10 Famous Movies That Became Too Real

1. Man Becomes Travis Bickle; Tries To Kill President - Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver tells the depressing story of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), a Vietnam veteran who returns home to the hell that is '70s New York to find that he has lost his mind. He can't sleep, so he spends his days and nights driving a taxi whilst opting to purge the streets of sin. Later, he begins to plot the murder of a Presidential Candidate, 'cause what else is there to do between shifts, right? Given the cynical, grimy and frankly uncomfortable feeling that lingers throughout Taxi Driver, it's not entirely surprising that Martin Scorsese's movie inspired something terrible to happen in real life. In 1981, then, a man named John Hinckley Jr. decided to follow Travis Bickle's example in the only way he knew how: by becoming Travis Bickle. Obsessed with the movie (and now believing that he was, in fact, the character played by De Niro), Hinckley set out to impress actress Jodie Foster, who appears in a small role in Taxi Driver as a young prostitute (seriously: this is all true). Hinckley's idea of impressing Foster meant attacking President Ronald Reagan as he left a hotel in Washington, who wound up wounded as a result of a bullet ricochet (three others were shot). Whilst the President survived, Hinckley was declared insane. Now aged 59, he's still locked up in an institution.