10 Fascinating Backstories Behind Famous Movies
5. Herzog Wrote The Script For Aguirre, The Wrath Of God In A Two-Day, Drunken Frenzy On A Bus
Werner Herzog is undoubtably one of the most interesting human beings of the 21st century, so it's not all that surprising that the Bavarian director wrote one of the best films of the '70s in just two and a half days - whilst on a bus.
The story goes that, after being inspired to write something on Lope de Aguirre having read a historical adventure book, Herzog penned most of the screenplay for Aguirre, the Wrath of God (a film which went onto inspire and influence Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece Apocalypse Now) whilst travelling with his football team on a bus, most of whom were intoxicated for the sum of the journey.
The most interesting part of this story concerns one of Herzog's teammates, who - in a state of extreme drunkenness - vomited over some of the pages that Herzog had written his script on. These pages were made unrecoverable by said vomit, and - having tossed them out of the window - Herzog had to rewrite them; unable to remember what he wrote, he ended up coming up with new material.
Which means that, had his teammate decided not to vomit at that time, Aguirre, the Wrath of God could have turned out to be a very different film indeed.