utah and clouds of the hazardous material floated downwind onto the set. 46 people, including John Wayne, Susan Haywood and director Dick Powell, died of the cancer that they (probably) got while making the film. Howard Hughes was so racked with guilt over this that he reportedly watched the film over and over again during his paranoid final days after pulling the film from the public.