10 Film Directors Who Totally Tricked The Studio

3. Mel Brooks Pretended To Listen To Studio Notes...Despite Having Final Cut - Blazing Saddles

Mel Brooks didn't merely trick the studio during production of his legendary 1974 western comedy Blazing Saddles: he straight-up trolled them. Brooks was called into a meeting with Warner Bros. executives, who suggested a laundry list of changes to the movie.

These changes included cutting all uses of the "n-word," removing the scenes where a horse and an old lady get punched, and deleting the iconic farting scene (which was the first on-screen fart in movie history, by the way).

Brooks took extensive notes of the execs' requests, which was especially hilarious given that his contract granted him final cut privilege, and so he didn't have to listen to a single studio note.

When the meeting was finished, he took his notes and simply threw them all in the bin. In a recent retrospective interview, Brooks hilariously said, "If I had made their changes the film would have been just 14 minutes long!"